Where In The Hell Is Beca?
The alarm on my cell phone went off at 7 in the morning. The alarm I set to make sure I got up for class on time. The alarm I had no fucking use for now that I was sleeping in the twin sized bed in my childhood home instead of the dorm room I shared with my promiscuous best friend. That alarm pissed me off more than I could put into words, especially since it was 7 in the fucking morning.
I'd gotten very little sleep. I had finally pulled into the driveway about five hours previously, crawled my tired ass up the stairs, and collapsed unceremoniously into bed still wearing the clothes I'd driven in.
My dreams had been plagued with a lifetime lived in misery. Watching a gorgeous redhead smiling brightly as she walked down the aisle in a beautiful white dress towards an attractive frat boy douche bag smiling smugly in a black tux. Having to sit through every painful god dammed moment of their honeymoon. Watching him smooth the sweat slicked hair back from her face as she concentrated on her breathing, bringing their first child into the world. First days of school. Anniversaries. Graduations. Growing old together. Every milestone. And my traitorous subconscious decided I should see it all. Fuck you subconscious. If you were here in my room right now I'd punch you in your backstabbing asshole face.
So the alarm on my cell phone went off at 7 in the morning, and when I grabbed it off the nightstand next to me I screamed in rage and threw it at the fucking wall where it shattered in to hundreds of pieces. I love her so much that all I want is for her to be happy. It doesn't mean that I have to be happy about it. It took an hour of sobbing uncontrollably into my pillow for me to fall back asleep.
Lily watched her fall, and she prayed to every god in existence that what they attempted would work. She'd gotten close to Chloe and the others in the Bellas despite her best intentions and the set of rules she'd laid out for herself. Looking wryly at her surroundings, she thought that clearly there was a Lily out there that ignored those rules.
Lily wanted to close her eyes. She wanted to turn away. But she couldn't. She could only watch in terror and an overwhelming amount of hope as the ground surged up to meet the falling body. It was a good thing that she didn't blink because just before the red head could hit the ground, she vanished in to thin air. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and a large smile broke out across her tear stained face.
It was a subdued and teary eyed group of Bellas that trudged into the hospital room that contained their friend. Seeing a battered, bruised, and broken redhead laying amid all of the wires, cables, and machines keeping her alive caused more than one of the girls to gasp out loud and most to begin crying anew.
"She looks so small," Stacie said quietly breaking the silence. She couldn't imagine what Beca would do when she found out. God, please not let it be like the last time, she thought to herself, I don't think Beca would ever recover.
"Yeah, she's a force of nature. She always seems so much larger than life," Cynthia Rose added.
"Compared to my sexy fat ass, Chlo is tiny. Not as tiny as Beca, but still tiny," Fat Amy said, hoping to break at least a little of the tension.
"Has anyone heard from Beca?" Stacie asked. Each girl shook their head and looked down at their shoes. "We need to find her, she needs to be here."
"I have her dad's number, I'll try to get ahold of him," Mary Elise offered. When the rest of the Bellas gave her strange looks she attempted to defend herself, albeit a little awkwardly. "What? I just, one day I couldn't find Beca so I asked her dad where she was. It wasn't weird or anything. He's my comparative lit professor, alright? Stop looking at me like that!" Her face was bright red and she quickly left the room to make the call. The girls all gaped at her retreating form before breaking out in nervous laughter.
"Doesn't she know it's hopeless?" Jessica asked.
"Yeah, Beca is totally gone for Chloe. Mary Elise has no chance," Ashley responded to a chorus of agreement from the other girls around them.
Stacie looked around at her friends, slightly bewildered. They knew?
"I don't think it's like that you guys. Mary Elise just has some really weird hero worship thing going on," Fat Amy supplied. "Like when I made a living in Tasmania mermaid dancing and Gertrude Cole complimented my inverted tail swish." Puzzled looks met her strange pronouncement, so she attempted to clarify. "Gertrude Cole? The number one mermaid dancer on earth?" When the puzzled looks continued, she shrugged it off. "Whatever, you guys suck."
Silence reigned for a few minutes until Stacie broke it again, "I'm afraid to hold her hand. She looks so fragile."
"She's stronger than anyone I know. She'll pull through this." The strong and uncompromising voice of their Bellas co-captain brought smiles to everyone's faces as she walked into the room. If Aubrey was this confident, there had to be nothing to worry about.
Minutes earlier Aubrey had remained in the hallway to get an update on Chloe's condition from the doctor with the redhead's parents.
Listening to the doctor drone on through a list that included broken ribs and arm, punctured lung, fractured skull and the pressure they'd had to relieve by drilling a hole into her head, the only thing that really registered with the blonde were the doctor's final words.
"She's in a coma right now. We don't know if she will ever wake up. I am so sorry."
Chloe's parents were still out in the hall openly sobbing and grasping tightly to each other.
"Ben, it's Mary Elise," she whispered breathlessly into the phone.
"Whoa now, I know something must be up if you're calling me Ben and not 'Doctor Mitchell'," Beca's dad said into the phone. "Is everything okay?"
Hearing his voice caused her heart to stutter in her chest, but now was not the time for her childish crush. "N-no. Umm… there's been an accident. I need to get ahold of Beca immediately."
"An accident? Is Beca okay?" he'd sat up straight and began to panic. She could hear it in his voice and inwardly winced. She should have worded it better so she didn't worry him.
"Yes, Beca is fine. Chloe was in a car accident on the way to see her, and she's in bad shape. Beca needs to be here."
"Oh my God, is she okay?"
"She's stable right now I guess, but it's not good."
"Have you tried calling her?"
"Yes, her phone keeps going straight to voicemail. But the girls are calling her every few minutes anyway just in case the call finally goes through. And we've left at least 30 messages."
"Okay, I'll text you the home number and the address. If you need anything else don't hesitate to call for any reason," he said, and added almost as an afterthought, "that, uh, goes for the rest of the girls too."
She blushed and smiled, "I'll do that. Thanks Doctor Mitchell," she put a flirtatious emphasis on the words and giggled when he coughed awkwardly and hung up the phone. She really liked the effect she always had on him when she called him that. A moment later, the text came through breaking her out of her inappropriate thoughts. She rushed back to the hospital room.
"All I'm getting is a busy signal. Someone is going to have to go get her," Stacie said to the rest of the Bellas after she'd tried calling Beca's house phone repeatedly for the last ten minutes. The rest of the girls just looked at her impassively. She nodded her head resolutely, getting the hint immediately. "Got it. I'll be back with her as soon as I can."
Each girl hugged her in turn, telling her to be careful but to hurry back. Aubrey, though, lingered longer than the rest. "Bring her back Stacie. Chloe needs her."
Stacie squeezed the gorgeous blonde woman in her arms and for once didn't have the urge to flirt tenaciously with her. Instead, she held Aubrey tenderly and softly stroked her back with her hands. "I promise I will Aubrey. Chloe is going to be okay," she felt Aubrey choke back a sob at her words and knew immediately that she hadn't told them everything about what the doctor said. Instead of being angry, or more worried than she already had been, however, Stacie put steel in her voice as she tilted her head to whisper in Aubrey's ear. "Chloe is going to be okay. I promise. We are standing right in the middle of an epic love story, and nothing is going to get in their way. Nothing. Do you hear me?"
At Stacie's words, Aubrey allowed some of the tears she'd been holding in to fall, but they were of hope and not fear. She tucked her face in to Stacie's neck almost involuntarily and softly placed her lips there, and let them linger longer than she meant to. Stacie, for her part, felt herself warm up at the intimate contact. For the first time that she could remember though, it wasn't in arousal. It was something, somehow, more. And she decided that now was definitely not the time to explore whatever it meant. She gently pulled back from the angel in her arms, wiped the tears that did nothing to mar the beauty in front of her, and leaned in to place a lingering kiss at the corner of Aubrey's mouth. She left the blonde stunned and blushing as she walked away.
I was sitting on the living room couch watching my dad's Friends DVD collection and eating Rocky Road ice cream when I heard a knock at the door. Grumbling, I stood up and removed the Georgia Bulldogs blanket I'd been huddled under, and shuffled to the front door and mumbled under my breath, "Can't be left the fuck alone today to wallow, can I? God dammit, I'm coming!" I yelled when the knocking grew louder and more insistent. "Stace?" I was stunned when I opened the door to see the statuesque brunette on the other side, and seeing the tear stained face of my best friend I knew immediately something was wrong. "What's wrong? What happened?"
"Beca, let's go sit down. We need to talk for a minute, okay?" Stacie forced a smile, and I saw through it immediately.
"No, what is it? The Bellas? Did something happen to my dad? Is it," oh God, please no, I thought internally, please, please no, "Is Chloe okay?" Stacie winced, but immediately tried to cover it up. My stomach hollowed out immediately and I almost fell to my knees but Stacie caught me and held me tightly. I was already shaking.
"Beca, she's okay. Calm down. She was in an accident," I groaned out loud and the tears were falling freely. My worst nightmare. My fucking worst nightmare was coming true before my eyes. I thought last night was bad. I thought last night was torture. This, though, this was many orders of magnitude worse. I couldn't lose her again. I just couldn't! "Beca! Listen to me okay?" She shook me slightly and raised her voice, drawing my attention. "She's in the hospital. She's alive. We need to get there. Right now. Do you understand?"
I nodded weakly into her shoulder and she led me outside to her car. The words I wanted to say kept tumbling around my head, but I couldn't get them past my lips. I was too afraid of the answer. Eventually though, when rolling hills and shades of autumn foliage gave way to highways, shopping centers, and traffic jams, I was able to choke the words out. "Is she…is she going to be okay?"
Stacie bit her lip before answering, clearly trying to decide how to respond. "Epic love story, remember? Nothing is going to get in the way of that." I chuckled despite the growing pit in my stomach, and smiled gratefully at her. "She was pissed about your note by the way. She was actually on her way to your house to tell you how she felt."
"Wait, what!?" I exclaimed, finding myself blissfully happy for a moment before remembering the situation and sobering slightly. I set my jaw, and squared my shoulders. Epic love story indeed. Nothing was going to stop me from getting to her. And, god dammit, I was going to keep her ass here with me.
A/N So, the thing with Mary Elise and Beca's dad may squick some of you out. Sorry about that. Kinda needed to add it though. Hopefully the bit of Staubrey I added made up for it. Please review. Good or bad, it keeps me motivated to write knowing people are at least reading this drivel.