She got it now.

Stacie had always heard, but never quite understood, the adage that whenever you have sex with someone, you're having sex with everyone they've ever slept with. She definitely didn't get why some people thought was a negative thing. After all, wasn't that the point? Practice made perfect, and the more people you have sex with, the more experience you got to make it more pleasurable for yourself and your partners. That was just logic.

And it started that way, Stacie's amusement that super-uptight, super-conservative, super-vanilla Aubrey Posen was willing to match her every whim in bed, displaying a wealth of knowledge and stamina that Stacie doubted she would ever take for granted. If Stacie was the kind to kiss and tell (totally, but she doubted the Bellas would approve… also HR and fraternization policies), she would be bragging to everyone how she was having outstanding sex with Aubrey Posen.

But then in the quiet of her home, basking in her bedroom and reminiscing of the afternoon she and Aubrey had spent in it, Stacie found herself a victim of her brain's tendency to focus on points of interest, this time on Aubrey in particular, and her mind turned against her, pointing out the difference between the first time she'd slept with Aubrey and the past two days.

And she hates the way her brain starts coming up with comparisons, because Stacie had thought about the night of Aubrey's graduation fairly often during the past year, and Friday night and Saturday afternoon were pretty fresh memories, and she just loathes just how objectively she can examine both experiences.

No, not loathe. Hate. She hates that her mind can be objective about this.

About how Aubrey had wanted to touch and explore every inch of Stacie she was given access to, but be so tentative and unsure in one experience – her first time with another woman – and be so aggressive and decisive in another, one year later. Her priority was still to ensure Stacie's satisfaction, and she still liked to watch Stacie's face to see it happen, but in more recent experience, she just knew, the look on her face less wonderment – that she was the one being able to touch, to do things with and to Stacie – and more expectant, waiting for Stacie to come, as if fully confident in her ability to make it happen.

Because Stacie knew exactly how much they had covered from their hotel rendezvous one year ago, and knew exactly what Aubrey knew about sex with women.

She might have had written Aubrey off as the one who got away, but she'd taken some measure of comfort in being part of Aubrey's sexual awakening, such as it were, and sometimes amused herself by thinking that she could even call herself an expert on lesbian sex with Aubrey Posen.

She didn't even know if she was the leading expert on lesbian sex with Aubrey.

And it's not even like she didn't think Aubrey had sex with people other than her. Of course Aubrey did, the girl was hot. It just never occurred to her that she'd had opinions about it, much less have feelings about Aubrey having sex with other people.

So she knows. She gets it now. She understood what it meant, why you were having sex with everyone your partner had ever had sex with.

And why it wasn't the positive building experience she had always thought it would be.

She wasn't going to cry over something as stupid as Aubrey sleeping with someone – anyone – else, and she can honestly say she most definitely didn't, but it was a close call.

But she does the next stupid thing.

"How many?"

Aubrey, who she knew was attending to her weekly chores of groceries and laundry – chores she had ignored doing in favor of spending time with Stacie on Saturday – and sounded genuinely confused over the phone when posed with that question. "Sorry?"

"Between your graduation and last Friday. I need to know how many people you've slept with."

"Why?"

"So we can do a collective high five and compare notes," Stacie deadpanned. "Why do you think?"

"I don't understand how that's relevant."

"I need to know."

"You want to know." Aubrey corrected. "And I don't think you really do."

"Please, Aubrey." Stacie had never been so invested in anyone's sexual history before, and it was a new and honestly frightening experience.

Aubrey sighed. "You don't know what you're asking, Stacie."

"The Hunter wants to know how many people he's competing with, so give it up, Aubrey."

The sharp tone in Aubrey's voice when she spoke again told Stacie she'd hit a nerve. "Of course you're thinking with your crotch. Do you want it alphabetically, or chronological? I don't have all their contact information, can you live with just their names and dates?"

Names. And dates. It was in plural form. Stacie hated all of them. But she also knew that Aubrey was right: she wanted to know, while at the same time she really didn't. In a voice a lot more conciliatory, because she really didn't want to fight over this – she would lose, and she knew it – she asked, "Is there anyone now?"

"No." Aubrey sighed again, more resigned. "Just you."

Just you. Like it should mean something, but Stacie was familiar with the concept of a summer fling, and was more than aware that Aubrey had given no indication on whether or not their current relationship, such as it were, was even one. And Stacie, as much as she wasn't ready or willing to let Aubrey go without a fight, and knew for certain that she wanted Aubrey, wasn't really sure if what she wanted was a relationship. "Okay, but what is this, Aubrey? What do you want from me?"

Aubrey exhaled, and in that moment Stacie knew that Aubrey didn't have the answers, either. "I don't know. Us spending time together? Making up for lost time? I don't know, Stacie. But right now? I want you to be the girl who sat with me in the library, the girl who offered me coffee when you could tell I was having a bad day."

"We weren't sleeping together then." Stacie reminded quietly.

There was absolute silence that greeted that assertion, and Stacie briefly wondered if Aubrey had hung up, until Aubrey asked, "what do you want me to say, Stacie?"

Stacie had no idea. She didn't want to ask questions she didn't really want answers to, to push Aubrey for answers that probably weren't there, or for Aubrey to make denials. She had no idea what she did and didn't want from Aubrey, but she also knew she didn't want things to end prematurely because she had questions, so she changed tack. "Do you want to go out for lunch tomorrow? Or do you have a meeting?"

"Stacie—"

"I don't think this is a conversation we should have over the phone, Aubrey."

Aubrey, at least, seemed to agree with that point. "I have conference call every Monday morning, and that can sometimes go through lunch. Dinner?"

"Okay. But I can't stay out late, though. There's some kind of training thing on Tuesday morning."

"The briefing on your documentation project, right." Aubrey recalled. "We can be early. The conference is pretty much a week-long version of my EOB calls to my boss, so we skip it on Mondays; it shouldn't be a problem."

Stacie arched an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Sure."

Stacie rolled her eyes, because that answer was not particularly convincing.

"It's fine, Stacie. Like I said, we skip it anyway, I can leave work at a normal hour."

"And you know that the fact that I have to get to work early on Tuesday means we won't get to the fun stuff, right?"

"We'll see." Aubrey observed.

Stacie couldn't help but grin, because she definitely wouldn't mind if they did.

Except they don't.

For two straight days of having dinner after work, after their meal Aubrey walked Stacie to her bus stop, seemingly completely ignorant of the fact that doing so directly led to a significant lack in any kind of sexual activity. But it's not like Aubrey had completely shut her out, Stacie could see Aubrey was trying, and they still stole kisses and held hands and all those other things that made up a dating relationship, but the point remained: they weren't having sex. And Stacie wondered what had happened between Saturday afternoon, which they spent lounging in her room, and Tuesday night, when Aubrey completely ignored an obvious hint for an invitation to her place, courtesy of Stacie "suddenly" remembering she'd "forgotten" her phone charger in Aubrey's apartment, and merely offered to bring it to Stacie the next day.

It's frustrating. It's annoying, and rude, and just mean, which led Stacie into making the second worst decision she'd ever made, second only to confronting Aubrey about her sexual past.

Looking over her Skype contact list, she wasn't surprised to see only Beca was online, given the hour – early morning for Stacie, very late night/early morning for Beca, who had probably been up all night working on her mixes – and took a moment to pause and consider what she was about to do.

Her friends in high school had all been boys, fellow nerds who had no romantic interest in her (or anyone, it had seemed); and especially after her growth spurt and developed a figure, she'd steered clear of girls her age, because those she'd gone to high school with had either hated her on principle, or hated her because their boyfriends had been… expressive of their admiration for Stacie's post-puberty body. And she had no doubt that her friends had grown past being asexual high school boys, but she was also still pretty sure that they were lousy at the whole dating scene.

So when it came to things like sex and dating, she had no choice but to confide in the Barden Bellas. Which was a whole other set of complications.

Chloe was their den mother, the mother hen, and while she could probably offer the best advice when it came to sex and dating, especially considering this particular point of Stacie's concern, Chloe was also really nosy and lacked tact, and would confide in their friends, using unsubtle clues that she was talking about Stacie. Fat Amy approached sex and dating much like Stacie did, and tended to discard her boy toys fairly easily, and her most complicated relationship was with Bumper Allen, so not very complicated at all. The problem was that Fat Amy not only had absolutely no filter, but was also relentless when given enough of a challenge, and probably wouldn't stop badgering Stacie until she gave up a name. Cynthia Rose would want far too many intimate details and probably hint that Stacie should dump whomever and be willing to "comfort" her. Lilly was just terrifying.

(And would probably know all the details of Stacie's ongoing non-relationship in a flash, including credit card numbers, and would definitely find the name of Stacie's current dating partner, so definitely not Lilly.)

Jessica had already begged Stacie not to share stories of her sexcapades after the fifth time Stacie had over-shared on some of the people they had classes with; both Denise and Ashley already suspected something more than just sleeping had happened their first night at the Bella house between herself and Aubrey, and would probably easily figure out just who could be causing Stacie such atypical turmoil, and Stacie really needed to keep Aubrey's involvement out of the discussion for now. And from what she could tell, Flo's reference point for romance and dating seemed to be teen dramas and telenovelas.

Which left Beca, who was usually too uncomfortable having to deal with being confided in on anything beyond recommendations for music, so she could make as good a sounding board as any, if Stacie just needed to bounce ideas off someone. And if she received some kind of advice in the process, well, that wouldn't be so bad.

"Hey, working girl." Beca greeted when she accepted the call. "How's Philly?"

"Pennsylvania's great. LA?"

"Beach scene's okay. The clubs are better. Between Fat Amy and Cynthia Rose, seems like there's nowhere we can't get into." Beca reported. "What's up?"

"What does it mean to go from sex to zero almost overnight?"

Beca sputtered, taken off-guard by the question, and looked around her quickly before turning back to Stacie. "Why would you ask- It wasn't bad, and maybe I just don't feel like sex is that important in a relationship, okay."

Stacie stared at her for a long beat, before she slowly clarified, "I'm talking about me."

Beca's eyes widened, and she hastened, "Oh, yeah. Of course. Totes – totally. Sex to zero, huh?"

"Something you want to share with the class, Beca?"

"We're talking about you." Beca said bluntly, brooking no argument, and Stacie honestly didn't feel like delving into Beca's relationship with Jesse, at least not at that moment. "What happened?"

Stacie told her, in the vaguest terms and using neutral pronouns, about how she was kind-of, sort-of dating someone but they weren't defining their relationship in any kind of way. And how after a mere two days, had awesome skip-dinner, on-the-couch sex. Repeatedly. And how amazing it had been. And slept together. And more of the same the next day.

Ignoring how the digital image of Beca increasingly shaded red with embarrassment with each added detail, Stacie went on to confess about how she'd confronted the person about their sexual history, admitted to her own hypocrisy on the topic, and then went on to tell about the two-days-and-counting dry spell.

"I mean, how am I supposed to interpret this?" Stacie asked in frustration. "Should I have ignored how many people they've slept with? Is the whole dinner-without-sex thing a sign we've U-turned back to being flirty-platonic? Are we just friends again now? I mean, friends who kiss and had awesome sex that one time – okay, not one but you know what I mean – but is that it? Am I not getting awesome marathon sex ever again?"

Beca shrugged. "Maybe the sex wasn't that awesome for them."

"Aca-scuse me?" Stacie asked, offended, in a voice full of a deadly threat.

Beca cringed. "Don't... Don't do that. Don't replace syllables like that, it triggers my Aubrey Posen trauma."

"Beca."

"I don't know, Stacie." Beca sighed in resignation. "Maybe they want to try just dating for a while, that happens sometimes. It doesn't mean they like you less or don't want to sleep with you again; it just means sex isn't the only basis of a relationship." She paused, and then peered closely at the screen at Stacie. "Are you in a relationship?"

"What? No." Stacie quickly denied. She rolled her eyes. "Like dating isn't complicated enough."

Beca frowned. "How did you even meet someone? Your entire Twitter and Facebook feed is about your internship." She stopped, and stared at Stacie. "Are you dating someone from your office?"

What the actual fuck, Beca. How did someone so oblivious to anything unrelated to music be so quick to piece that together? "What?" Stacie let out a small burst of laughter that sounded a lot like panicked hysteria, even to her own ears. God, she should have gotten more sleep last night, she wasn't firing on all cylinders this morning. "What are you talking about?"

"You're not saying no." Beca pointed out.

Stacie waved her hand dismissively, feigning nonchalance. "You know me. I never say no."

"And now you're deflecting." Beca noted.

Stacie was going to kill Denise/Ashley/Chloe/Jessica/Beca's dad, whoever advised Beca to take Psych 101. "Beca-"

"I guess inter-office dating doesn't count if you're both interns…" Beca mused. "It is another intern, right?"

"Not... exactly."

Pause. "…How, exactly?"

"I don't…" Stacie sighed. "I can't really talk about it."

"Stacie." Beca's voice grew serious, and her expression was a picture of concern. "I know how important your internship is, but if you're being forced—"

"What? No!" Stacie exclaimed. "Beca, no. Whatever it is you're thinking: that's not it at all."

Beca paused for a long moment, before she spoke again. "Stacie, I say this from a place of friendship and love, so don't…" She exhaled. "Don't bang your boss."

The universe hated her. Clearly. Having her own words, a lofty quip she'd used to tease Aubrey with, being said back to her felt a lot like a slap in the face. "I'm not banging my boss." She said curtly, annoyed. "Thanks a lot for that vote of confidence, Beca."

"Well, what else could it be?" Beca asked defensively. "A coworker you're dating but can't talk about? And there's nothing on your Instagram as proof. What was I supposed to think?"

Stacie groaned. Who knew that being swept up in the giddy excitement of dating, being too caught up in each other, making her and Aubrey both forget to document their dates through social media, could be interpreted this way? In fact, Stacie wondered if she'd even been able to take any pictures of her and Aubrey in the past few days. "Nothing. Don't think about it. Stop thinking about it. Just know it's not my boss, and I'm not being forced into this."

"Stacie—"

Stacie, who had grown weary of the conversation and just wanted to move on, move on to topics that didn't remind her of the sensitive nature of her non-relationship with Aubrey, was like a wounded animal when cornered, and viciously attacked. "How's sex with Jesse, Beca?"

Beca growled – a cute, mewling mess of a growl, but one nonetheless – and relented. "Okay. I'm not thinking about it."

"Good."

"Yeah. Good talk." Beca sighed. "Have fun in Philly."

"Enjoy LA."

"See you back at school, I guess."

"Yeah. And Beca?" Stacie said in warning.

"I'm not telling the girls." Beca knew exactly what Stacie would be worried about. Besides, she had her own problem to be concerned about. "That sex thing…"

"Our secret."

"Okay." Beca exhaled. "Okay."

Stacie paused, and added, "thanks for listening, Beca."

"The advice holds, by the way." Beca told her, in a soft voice. In case it had gotten lost in the subsequent argument, Beca reminded, "Maybe it doesn't have to be just about the sex."

Yeah. "I know."

That was kind of what Stacie was afraid of.