Stacie woke to the sound of Aubrey's phone alarm, and she watched blearily as Aubrey picked up her phone from the bedside table and slowly sat up, one hand pressing against her head, every line of her body indicating just how much Aubrey was not in the mood to meet the morning.

Stacie couldn't blame her: they had talked for what felt like hours, and only their exhaustion, both physically and emotionally, had forced them to surrender to sleep.

Not that sleep had come easily to either of them. Stacie had felt Aubrey fidgeting from her side of the bed, and she hadn't been able to shake off the way Aubrey's last question kept echoing in her head, refusing to let her rest. It had been impossible to find some peace and quiet when the fact remained that there were still so many things unresolved between them.

She studied Aubrey, who sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her hair. "Aubrey, you barely slept."

"Work." Was all Aubrey said in response, before taking a deep breath and rubbing her eyes with her hand.

It should have been an adorable sight, but Stacie had other concerns. "It's still early, maybe you should sleep some more."

"Can't." Aubrey sighed again. "I have to get to the office." She said simply, before sliding out bed.

Stacie frowned. "Office hours is still in three hours."

"I have a breakfast meeting I need to prepare for." Aubrey told her, going to the closet and picking out her clothes. "And you barely slept either, so you should be taking your own advice."

Stacie sat up. "Aubrey—"

"Not now, Stacie." Aubrey said curtly, glancing briefly at the other girl, and turned back to her task. "Go back to sleep."

Okay. That kind of casual dismissal, not to mention the harsh tone, really stung. And reminded Stacie a lot of Aubrey as she'd first known her, all no-nonsense and curt, dismissive of everyone, and so single-minded that she'd pretty much shut out anyone who had tried to convince her otherwise.

Aubrey sighed, and turned back to Stacie, her expression a lot more apologetic than it had been mere seconds earlier. "I'm sorry, I didn't... I just don't have the luxury of sleep, or time for that matter, this morning. But you do, and you should enjoy it while you can."

Stacie nodded mutely, which Aubrey took as acquiescence, and the blonde disappeared into the adjacent bathroom, leaving Stacie to her thoughts.

The problem, Stacie realized forlornly, was that she had no idea who the real Aubrey Posen was. Unlike Stacie, who played up a more shallow personality but was always aware of who she was and her own intellectual capacity, Aubrey was so many things to so many people that it was hard to pinpoint just which side of Aubrey was not a personality put on for other people's benefit. Stacie would like to believe that the real Aubrey was the girl who had reluctantly let a flirtatious freshman join her in the library back in Barden, the girl who flirted with her in an elevator a week ago, the girl who had looked at the interior of Stacie's childhood bedroom and had stood in awe.

But Aubrey was also the same girl who kicked Beca out of the Bellas out of misplaced frustration, and maybe a bit of spite, and who had been dismissive of her own best friend when Chloe tried to assert her own opinions. Aubrey was the girl who graduated from Barden and when she realized real life demanded that she sink or swim on her own, she had decided her friends in Barden was causing her to sink, and slowly tried to cut them off. Aubrey was the girl who stopped calling Stacie to pursue a relationship with someone else, only to use the fact that she was still hung up on a girl she'd known in college to avoid developing serious relationships with other people since then.

Oh yeah. That had been a point of contention, the fact that Aubrey had admitted to actually having feelings for Stacie, feelings that had been present for over a year, but still could not define what their current relationship was. And Stacie wasn't much help in that respect, either.

Stacie looked up when the bathroom door opened, and she and Aubrey stared at each other, startled: Stacie hadn't realized that much time had elapsed while she'd been lost in thought, and Aubrey thought Stacie had gone back to sleep.

It did not speak well of her restraint that despite their miserable night and awkward morning, Stacie still wanted to take Aubrey's towel and make Aubrey miss her breakfast meeting.

"You know you really should sleep," Aubrey advised.

"You aren't." Stacie pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's what the couch in the office is for." Aubrey pointed out.

Stacie paused, considering that point. Huh. That makes sense. She watched as Aubrey prepared for her day, each movement an elaborate ritual that Stacie imagined was not unlike putting on one's armor. She thought back to what Aubrey had told her about her job, and wondered if this was a daily occurrence, this symbolic preparation, and if Aubrey really felt it was necessary. When Aubrey was dressed and ready, it was almost as if she was well-rested and was fully prepared for the meeting ahead.

It was pretty impressive, Stacie had to admit. A casual observer wouldn't have been able to discern the lie.

And in retrospect Stacie wondered how often it had been that Aubrey was not as composed as she had purported to be during rehearsals and merely powered through it through sheer force of will.

Aubrey checked herself in the mirror one last time, considering if she needed an additional layer of concealer for the dark spots under her eyes. Deciding she really needed to get to the office to study the details of that morning's meeting, she turned away, only to have her gaze fall upon the girl on her bed.

Aubrey hesitated then, because as difficult as it had been for her to tell Stacie details of her past year, she imagined Stacie had to feel conflicted about the whole thing, as well. At least Aubrey had made the conscious decision to be a corporate asshole as her job required her to be. Stacie hadn't chosen to start an affair with a girl whose informal job description included being a corporate pirate, complete with industrial raiding and pillaging.

And the rest of it… Aubrey had chosen all those things. Stacie didn't have to live with Aubrey's choices.

They gazed at each other for a beat, but then Aubrey looked down, morose. "Look, I understand if you—"

Except Stacie had spoken, as well. "Are we okay?"

Aubrey's head snapped up, startled. Before she could question further, Stacie continued.

"I pushed, and I don't know if you were ready to tell me, or how much, but I pushed, and…" Stacie let her voice drift off, and sighed. "I still have questions, and I don't know if we're okay."

Aubrey exhaled, expelling a sigh of relief from the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "Don't… This isn't on you, Stacie."

Stacie looked doubtful.

Aubrey gave her a wan smile. "We're okay."

"But you're pissed."

Aubrey smiled wryly. "It isn't easy to admit you're pretty much a walking disaster."

Stacie wasn't sure how to respond to that.

Aubrey checked her watch, and sighed. "I really should go." She turned to leave, paused, and turned back to Stacie. "Assuming road work's still going on, you're sleeping over again, right?"

Stacie groaned at the reminder of why she'd spent the night. "Probably." She looked up at Aubrey. "If that's okay."

"Of course it is." Aubrey nodded, and picked up her wallet from her purse, pulling out a few bills as she approached the bed, and handed the money to Stacie. "Here."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I believe the agreement was I charge by the hour." Stacie said dryly.

"Jerk." Aubrey muttered, smiling despite herself. "You need clothes."

"What, you don't like me wearing your clothes?"

"Oh, I do. But people will notice and I'm pretty sure your hemline will be breaking corporate dress code if you try to wear any of my other skirts."

"Are you actually complaining about how short my skirts are?"

"Hardly."

"So it's my legs?"

"They're very nice. But they're also very long. Combined with the short skirts, you're asking for trouble. Buy clothes." Aubrey ordered.

"Yes, ma'am." Stacie drawled. "If there's any left over, should I buy myself something nice?"

"I'm gonna go." Aubrey declared, ignoring Stacie's reference. She turned to leave, but Stacie grabbed her wrist as she did. Aubrey turned back, lifting an eyebrow.

Stacie kneeled on the bed, bringing her closer to eye level with Aubrey, and used her hold on Aubrey's wrist to pull her closer. "Thank you."

Aubrey gazed into Stacie's eyes, searchingly. "For…?"

"Talking to me. I know it was hard, so thank you for trusting me." Stacie leaned closer, stopping with her lips a breath away from Aubrey's. She had made the effort to break the uneasy impasse between them, and had been the one to return their interaction to the intimacy from before her brain's traitorous interpretation of events, so she figured it was now up to Aubrey to decide their next step. "For sharing."

Aubrey found nothing but sincerity in Stacie's gaze, and closed the gap between them, brushing their lips together, albeit briefly. "I'll see you tonight."

"Good luck on your meeting." Stacie said.

"Go back to sleep." Aubrey reminded.

There was a beat, a moment where other words could have been spoken, but instead Stacie averted her gaze and Aubrey left.

Her day, thankfully, was devoid of any major events, and at this point she knew how to do her job by rote, making it extremely easy for Stacie to walk through her day even with only a few hours of uneasy sleep, and she managed to sneak some shopping time in during her lunch break. The slow day was both a blessing and a curse, because while it allowed her to relax and not worry that her brain wasn't working at full capacity, it also gave her a lot of opportunity to think about what Aubrey had told her the night before, and the questions she still had, the things that she and Aubrey were likely to talk about that night.

Assuming Aubrey wouldn't pick up on her last unanswered question, Stacie didn't know where she wanted to start. After all, she hadn't realized she'd hit it in the head when she'd asked about Chloe, and that had been a spur of the moment question. She doubted she'd be so lucky this time around.

Aubrey's boss, oddly enough, solved that problem.

"They want me back in New York." Aubrey started, as soon as the pizza – half-cheese, half-awesome (pepper, bacon, pepperoni, two different kinds of cheese) – was started on.

Stacie, who had been about to take a bite from her slice of not-boring pizza, stopped short and frowned. "Now?"

Aubrey gave her a wry look. "I have a week to wrap everything up in Philly. I guess they decided that if I've had time to date, I should have had enough time to finish my review."

That sucked. And Stacie said so.

Aubrey agreed.

There was a pause, and then Stacie asked the question that hung heavily in the air. "So what happens when you leave?"

Aubrey sighed. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you're not talking about work."

Stacie glared at her. "No."

"Didn't think so." Aubrey glanced at her and sighed in defeat. "I don't know, Stacie. It's hard enough to keep a relationship when you're in the same place at the same time, but we won't be and I'm not sure there are any people who wouldn't want a chance to be with you."

"Do you?" Stacie asked, curious. When Aubrey looked confused, she elaborated. "Want a chance with me?"

"You know I do." Aubrey answered. "But you also know my deep, dark secrets. You know the stories of my past relationships. Do you really want to sign up for that horror show?"

Which was a roundabout way of following up on the previous night's question. Stacie groaned. "Why does it have to be on me? Why can't you be part of the decision-making?"

"I don't want your first relationship to be so terrible that you won't want to try it again." Aubrey said matter-of-factly.

"So you don't—"

"Don't do that." Aubrey cut in immediately. "I'm not saying I don't want to; I'm saying that if I had some way to guarantee I wouldn't screw things up, or for both of us to live happily ever after, you know I wouldn't hesitate to be with you."

Stacie motioned to the two of them, and their comfortable positions on the couch, a box of pizza and soda on the coffee table, some ridiculous television program being ignored. "This isn't so terrible."

"This is barely a week in," Aubrey reminded.

Stacie conceded that point. She wished, more than anything, that she could make promises that would ensure she and Aubrey could stay together, but she knew the Math. She knew their chances, and all the reasons why it can't work. She sighed. "I don't want to ask for anything I can't deliver."

Aubrey quirked an eyebrow in question.

Stacie hesitated, but admitted: "Commitment. Monogamy. All those other things. I mean," she exhaled, "you're right. Keeping in touch shouldn't have just been on you, and I didn't. And I don't know how well I'll be able to take the fact that you'll be off somewhere and I don't know what you're doing or who you're talking to." She made a face. "Now that I know there are names and dates."

"And God knows how much of a bacchanal college can be when you're an upperclassman." Aubrey added.

Stacie lifted an eyebrow.

"If you're invited to a party on Halloween that makes you pick up the exact location from some other location and starts at the Engineering building, don't go." Aubrey advised. "Or build up an alcohol tolerance better than most college boys' and then have fun."

Stacie's eyes widened, but nodded.

They resumed eating, before Stacie suddenly looked up and frowned. "Wait, do you think I'm incapable of being monogamous?"

Aubrey furrowed her brow. "That's… a radical interpretation of text."

"You do!"

"You've never tried."

"I've never had to."

"My point."

"I'm promiscuous, Aubrey. Not unfaithful."

Aubrey's confusion on the difference was apparent.

"I know the difference, that's what counts." Stacie said firmly.

"Be that as it may…"

"You don't know, maybe we'll be awesome together." Stacie interjected, cutting Aubrey off. "If we were in a relationship."

"I know I'd try harder," Aubrey agreed.

"So this is on me?" Stacie objected. "We don't know, maybe I'd make an awesome girlfriend."

"We don't know," Aubrey reminded, parroting Stacie's words. "You don't even know what you want from this."

"I know I want you." Stacie snapped, before she shook her head in a sign of retreat. She sighed. "I just… the rest of it, though? I know I don't have a good track record – or any track record, really, but maybe it won't be so bad."

"No, see? Right there." Aubrey pointed at her. "You're thinking of it as something that's just a step above from being miserable. You clearly don't want a relationship, or you're reluctant to want one, at least not one that you have to commit to. And that's okay. I don't want to pressure you into anything you don't want to do."

"But you want one."

"That's how I'm wired." Aubrey admitted. "I like the romance, even with all the clues of how bad I am at it."

"So what's to stop you from hooking up with the next person who wants a relationship with you? What if they talk the same language that you do, the flowers and dates, and special occasions?"

"Oh my God, have you not been listening to anything I've said? I'm bad at relationships, past the romance and fun stuff. And I'm trying to change that."

"Then why am I the bad guy?" Stacie retorted.

"What are you even- you're not the bad guy. I'm not even saying anything close to that. We're at different places in our lives, and we need different things."

"I am so lost right now." Stacie finally conceded, shaking her head. "What are you saying?"

"I'm just saying I don't want to be the reason you miss out on the fun of no longer being an underclassman in college." Aubrey pointed out. "I mean, you stop being an untouchable and grad students and TAs feel better about dating you. You start getting invitations to the dark parties."

"What are—"

"Not school-sanctioned. Some are possibly illegal."

"What?"

"And have you even hung out at the rooftop of the music conservatory?"

Stacie frowned. Barden had a music conservatory? "Wait, what? Are you saying you've-"

"Yes."

Stacie gaped at her. "What?"

"Yes, and that was me." Aubrey reiterated, inadvertently reminding Stacie that there were aspects to Aubrey that not everyone was privy to. "There's so much college has to offer, and you know as well as I do that you're gonna miss out if you're waiting for your absentee girlfriend to call."

"Wait, so now you're my girlfriend in this scenario?"

"Stacie."

"Isn't it against the rules to date a TA?" Stacie asked, confused.

"Not if they don't teach your class, pay attention." Aubrey digressed.

Stacie frowned at her. "You're kind of breaking up with me, Aubrey. Sorry if I'm trying to prolong the coming of the crushing blow."

"It's not like I want to do this, either, Stacie." Aubrey said defensively. "But how, exactly, do you see this working out?"

Stacie looked away, pouting. Was it childish and impertinent, to refuse to answer because she didn't like the direction of the conversation? Maybe. And, sure, maybe she'd brought it upon herself for being unable to decisively declare what she wanted. But she refused to make it easy for Aubrey to break up with her, not after she had been hedging around the topic of the exact nature of their relationship the entire time they had been seeing each other. At that reminder, she frowned, and turned back to Aubrey.

"If you were going to end this as soon as you were headed back to New York, why start it at all, Aubrey? What was supposed to make this round any different from last time?"

Aubrey, who was losing her appetite given the argumentative nature of that evening's conversation, placed her slice on her plate and set it on the coffee table. She folded her arms across her chest, and slumped against the couch. "This was supposed to be a chance to see what us actually dating could be like."

Stacie tilted her head to the side. Wasn't that what they had been doing? "And?"

"And I still don't know how to make us work long-term." Aubrey admitted, leaning back to rest her head against the back of the couch, and groaned. "I can't figure out how we can stay together when I suck at relationships and… God, I'll probably figure out how to make a relationship with you the most catastrophic one of all."

Stacie wasn't so sure, but she had also learned not to underestimate Aubrey's ability to self-destruct.

"I just always figured, if we'd had more time, back in school, if we'd been dating and not just lost time in a hotel room, we'd know how to be in a relationship even with you still in Barden and me out of it." Aubrey continued. She turned her head, and looked at Stacie. "That's what this was supposed to be about."

"What?"

"More time."

That was the thing, wasn't it? They never had enough time. They were only barely scratching the surface of any potential relationship before they were forced to walk away from each other.

They had done it once before, and it hadn't exactly worked out the way they'd expected; their tryst in the hotel room should have been their one night to burn the other out of their system, and instead they had walked away wanting more, but unable to figure out how.

This time, it had been an opportunity to find out if they could have worked, and should have figured out the hows of maintaining a relationship, and instead they were arguing about whether or not they should have started at all. They knew time was running out, but how could they go on pretending everything was fine when they were being asked to walk away again?

They both knew they would regret it if they just left each other again; and what if the universe hated them enough for screwing up their second chance, and kept them apart?

Stacie sighed, setting aside her own pizza slice, and covered the distance between her and Aubrey, crawling over Aubrey's lap and straddling the blonde. She gazed down at the pouting countenance of the junior executive. "How much time?"

Aubrey furrowed her brow.

"How much longer can you stay?" Stacie elaborated. "My internship ends on Thursday."

"I have to report to the New York office on Monday."

One week.

Stacie nodded, mostly to herself, confirming her own decision and verbalizing the plan as it formed in her head. "Then we'll make the most of it, okay? Let's not think of it as a countdown to when we go our separate ways, but as how many days we still have together."

"But what about what happens after?" Aubrey asked, unfolding her arms and resting her hands on Stacie's thighs. "Isn't that what you were worried about?"

"I don't know what happens after." Stacie admitted. She shrugged. "But there's always next summer."

Aubrey frowned. "I doubt I'll be allowed to go back to work in Philadelphia just so I can date an intern again."

Stacie lightly smacked Aubrey's shoulder, giving her a glare. "Or I can actually come and see you, jerk."

Aubrey gazed up at her in amazed wonder. "You'd do that? You'd go through that trouble just to see me?"

"It's not like we have a choice, do we? I get summers off – other than the Bella tour – and you don't." Stacie shrugged again, unaware of just how much it meant to Aubrey that someone would go through that much effort just to see her. "We'll be like one of those annoying celebrity couples who tag along with each other everywhere."

Aubrey pursed her lips, and nodded. "Okay."

Stacie arched an eyebrow.

"Next summer." Aubrey nodded. "It's a date."

"Okay." Stacie smiled, and sealed the deal with a kiss, cupping the back of Aubrey's head and pulling her closer to deepen the kiss. She smiled against Aubrey's lips when she felt Aubrey's hands drift under the hem of the skirt she was wearing. She broke the kiss to smirk at Aubrey. "Naughty."

"I like the ease of access," Aubrey acknowledged. She bent her head forward, resting her forehead against Stacie's chest. Stacie felt the ragged breath Aubrey took, and played with the strands of Aubrey's hair, waiting the blonde out.

When Aubrey finally lifted her head to look up at Stacie, there was a quiet resolve in her eyes, even though there was sadness that lingered there, as well. Stacie gazed thoughtfully at her, and reached out to brush a lock of hair from Aubrey's face. "I'm really gonna miss you."

Aubrey smiled faintly. "I miss you already."