Aubrey looked at Stacie for a long moment, trying to figure out where to start. After all, it would be the first time that she would actually be telling someone about her year, someone who wanted to know everything, someone she knew she wouldn't have to sugar-coat anything to.

Because whether they acknowledged it or not, they had become the person they told their deepest, darkest secrets to.

Aubrey suddenly sat up, the movement startling Stacie, but she remained silent as Aubrey placed her elbows on her bent knees, running her fingers through her blond hair. "What do you want to know?"

Right, as if Aubrey's brusque tone was such an open invitation for Stacie to ask questions.

"I don't know," Stacie admitted, sitting up as well, and facing Aubrey. "I mean," she blew out a breath. "How bad was it?"

Aubrey tilted her head in question, considering how that was a mildly offensive thing to ask.

"I don't know!" Stacie exclaimed in frustration. "You were in Chicago, and then in New York, and there are names and dates – I don't know what you've been up to! And I've built it up in my head, like, were they guys you just met? Girls from your favorite Starbucks? Do you date a lot? You just say the results of your STD test like it's nothing, do you get tested that often? Was there a scare? Were you drunk when you hooked up? What experiences have you had that makes it easy for you to just talk about getting tested?"

Whether it was the wall of words, the nature of the questions, or just Stacie's demeanor in delivering the series of questions, it seemed to have helped Aubrey gather her thoughts, because she no longer looked like she wanted to crawl out of her skin. And it was something she could answer factually. "Getting tested is part of our regular medical check-up, for those of us who travel for work."

Oh. That… that made sense.

Aubrey tilted her head back to lean against the headboard. "And to answer your question, there weren't… a lot. But there were more than I really feel good about, and some I really had no business being with. And before you ask, I'm still not giving you a number."

Stacie frowned. "Then why were you with them?"

Aubrey threw her hands up in a helpless gesture. "Because they were there? Because it's easier to be alone with someone else? Maybe it's because people say that the best way you're supposed to get over someone is to get under someone else. I don't know."

Stacie gave her a sharp look. "You were that hung up over that girl?"

"You're not stupid, Stacie. Don't play dumb." Aubrey muttered, folding her arms in front of her.

Stacie furrowed her brow, and came to a few conclusions of her own, but wasn't sure if those were conclusions she wanted to discuss in detail, at least not right at that moment. Instead, she chose another avenue of discussion. "Okay: I get why you felt you had to choose some other girl over me."

Aubrey groaned. "That's not-"

"Or even why you and Chloe aren't at a very good place," Stacie continued, ignoring her. "But why cut out the Bellas? What was so bad that you couldn't fake it, even just a little?" It was something that bothered Stacie, the way Aubrey had distanced herself from the Barden Bellas, the girls who had been her friends, and had gone through so much with, and just left them behind once she'd graduated.

There was a lengthy pause, with Stacie studying Aubrey's stony expression for a clue, while Aubrey kept her gaze fixed on the opposite wall. Her jaw worked a few times, as if trying out the words that she was going to use to answer, but for a very long time, she didn't say a thing.

Stacie groaned in frustration, because she had no idea how Aubrey could be so forthcoming about some topics, and so reticent on others. "I don't…" She sighed, and tried a different tack. "Can you at least tell me what the hell happened? I mean, I thought… I thought you liked your job. I thought your boss was OK, that you were OK, and now you're telling me differently, I don't know... what is it?"

"It's not the job." Aubrey finally turned to look at her, and answered her softly. She blew out a breath. "I mean, most days it's okay, I go to work, I plan trainings and seminars, and conduct them. Or I look at the status of employees and see who are due for promotions, or put them on track of getting one. That's the good part."

"But there are bad parts," Stacie guessed.

"They call my team Workforce Management, which is a really fancy way of saying we're the people who tell people whether or not they'll still have a job at the end of the day. And being part of Oversight means I'm the person who goes in on the very worst day of a company and tells people that their day just got worse." Aubrey told her. She sighed heavily. "It's not every day, but when you get a reputation for being very very good at the other thing? It's not… it's not…"

"What you signed up for?" Stacie attempted to fill in.

"That's…" Aubrey shook her head. She looked away, trying to get her thoughts in order, while Stacie watched, unsure of what, exactly, she should be doing or saying. Finally, Aubrey turned back to her. "You don't know what the job in Chicago was, do you?"

Stacie shook her head.

"And you don't know about my dad."

That was more conclusive, Aubrey's delivery more of a statement than a question, but Stacie still shook her head in response.

"Right." Aubrey smiled grimly, readying herself for a topic she dreaded to bring up. "There's a reason, why my mom and dad weren't at my graduation."

Stacie held herself back from reacting, because this entire thing dated back from Aubrey's graduation?

Aubrey looked down, and started picking at a thread on the comforter. "My dad had a stroke, and went into a coma. And me and my mom, we…" Aubrey looked up at Stacie. "In my family, everyone had their roles. And my dad, he was the one who handled the money. So my mom and I had no idea where we were, financially. So when that happened to my dad, I didn't know what was going to happen. He had insurance, so that was going to pay the hospital bills, but we didn't know for how long. And me, and my mom? We didn't know anything. But I was graduating, and I had job offers. And if my dad followed through on any of his threats, I knew that at the very least, I'd have a job, and an income, and a place to stay."

"Wait, threats?" Stacie interrupted. Because, what?

Aubrey gave her a look. "Did you think telling me to pack my bags in the event of failure was an idle threat?"

Holy shit. And Stacie had to say it out loud. "Holy shit."

"No, just the regular stuff." Aubrey said dryly, and sighed. "The job in Chicago, even on paper, was gonna suck, but it was going to pay well – no, it was going to pay really well – and it offered a fast track to getting promoted, so I took it. Once I was there, and… money management wasn't where I wanted to be, but I'm good with numbers. So I faked it until I could get a promotion, just anything to get me out of that group, that lifestyle, and that's how I got into a management training group. And that's how they discovered I'm really good at making people do what I want them to do."

"And that's how you ended up in New York?"

Aubrey nodded, and then almost immediately shook her head. "That's just part of it."

Stacie rubbed her forehead with her hand. This was headache-inducing, she was sure. "Go on."

"Yeah… and with all that crap going on, my dad died."

"Wait, your dad died?" Stacie interrupted again, startled, because that was news to her. At Aubrey's nod, she frowned. "Why didn't…" She looked up at Aubrey. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"You really think I didn't try?" Aubrey asked quietly.

At that admission, Stacie's heart sank. After the earlier discussion of how Aubrey's phone calls became less and less personal, and Chloe and the rest of the Bellas always seemingly too busy to entertain Aubrey's calls, it wasn't out of the question for Aubrey's attempt to tell any of them such personal news to be waylaid by the Barden Bellas' busy collegiate life. "Oh."

"And I think…" Aubrey frowned. "Thinking back, I think that's when I realized I had to figure out this adult stuff, maybe on my own, because nobody was going to hold my hand through it. The previous Bellas all told me there were some growing pains, but that I'd get through it, just like they had. My other friends weren't so easy to talk to because most of them were still toiling at entry-level. And my mom had to figure out her life, too, at that point; I couldn't keep counting on the Bellas to put their lives on hold just to listen to me figure out mine."

"But we needed you, too." Stacie argued.

"No, you didn't. That's the point." Aubrey countered. "You didn't need some sad-sack former captain looking over your shoulders trying to fit back in. And I needed to figure out who I was beyond the Bellas, beyond being a Barden Bella. Beyond the girl who lived to make her dad proud and simultaneously being his biggest disappointment. Because I wasn't anymore. And, trust me, once I realized I had no idea who that girl was beyond those two things?"

Stacie stayed quiet.

"Was when the shit hit the proverbial fan." Aubrey finished. She shook her head. "I had no business, being with… that girl. I shouldn't have been in a relationship with anyone, at that point. And I knew that. It was why I didn't try and force us to have a relationship when I graduated, because I knew I wasn't ready, I knew I couldn't be good for you. Or for anyone. But she was there, and she was there when the people I really wanted to be weren't." She lifted a hand to allay Stacie's counterargument. "This isn't me blaming you, or Chloe. I'm just telling you how it got to a point where I convinced myself that I could be in a relationship with someone I cared about but didn't love. Because I chose that. I told myself that maybe I could learn to love her." Aubrey looked at Stacie, her gaze heavy with the weight of what she was saying, the emotions that had led her to do what she did. "And to do that, to try and get to a point where I could believe that? I had to get over you. I had to let you go."

Stacie lowered her gaze, unable to keep eye contact with Aubrey. Maybe she had written Aubrey off as the one who got away, but she realized now, hearing those words, that she hadn't believed it, not really. And having their phone calls end had hurt, too, but she realized now that a part of her had always believed that things hadn't been over between herself and Aubrey. Hearing that Aubrey intentionally made the effort to get over her hurt in ways Stacie hadn't considered. "Did you?"

Aubrey sighed. "What?"

Stacie looked up at her. "Did you? Learn?"

Aubrey smiled bitterly. "I never let you go."

Which was not quite an answer, but carried its own implications. "But there were others."

"Stacie—"

"No." Stacie cut her off, shaking her head, and jolted out of the bed to start pacing. "You don't- I wrote you off. The phone calls ended, and I knew why, and you never called me again, so I wrote you off. You don't get to say shit like that to me and just…" She looked away. "I wrote you off, Aubrey."

Aubrey lifted her hands helplessly. "Then why are you here?"

Stacie faltered, her indignation leaving her completely, because that was a very good question. And she didn't have an answer beyond what she offered Aubrey. "Because I want to be."

Aubrey stared at her for a moment, and then shook her head. If only it were that simple.

Stacie frowned. "What?"

Aubrey let out a small, hollow laugh. "Ask me about North Carolina."

"North Carolina?"

"Do you know what happens in North Carolina every late January or early February?"

"I don't know. Snow?"

"ICCA Regionals."

Stacie leaned against the chest of drawers in the room, and closed her eyes briefly. "You were there."

"Wanting to see my friends." Aubrey confirmed. "It was a last-minute decision, I was in the area, and I thought, I really needed to see my friends."

Stacie frowned, because she was sure she hadn't hooked up with anyone in North Carolina during Regionals. The group had been too close to losing – they had performed first, and to their utmost horror, their very sexually-charged performance had a number of nuns in the audience, including one of the judges – and their win had come as such as a relief that the Bellas had just gone home, unwilling to face the judgmental glares of their audience. "We could have used your support then. Why didn't you?"

"I got an emergency call, in the middle of the Treblemakers' set. And I took it. And I realized that was going to be my life now: calls from work from people who needed me to do my job."

"You say all that, but you were at the finals."

Aubrey laughed wryly. "Yeah. I was."

Stacie gave her a look that told her she expected a reasonable explanation, one that went beyond Aubrey's previous response as to why she hadn't let the Barden Bellas become aware of her presence a mere few weeks back, when they had all been in New York City at the Lincoln Center. Because maybe communication lines had already started to deteriorate at that point, but Stacie had no doubt that all would have been forgiven if Aubrey had shown any kind of effort to remind the Barden Bellas - particularly Chloe and Stacie - that the Bellas still mattered to her.

"I wasn't going to." Aubrey started. "There were… things going on, and I had this party to go to that night. But Dan – that's the friend who was with me – didn't want to go to the party, either, so we decided to go to the ICCAs instead."

"What things?"

Aubrey frowned.

"What 'things' were going on that time?" Stacie pressed.

Aubrey winced, because even just thinking about it made her head hurt. "I was coming out of a bad relationship. It was one of those on-again, off-again, mostly-physical, emotionally-draining relationships and Dan was a crutch to make sure I stayed away from that guy. And then another ex was in town. And I had just finished a trip to Florida for a hostile takeover. It was just a whole bunch of things and a night of collegiate a cappella sounded like a good idea at the time." She sighed. "I was in a bad place. And Dan thought seeing the Bellas would have helped me find some good in my life again."

"Bet that went well." Stacie muttered.

"It did." Aubrey offered softly. When Stacie looked up at her, she smiled weakly. "Not that night, but I realized I needed to do to with what my life in New York was becoming the same thing I did with the Barden Bellas."

Stacie wrinkled her brow.

"I stepped away from the Bellas because it was the only way I could think of to stop using the Bellas as a crutch, and to let the Bellas grow from what it had been when I was leading it. I needed the distance, so that I wouldn't be the former captain who criticized everything you girls were all doing, and so that none of you could see what a mess I'd made of my life. I stayed away because I thought it was the best way for all of us to move on, and move forward." Aubrey elaborated. "So I needed to step away from what my life had become, from all the bad habits I'd developed. It's why I took the project in Philadelphia."

"You needed to get away."

"I needed to feel like I could breathe again." Aubrey nodded. "Sometimes the job sucks, but it's the job, it's not who I am. And I needed to be OK with who I am."

And Stacie could understand that. But something still nagged at her. "But why… You thought you had no other choice but to cut the Bellas off? Is that… were we that inconsequential to you?"

"That's not—"

"No." Stacie shook her head. "You felt like we were holding you back. You… Yeah, we screwed up, Chloe overcompensated convincing herself she did the right thing by staying and I thought we were playing by your rules, but you actually thought you could just step away from us and everything would be fine?"

"That's not what I meant."

"But that's what you thought, isn't it?" Stacie demanded. "It just never occurred to you that we could have needed you?"

"But you didn't!" Aubrey argued. "You don't. And, you know what? Don't stand there saying you did because I remember that year pretty well, and most of you couldn't wait to be rid of me."

"That's not true."

"Don't mistake how you feel about me with the way you felt about my leadership, or how everyone else feels about me." Aubrey countered. "Yeah, things were getting better by finals, but other than you and Chloe, I'm pretty sure everybody else would be on edge if I kept hanging around."

"Which made it easier for you to just set us all aside?" Stacie insisted.

Aubrey shook her head. "I needed the time away. And the other former Bellas will back me up on this: the Bellas mean everything to me, but it can't be everything. When they graduated, the girls from before? Yeah, it sucked when they weren't calling me every week to check in, to find out how the Bellas were doing, how Chloe and I were managing, or even how I was doing, especially that last year. But you know what I found out? They had their own problems. Just like I had my own problems. They were figuring out how to not be in college anymore, when their friends were miles away, in different states. So figuring out the world on my own? Sure as hell was a whole of a lot more daunting than checking in on my friends who all had each other."

Stacie shook her head. "But you could have—"

"And why are you insisting I wanted to be away from the Bellas? Do you have any idea what the Barden Bellas mean to me?" Aubrey cut her off. "Not just the Bellas I've known; the institution. Why do you think I tried to preserve the legacy and tradition so obsessively? To some of you it's just a college a cappella group, or your friends, but the Bellas were my family, for four years. Even with Alice, even with Beca, in it. You don't get to accuse me of wanting to leave it behind: just because I didn't fail Russian Lit on purpose doesn't mean I wouldn't have given anything to stay."

Stacie, properly chastened at least on that particular point, conceded to Aubrey's indignation. She had honestly forgotten that the Barden Bellas had been a part of Aubrey's life before she and the rest of her friends came along, and it was easy to forget that there had been other Bellas, other girls who had apparently meant a lot to Aubrey, before them. "I'm sorry."

"Don't… don't be sorry." Aubrey said tiredly, shaking her head. "You're entitled to how you feel; how you felt. But I need you to understand that I had to grow up. I had to move forward, and I couldn't do that if I kept on having one foot still deeply rooted in Barden."

Stacie frowned. "Did it work?"

Aubrey sighed heavily, throwing her hands up in a gesture of utter defeat. "Who even really knows anymore?"

Stacie looked at her for one long, discerning minute, trying to understand Aubrey's vague response. Because Aubrey, for all intents and purposes, had succeeded, and was thriving in her adult professional life: she had an upwardly mobile job, was self-sufficient, and wasn't tethered to anything that could hold her back. But from what she had just confessed to Stacie, she was convinced that most of it came with a price.

Aubrey exhaled, suddenly exhausted. She slumped back against the headboard of the bed, and closed her eyes.

Also feeling the fatigue of the late hour and knowing they would have to wake in a few short hours to report to work, Stacie slowly returned to her side of the bed. She paused, and glanced at Aubrey. "Should I stay on the couch?"

"It's a big bed." Aubrey answered tiredly, keeping her eyes closed.

Stacie settled back on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position... or as comfortable as she could get, given the heavy atmosphere in the room. After a few minutes, she spoke again. "Aubrey?"

A soft murmur of inquiry was her only answer.

Stacie paused, and it was a long enough pause for Aubrey to conclude Stacie wasn't going to say anything.

Until finally, the younger woman's voice broke the silence, with a whisper that could just barely be heard.

"I never got over you, either."

Aubrey huffed quietly. "But you wrote me off."

"I never said I let you go."

There was a beat, then: "What do you want, Stacie?"

This time, the silence that followed wasn't broken.