I feel this needs addressing, so before we continue, I must reiterate that while this comes chronologically before the whole Fallen Leaves saga of Track In On This Feeling and These Hands Are Meant to Hold, this story is best appreciated after you've read everything that had come before in this particular story universe.

Having said that: read. enjoy. review.

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She loved drinking with her friends, really, but she had always hated the punishment of hangovers. Especially after four years of living with Aubrey, whose tolerance for alcohol was just mean, Chloe had learned to hate the morning after with a special kind of distaste. And she had woken up on the couch, which not only meant her body hadn't been in the most comfortable of positions, but also that she woke up early because there was only so much going on around her before she conceded that it was time to get up.

The culprit, it seemed, was Flo fixing up her makeshift bed and abandoning it for her bedroom, Cynthia Rose getting up from the couch she had been occupying to head to her room, and someone getting started on breakfast.

At least Ashley looked as miserable as she felt, and they exchanged quick, faint smiles when Chloe went to the fridge to get some water while Ashley stared at the coffeemaker.

Chloe decided more sleep was in order, and begrudgingly made her way towards the stairs, only to cross paths with Jessica, who also looked miserable.

However, Jessica caught her arm before Chloe could progress further up the steps. "You… don't want to go into your room."

Chloe furrowed her brow, confused. "I don't?"

"Yeah, uh…" Jessica hesitated, a faint blush on her cheeks, and she finally admitted, "Aubrey and Stacie are kind of… vocal."

Chloe lifted an eyebrow. "Aubrey and—"

And then she suddenly remembered. Aubrey. And Stacie. Aubrey and Stacie. Aubrey, her best friend, who had graduated from Barden University two years ago and got too busy to pay close attention to the Barden Bellas she had left behind. And then had shown up out of the blue the previous afternoon, dressed like the young professional that she was, and looked as if she had been invited over.

By Stacie. Who had taken one look on the blond interloper and laid claim, with a kiss that left no room for doubt, with a kiss that Chloe imagined most people only dreamed about. Because there had been no mistaking the obvious affection and passion that Aubrey and Stacie had for each other, the almost-desperate way they had clung on to each other.

The way they seemed completely unable to separate completely from each other, even when they were an entire room apart, easily finding the other with their gazes. The casual intimacy when they sat together, as if they didn't care who saw them, who witnessed how much they cared for each other.

And apparently they didn't care who heard them, either, and Chloe imagined Jessica and Ashley, who had the room closest to the one she and Stacie shared, had to have gotten an earful.

When Jessica saw Chloe's expression slacken, she went on, "It was bad enough at two AM. Turns out Stacie's not kidding about not having an off switch."

And that was just the kicker, wasn't it? Chloe had often teased Aubrey for her prudishness, how reluctant she always seemed to be when it came to things like sex, and now she was apparently being loud while doing it with Stacie. Stacie. Who had made no secret over her sexual exploits, and took pride in her prowess, not to mention described her crotch as 'a hunter'.

And then Jessica's words registered with Chloe, and she stared, dumbfounded, at her friend. "They're doing it right now?"

"Unless there's another reason why Stacie's telling Aubrey to 'never stop', I'm going to go with yes."

"It's six in the morning!"

Jessica shrugged, not having any answers, and when Chloe didn't say anything else, sympathetically patted Chloe's shoulder as she moved past the redhead to join Ashley in the kitchen.

Chloe glanced over in the general direction of her room, and briefly debated on whether or not she would heed Jessica's warning. Ultimately, though, she wanted to lie down on a bed, and decided to go on and take Beca's bed in the third floor loft, since the other girl was still dead to the world on the couch.

As she climbed up the steps to the third floor, however, she still heard a sharp gasp that was quickly cut off, followed by badly-covered giggling, to which she could only shake her head, because everyone knew how sound carried in the house.

But hours later, Chloe started reconsidering her stance of using a grin-and-bear-it approach to the reality of Aubrey and Stacie, because after she had woken up from her nap and joined her friends downstairs, Ashley and Jessica reported that neither Aubrey nor Stacie had come up for air.

Jessica turned to Ashley, as if needing to say out loud, "Aubrey and Stacie. That just…"

Ashley nodded, and gesturing with her hands, mimicked her head exploding.

"Still?" Chloe asked warily.

"But how…? It's been hours!" Beca exclaimed, which earned her looks of pity from almost everyone around her. She frowned in confusion when Amy rubbed her shoulder sympathetically. "What?"

"I hope you invested in Febreze," Cynthia Rose told Chloe, who could only frown in response.

Beca looked confused for another minute longer, but eventually conceded to her lack of information, turning to Chloe. "What's next on your Galentine's agenda?"

"It's Saturday. We have rehearsals." Chloe reminded, ignoring the collective groan of everyone around her.

"I don't think Stacie's vocal cords are going to agree with that." Denise told her.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "We can just do run-throughs of our sets, so we can get invited to the Puppy Bowl again."

Amy turned to Beca, who could only shake her head. They had sung the National Anthem at the Puppy Bowl the previous year, but since the event came too close to Regionals this year, they'd had to forgo the event. They were all pretty sure it had been a close call of Chloe forfeiting Regionals over giving up the Puppy Bowl, and it was still a delicate subject.

"Why can we not just hang out here?" Flo asked.

Before anyone could answer, Stacie walked into the kitchen, humming to herself, and attracting her friends' collective attention as she walked straight to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. Pressing it to the side of her neck, she glanced over the contents of their fridge before claiming another bottle, closing the refrigerator behind her, and picked up an apple on her way back out of the room, but not before smiling brightly at her friends and greeting them a good morning as she left.

There was a collective silence as the girls stared after her, before Amy turned to back to the rest of her friends. "So we all saw the massive…" she indicated to her neck, at roughly the same spot where Stacie had been sporting a telltale bruise.

"I'm more concerned about her back and shoulders." Jessica admitted, because for reasons unknown, Stacie chose to wear a tank top, which displayed the marks where fingernails had obviously raked against her skin.

Beca frowned. "Stacie's careful, she wouldn't let someone hurt her during sex."

Again, the group all turned to her with looks ranging in a mix of confusion and pity. This time, it was Lilly who pat Beca's arm gently.

Beca frowned at her. "What?"

Lilly made a small shushing sound, and made small soothing gestures on Beca's arm.

Beca gave her a confused look, before turning back to the rest of her friends.

"Who knew Aubrey had that in her, though?" Ashley mused.

Chloe looked discomfited, because nothing in her history with Aubrey indicated an ability to let loose, and certainly not when it came to sex. It was partly why their senior year had been contentious between them, because between Aubrey's obsession about making it back to the finals of the ICCAs, Chloe's growing reluctance and hesitation to leave college, and their increasing distance when it came to how they wanted to deal with the new Bellas in their midst, there had also been the matter of their individual crushes on two Bellas in particular. Chloe had made no secret of her admiration for Beca – except maybe to Beca – and was caught in the middle trying to mediate between her crush and her best friend, who could not even begin to try and get along for the sake of the Bellas. And Aubrey, who had her senior year and beyond all planned out to the point of stress-vomiting, could only sit by and gaze from afar as Stacie made her way through a good fraction of the Barden University student population, because there was no place in her plans for the girl she wouldn't even begin to know how to keep.

It was why Aubrey stayed away from meddling with Chloe's crush on Beca, despite how obvious it was, and why Chloe correspondingly let Aubrey wallow in the misery of her unrequited affection, because they both knew that doing anything about their respective crushes would not only ruin the dynamics of the Barden Bellas, but probably hurt either freshman in the long run, as well.

But somehow, somewhere in the past year when Aubrey had all but disappeared from their lives, Aubrey got her shit together enough to finally let Stacie in, and found within herself the person she had always wanted to be, someone who could love someone else so simply and honestly, and she had become that person for Stacie.

And Chloe had missed it.

And Chloe was still in the exact same place Aubrey had left her, pining for Beca, still the best friend whose honest affection was misunderstood as that of a best friend to another, whose attempts at flirting with an oblivious significant other were mistaken for innuendo.

Because in the bright light of day, everything seemed a little clearer – or maybe she was looking a little closer now – and she saw the small signs that whatever was going on between Aubrey and Stacie, it went a little further than Stacie's attempts to dissuade the inquisition by saying things weren't serious, because there seemed to be an almost constant communication between the two of them, whether by look or by touch or with actual words, and their natural inclination was always to move closer to the other.

And as someone who had witnessed Aubrey go through a series of relationships both serious and not-very throughout college, it was startling to see her with Stacie, because Chloe had seen Aubrey with her boyfriends, and she had always kept them at a respectful distance: maybe not physically, but there was always an invisible line she never let them dare to cross.

There was no line with Stacie. There was no need for distance, no need for Aubrey to maintain her individuality, no built-in protection for Aubrey to prevent herself from losing herself in the relationship.

They made no qualms about their displays of affection, for one thing, and not just as a method for Aubrey to get out of doing something she didn't want to, or as a distraction for Stacie. In fact, now that Chloe was stone-cold sober, she could tell that for all the displays of deep kisses and heavy petting, it was actually in the quiet moments, when they were just sitting together, Aubrey reading from her computer tablet and Stacie going through a text book beside her, that their relationship was most obvious.

It was in the way Stacie curled up against Aubrey's side, and the way Aubrey seemed to constantly need to have some kind of physical contact with Stacie.

When there was an agreement to run through their prepared songs to satisfy Chloe's demand for rehearsal time, Stacie forced Aubrey to sit through it, and despite everyone on the lookout for Aubrey's critique, the girl kept her gaze on her tablet, and only expressed her displeasure in minute expressions, or the rare grit of teeth, as if physically preventing herself from verbalizing anything. Sure, she hadn't made a swiping gesture on whatever she was supposed to be reading for a good ten to fifteen minutes, but she wasn't making any criticisms.

At the end, they all looked expectantly at Aubrey, who was looking a little too hard at her tablet, carefully avoiding everyone's gaze.

Beca was the first one to cave. "So? What do you think?"

Aubrey shrugged, but to Stacie and Chloe, who knew her pretty well, they could tell from the way she sat firmly in place, and the way her hand held tightly to the corner of her tablet, that the blonde was holding back.

"Just say it." Chloe said tiredly.

Looking up, Aubrey bit her lip, and glanced briefly at Stacie, who shrugged. Finally, she sighed, and pointed. "Lilly is a beat too fast, Ashley's playing catch-up with her breathing, Denise is two beats slow, I don't know what key Flo is singing in, and Cynthia Rose, I did it, stop looking at Stacie's neck."

Jessica and Stacie both pumped their fists in subtle celebration at not being part of the critique, but Fat Amy raised both arms in victory.

"And I know you have a beatboxer, but you still need the percussion sound." Aubrey turned to Beca. "Otherwise? Just a step away from being fine."

"Okay! Take a break, everyone." Chloe announced, and before Aubrey could call out to her, disappeared up the stairs.

Beca immediately sat down beside Aubrey on the couch. "Ignore her. She's been weird since I helped Jesse with the Trebles' set."

Aubrey held up a hand, stalling her, and turned to Stacie, who sat on the arm rest of the couch on her other side. "You still have the building blocks to victory?"

"That weird flowchart you and Chloe showed us? Yeah."

"Does it still say 'No Trebles'?"

"I don't know, probably." Stacie shrugged.

Aubrey turned back to Beca. "Which part of 'No Trebles' don't you understand, Beca?"

Beca rolled her eyes. "The part where their co-captain is the same guy who got us into the finals on a technicality."

Aubrey paused, considering that point, and then sighed. "Carry on."

"I mean, I get it, if it were anyone else but Jesse asking, I wouldn't. And yeah, I helped them, but it's not like I'm helping them do breakdowns and stuff." Beca explained.

Aubrey paused again, and frowned. She nudged Stacie beside her, and when Stacie turned towards her, asked, "Is Beca asking me for relationship advice?"

Stacie glanced at Beca, who looked positively ill when she realized the same thing Aubrey did. "It sounds like it."

"I thought so." Aubrey returned her attention to Beca. "Draw a line."

Beca frowned. "What?"

"Draw a line." Aubrey repeated. "He's your boyfriend, so of course he has every right to ask you for help. But he's still your competition. Check yourself: how much help are you willing to give him, that you can honestly not feel like you gave him too much help if – but I doubt it - the Trebles win? And that's where you draw the line."

Beca glanced over at Stacie.

"If you gave him their set for finals and they won over us, would you be okay, knowing that you directly helped them beat us?" Stacie asked.

Beca considered that advice for a moment, and then glanced back up at the two. She motioned to the both of them. "I don't even know how this happened or that it was even happening, but now that it's here, I can't believe I didn't see it before."

Stacie laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"Yeah, no, really." Beca shook her head. "It's like, when you think about it, it was kinda obvious, wasn't it? You were like the only person she could stand, and at a party you'd ditch whoever was trying to pick you up to talk to her."

Stacie paused, and looked at Beca thoughtfully. "You noticed that?"

"Like I said," Beca reminded. "It was obvious."

At that, both Aubrey and Stacie gazed at Beca pensively, as if they were considering if she were a natural wonder of the world. Or a very, very slow, very dim-witted child.

"But, you know, how did this even happen?" Beca asked, when neither girl said anything for a while.

Stacie glanced at Aubrey, who shrugged in return. "Plans change. Things worked out. Aubrey got her head out of her ass and I wanted to see us try to make a relationship work."

Aubrey paused, and glanced over at Stacie. "You're the mature one who wanted a relationship and I had my head up my ass?"

Stacie smiled winningly at her. "I love you."

Aubrey rolled her eyes in good-natured feigned exasperation.

Stacie glanced over at Beca. "Look away."

"What?"

Stacie reached over, covering Beca's eyes, as she used her other hand to cup Aubrey's cheek with her hand and leaned in close, meeting Aubrey's lips in a kiss that she immediately deepened, making Aubrey set aside her tablet to pull her closer and making Stacie fall off her perch on the arm rest to settle on Aubrey's lap.

Which, unfortunately for Beca, gave her an eyeful of the display. "Okay, yeah, I'm just gonna go."

She went blissfully ignored, and after a while, Beca gave up on trying to get any attention back, and actually stood up and left.

Not long after, Stacie broke the kiss, and glanced around them.

Aubrey smiled, knowing what Stacie was checking for. "Is she gone?"

"Okay, you're right, making out does make them stop asking questions," Stacie conceded. "But that won't work with Cynthia Rose, Flo, or Fat Amy."

"Making out will keep us from having to answer questions," Aubrey pointed out.

Stacie paused, and grinned wickedly when she realized the truth of Aubrey's words. "I like how you think."