One month since the ICCAs

Beca has successfully managed to schedule every minute of her day since a certain bella disappeared off the face of the earth, and has worked herself into exhaustion. Luke finally trusted Beca to set foot in the booth, and so she has been taking advantage of this opportunity and worked a shift at the radio station almost every day and or night. As she's progressed from being a lowly unpaid intern to an actual employee, Beca is earning a decent amount of money from her work. So when Jesse asks, she alternates between telling him that she's working so much for the extra money (which she can use to buy new equipment) or that playing her mixes will give her a chance to be noticed and kick start her career. Yeah even she can admit that the latter of the two is a little tenuous as the chances of a legitimate producer listening to a student radio station from a small university in Atlanta were slim to none. But denial is a powerful thing, and Beca is determined to make herself feel better and keeping busy seems to do that, at least temporarily. She just isn't ready to recognise that the cause of her misery is the absence of her best friend, or perhaps more accurately, former best friend.

When Beca isn't at the station she is with Jesse, the sweet boy who she is trying her very best to develop a romantic attachment to. She is incredibly fond of him, that much Beca is sure of. She just isn't as attracted to him as she thought before they got together. Beca knows that Jesse would never pressure her physically, but she is also aware that he has needs like every other college boy that she would probably have to take care of. Or he would, which would be even worse as then she would feel guilty about not being a girlfriend to such a great guy. Beca has never been a particularly sexual person, so she figured that maybe it might be because of her limited (and incredibly awkward) sexual encounters in the past that she is reluctant to go there with Jesse. So she lets him continue giving her a moviecation, they start to get intimate after the movies, but she leaves his dorm before any clothes are removed. But the last time they made out Beca could feel Jesse subconsciously pulling them closer, silently hinting that things go further. Beca knew that if she didn't eventually give Jesse some hope that she was interested in him physically that he would be incredibly hurt, and force them to talk about it. Beca was far more willing to go through another awkward sexual encounter than admit that there might be a bigger problem. Talking openly was never the answer for Beca.

While Beca tried to convince herself that sex with Jesse was a desirable outcome, she buried herself in music once again. She found herself feeling the urge to make mix after mix when she had free time, which admittedly was limited due to Jesse and her excessive and entirely self inflicted work schedule. With the stress of the ICCAs and all of the extra rehearsals Aubrey had insisted the bellas take part in, Beca hadn't had the chance to create a decent mix since before Spring Break. So she made the most of her inspiration while it lasted, and kept herself chained to her macbook, working through each creative impulse as it came. Although the genres of the songs Beca combined were incredibly versatile and certainly not songs that anyone would expect to go so well together, they all had a common theme. Or more accurately they were related to one or a few key topics: forbidden love, having an unrequited crush and or love, heartbreak, red hair, bright blue eyes. In short Beca, although completely unaware of it, was making mixes to process the absence of Chloe. The redhead who had, unknowingly for both of them, stolen Beca's heart.

One Beca had finished making another "completely random" mix that had no obvious inspiration whatsoever, she headed over to Jesse's dorm to give him the hope they both needed regarding the future of their relationship. Unsurprisingly Beca got a warm hug from Jesse, the boy so happy at her spontaneous and completely unprompted visit that he looked like Christmas had come early.

"Bec!"

"Hey!"

"It's so great you're here, what do you wanna do? Watch a movie?"

"Uh, sure, movie I guess."

After suffering through some godawful wannabe scary movie, Beca figured it was time to rip off the band aid and at least try to have a more physical relationship with Jesse. Even the thought of it was making Beca nervous, she had never seen herself as a prude so wasn't sure why she was feeling so reluctant at the prospect of sex. It's no big deal right? Jesse was a great guy, Beca was very fond of him, it made sense. Yeah. Total sense. Total bull, but Beca buried any nausea rising in her gut and took Jesse's hands in hers.

"Jess?"

"Yeah Bec?"

"Do you think we could uh…?

"Could what?

"Ummm…"

Crap. Shockingly talking about feelings was apparently not something Beca's brain would let her do. So she did the next best thing and tried to show Jesse what she was trying to say. She pulling him to her, perhaps a little forcefully, and kissed him with as much passion as she could muster up. They two had obviously kissed before, but this was the first time Beca had initiated it, so Jesse took that as a sign she wanted more. His hands started to wander from her waist to her butt, and then up to her breasts. His large hands cupping them felt surprisingly awkward. Beca stopped herself from flinching at the contact and tried to concentrate on showing Jesse the passion that he was showing her. So she did the easiest thing and copied him, letting her hands move across his surprisingly muscular torso. After a few minutes more of their "passionate" make out session Beca could feel another part of Jesse get excited. She couldn't quite acknowledge to herself what that was, but she had successfully let the boy get to second base so she counted that as a victory. Although she knew that she was too much of a wimp to take things further that night, but she had a plan. She swiftly pulled away from Jesse, letting him catch his breath.

"That was amazing Bec"

"Yeah, umm it was fun"

"No seriously, you are so good at all of this and I, well I can't wait for when we.. you know"

"Have sex?"

"I mean I didn't want to be so blunt about it, but yeah. You're amazing and I know that when we make love it will bring us closer together and help our relationship grow even stronger." Beca cringed, feeling guilty that she didn't reciprocate Jesse's feelings and also not loving him calling sex "making love" like they do in every corny 80s movie.

"I'm not ready for that yet Jess, but I will be soon. For now could we maybe take things slow?"

"Of course Beca, I want our first time to be special for both of us, and for that we both have to be ready. You've already opened up to me so much more than you would have a couple months ago, so I know you feel the same way even if you don't want to convey it yet."

He was so understanding, Beca felt infuriated. At least if he was a jerk about it she could have gotten mad at him and stormed off, not having to confront any more physical issues. As this thought came and went Beca realised she was being ridiculous; Jessie was her boyfriend so of course she liked him and wanted to be with him sexually. She was just nervous because she didn't have much experience. Yep. No other reason. Beca made plans with Jesse to go to a bar off campus that didn't card minors the following night. That way the two could get wasted and she would be too drunk to be nervous. Alcohol always solved a person's problems… or at least that's what Beca convinced herself.

Chloe had developed an eerily similar coping mechanism to Beca; instead of moping she had been throwing herself into teaching the children in the village. Although as Chloe was well aware of the cause of her inner turmoil, she was able to more effectively avoid confronting it. She focused solely on the choir and their upcoming performance to their parents, adding in extra rehearsals after school to ensure that each child knew all the words and felt happy about what they were singing. While the children were thrilled that someone as kind and wonderful as Chloe was devoting so much time to their development, it also made one of her colleagues become even more infatuated with her.

Charlie was inexplicably drawn to Chloe, and this was becoming more apparent as he got to know her a little better. As he taught children how to read and write Charlie let his mind drift to Chloe, and of the little observations that he had made over the last few weeks. For instance he knew that talking about singing and dancing would make Chloe smile, the kind that made him smile too. Her whole face lit up, with her eyes sparkling if that was possible. He loved seeing the joy radiate from her, and did what he could to try and trigger this reaction; Charlie just wanted the girl to be happy because of anything he did. Charlie had also accidentally found out that college was a huge sore spot for Chloe. He wasn't sure why but when he had asked her one day if she had every competed in singing competitions she mentioned that she was in an acapella group, and she quickly became quiet, and she looked overwhelmed with sadness. Over the next few days he realised that any college related questions would ensure that her tone would gain a despondency that had been previously lacking, and she would withdraw deep into thought. So although he was desperate to find out what had caused such a strong reaction, Charlie focused instead on making Chloe happy. As he figured once they became better acquainted Chloe would trust him and reveal at least a part of what had happened. The two had slowly become friends, as Charlie watched every choir practice and they ate lunch together so they spent a lot of their free time in each other's company. Charlie had hoped that Chloe would realise that he liked her, and not just as a friend, as his wilingness to help her and obvious affection were not exactly subtle. Yesterday he gave Chloe a bunch of her favourite snacks just so in case she got hungry. She smiled warmly at him and continued looking at sheet music. Charlie could have sworn that she was going to get up and maybe hug him, something he wished would happen just so he could be near her, but instead she stopped herself. Sadly it seemed that the usually astute redhead was distracted by something, and this prevented her from realising how he felt.

Charlie knew that the pair would have to separate in a couple months once the program ended and they returned to the US, so he figured he shouldn't waste any time they could spend together. Or that he should get the rejection over with so he could try and move on; as at this point he was completely infatuated with Chloe and knew that ignoring his feelings would not make them miraculously disappear. He finally plucked up the courage a few days later to ask Chloe to spend the upcoming Saturday with him. What he did not expect was for Chloe's response to be so out of character.