Chloe was slowly roused from slumber when she heard the door to her room open, followed by giddy sounds of giggling and hasty shushing noises, of Aubrey and Stacie stumbling into the room, clearly distracted or drunk, if the way they were bumping into things were any indication.
She considered just letting them go about their business, but then one of them let out a really low, long moan, making Chloe reconsider. It was the sharp gasp, however, that made her speak up. "Seriously?"
"Shit." The couple cursed in unison, and after Chloe reached over to turn on the lamp at her bedside, she turned back in time to see Aubrey hastily pulling her shirt down, while Stacie casually rearranged her top back into some decency.
"Sorry," Aubrey apologized. "Did we wake you? Because we-"
"You're in bed already?" Stacie interrupted, taking her shoes off and kicking them under her bed.
"Yeah." Chloe cut a glance back at Aubrey, who fidgeted slightly before taking her coat off and folding it, draping it over the seat by the desk, all while avoiding looking at Chloe. Chloe picked up her phone to check the time, and turned to frown at them. "It's late."
"It is." Stacie confirmed. She glanced at Aubrey, who ducked her head, before turning back to Chloe. "We got carried away."
Chloe decided she didn't want to know, so she slumped back into her bed. "Well, keep it down."
As she dozed in that state between being awake and sleeping, she heard the two women in the room go about their bedtime rituals, the familiar sounds occasionally interrupted by the same earlier giggling and sharp shushing sounds, until Stacie laughed loudly before the bath room door slammed shut.
"Maybe I won't wear clothes to bed, how's that?" Stacie retorted.
Wisely, Chloe thought, Aubrey didn't take the bait. Or even if she did, the bathroom door remained closed.
Chloe drifted in and out of wakefulness, hearing but not listening to the softly-spoken conversation across the room, until one particularly wakeful round of consciousness, when she found the room dark with the lamp turned off, and the whispered discussion on the other bed was particularly clear.
"I'm just saying, it's a waste to cap an awesome date with PG-13 cuddling." Stacie insisted.
"Petty revenge aside, Chloe's right there."
"And I'm telling you, she won't mind."
"How do you even come to that conclusion?"
"I've pretended to sleep through a lot of Titanium play counts." Stacie told her. "And she told us to keep it down, which means we just have to keep quiet, which—"
Without opening her eyes or turning towards them, Chloe pointed in their general direction. "Don't have sex while I'm in the room."
"Aw." Stacie's pout could practically be heard in the single syllable, while Aubrey bit her tongue to keep from retorting that Chloe hadn't extended her the same courtesy once upon a time.
There was a momentary awkward silence as each girl in the room contemplated their situation, each one knowing most of each other's bed-related habits and the things that can and cannot be said in polite company. Or when your former roommate was dating your current roommate and they both knew about what you did under covers listening to your lady jam.
And then Aubrey queried to Stacie, "Did Chloe ever tell you about that time I loaded a Titanium remix on her iPod?"
Stacie laughed, a sound that came out loud and clear in the quiet of the room. "No."
"You're such a bitch, Aubrey." Chloe accused. It had been years, but she was still piqued when she remembered it; the particular remix Aubrey had chosen to replace the one already on her media player had been a dance remix and had been fifteen minutes long, the buildup Chloe was so accustomed to ruined by sudden beat breaks and changes in rhythm.
She especially hated Aubrey's self-satisfaction at her little prank, and the way she evidently found it disproportionately hilarious.
"And she had a class after, so that was—"
Chloe threw one of her pillows across the room towards the other bed, making the occupants of that bed burst out laughing.
Hours after they finally fell asleep, Chloe's slumber was once again interrupted by Aubrey, this time by her phone ringing and a frantic blonde springing out of bed to answer it. Chloe grumbled, and turned to tell Aubrey to go back to sleep, it being a holiday and everything, but before she could, she realized it was still dark. She watched in sleepy curiosity as Aubrey dug through her things for her tablet, turning on the lamp by the desk and continuing the call. Still too sleepy to stay awake, Chloe found herself drifting back to sleep, listening to Aubrey rattle off terms and numbers she didn't understand, as if she hadn't just woken up.
When she woke up again a few hours later, the room bright with the early morning sun, Chloe glanced over across the room to where Stacie was sleeping, occupying the width of her bed, and Aubrey was nowhere to be found. Deciding that she wasn't going to repeat the previous day's mistake of getting up late and missing out on crepes, Chloe got out of bed, and went to the main floor of the house.
The kitchen was empty, despite the coffeemaker being full – although it was no longer hot – and Chloe looked around, puzzled, before she peeked into the living room to find Aubrey lying with her eyes closed on the couch, her tablet lying flat on her stomach and a cup of what Chloe presumed would have been coffee on the shelf behind the couch she lay on. Chloe was about to greet her and announce her presence, but Aubrey suddenly adjusted her phone, and declared, "This is Aubrey. I'll need to confer with Regional and Workforce on that matter; I would need the specific details of your concern, if you could email them to me? That's great, thank you. Kath, consider this your heads up."
Chloe returned to the kitchen, throwing out the cooling coffee before starting to prepare a new batch.
A few minutes later, Chloe watched, toast in hand and coffee on the table in front of her, as Aubrey continued her call, pacing the length of the living room, at one point putting the Bluetooth receiver on as she started charging her phone.
This was the woman she had always envisioned Aubrey would become: confident, self-assured, some kind of power player in a competitive field. The girl she had met as a freshman had been gearing towards becoming this person, and Chloe, despite their disparate positions in life at the moment, couldn't help but feel proud of Aubrey.
Even as she wondered if the distance between them had been instrumental in helping Aubrey get to her current position.
Probably drawn by the smell of coffee at a decent hour, some of the Barden Bellas slowly drifted in, grabbing a cup of coffee and some toast or cereal for breakfast. Stacie, perhaps predictably, was the only one who braved a detour through the living room, her presence briefly acknowledged by a quick touch of their hands before Stacie picked up Aubrey's cup and made her way to the kitchen.
Jessica pointed in the direction of the living room, where Aubrey was typing on her tablet. "It's a holiday."
"It's not in other countries." Stacie sighed in response.
Other countries. Which would explain why Aubrey had received a call when it had still been dark out.
"What, exactly, does Aubrey do?" Denise asked curiously.
The group of Chloe, Jessica, Denise and Lilly all turned to Stacie, who shrugged, lifting her hands in seeming cluelessness. "She calls herself a troubleshooter."
The group seemed to take that at face value, also shrugging among themselves.
In the next room, Aubrey groaned aloud. "Fix your own capacity problem, damn."
Stacie grinned, taking the exclamation as a signal that Aubrey's phone call was officially over, and turned as Aubrey entered the kitchen, pulling off her Bluetooth earpiece. "How long was that call?"
"Ugh, I don't know. An hour and a half?" Aubrey shrugged.
Chloe frowned at her. "You took a call at five in the morning."
Aubrey turned to her, and smiled apologetically. "Did I wake you? That was one of my coworkers warning me about the call I was just on."
Lilly frowned at her.
Aubrey shook her head at the younger woman. "I know. Please don't make me explain it." She looked around, and frowned as she turned back to the present Bellas. "Breakfast?"
They all shook their heads.
Aubrey sighed in defeat. She'd been awake now for at least four hours, and had been subsisting on coffee that whole time. And she was really hungry. She turned to Stacie. "Breakfast?"
Stacie met her gaze, her agreement readily at the tip of her tongue, before she decided that for all her desire to spend Aubrey's remaining hours in Georgia together, alone, in a room somewhere and probably in bed, she also didn't want to isolate her relationship with Aubrey as something separate from their relationships and friendships with the rest of the Barden Bellas. As she had told Beca, being a Bella was important to Aubrey, and Chloe was the most important friend she had, current estrangement or not; and Stacie herself had said enough times that she wanted Aubrey to be a part of her life in Barden, and the most important part of that were the Barden Bellas.
Aubrey arched an eyebrow expectantly, when Stacie took a beat too long to answer. "Stace?"
Stacie snapped back to attention, and instead of answering Aubrey, turned to Chloe. "Aubrey told me you two had a diner you always used to go to for their breakfast menu."
Chloe glanced at Aubrey, who looked on in puzzlement. Equally confused, she turned back to Stacie. "Yeah… they have this whole list of stuff you can have added to your pancakes that Aubrey and I tried to go through."
Stacie turned to Aubrey. "We should go." The Barden Bellas were just going to have to suck it up and play nice with her girlfriend. "Maybe we can even turn breakfast at that place into a regular Bella thing."
"No." Aubrey and Chloe said together, shaking their heads.
"Stacie, you're wonderful and lovely and I love you, and you're very smart, but don't say stuff like that out loud." Aubrey told Stacie.
"There's not enough cardio in the world that would make that okay." Chloe added.
"What?" Jessica questioned, laughing.
Chloe turned to her. "It's really…" She shook her head.
"It should come with an American Health Association warning." Aubrey explained. She glanced at Stacie, this time with some understanding on what Stacie had in mind, and acquiesced to the suggestion. "You have to see it to believe it."
The reason for the hesitation of the former co-captains became evident when the current crop of Barden Bellas saw the amount of food per serving, with the two eldest individuals at the table not bothering to hide their amusement at the flabbergasted expressions on the other girls' faces. For their part, Aubrey and Chloe had ticked one more item off the pancake filling menu, a rare common ground between the two women during the weekend.
It was a mom and pop diner, catering mostly to locals but had the relaxed atmosphere of a college town eatery, given its proximity to the Barden University campus. Aubrey and Chloe had come across the place during one of their gastronomic exploratory trips, and the reminder of simpler times, and the warm and accommodating atmosphere seemed to help ease Aubrey's countenance, as she seemed far more at ease, relaxed even, with the other Bellas. Or maybe whatever her official phone call earlier had been about held positive news.
Or the Barden Bellas had a weakness when it came to breakfast food.
Whatever it was seemed to be working, though, so Stacie wasn't going to question it. And being in such familiar surroundings and situation seemed to be the common denominator that got Aubrey and Chloe… if not quite bonding, they were at least talking to each other. So much so that at the end of the meal, when Aubrey got up to pay for the meal at the counter, it was Chloe who joined her while their bill was being tallied.
"You're leaving this afternoon?" Chloe asked, picking up on something that had been mentioned during breakfast. "I thought you weren't leaving until tonight."
"I have stuff to work on for a meeting tomorrow morning." Aubrey explained. "I wish I could stay, believe me."
Chloe smiled wryly. "Even with the lackluster reception and your best friend being MIA?"
Aubrey mirrored her smile. "But then I guess we know there's blame to share."
Chloe's smile faded at the reminder. "You're here now; and none of that seems to matter anymore."
Aubrey sighed, but didn't refute the statement, even while she felt that wasn't completely true.
Because she knew, and she knew Chloe knew, that the decline of their friendship had been a product of neglect, that the current state of their relationship could be blamed on the fact that they had both avoided discussing the heavier issues with each other. They have both avoided the person who knew them best when Aubrey had been buried in work and wanted to avoid thinking about the nature of her job, while Chloe flittered from one distraction to another to avoid the question of why she thrived on the endless distractions; and the line of communication that had always been open between them had been relatively closed.
And Aubrey wished she and Chloe could just gloss over that fact, and pretend the past year or so hadn't been as strained as it was, that there weren't secrets they had kept from each other.
Except she couldn't, because she hadn't been the person Chloe always saw the good in, and Chloe had gone and failed a subject so she could stay in Barden for another year.
"Yeah, I didn't think so either." Chloe admitted, an admission followed by a lengthy silence.
Aubrey had to smile, if even slightly, because she was still glad she and Chloe were relatively on the same page.
"I'm only going to ask this one last time," Chloe started as they made their way out of the diner towards the van where the rest of the Bellas were already waiting. When Aubrey turned to meet her gaze, they both rolled their eyes in bemusement, because they knew just how much that was a lie, given Chloe's persistent nature, and she conceded that point. "Okay, but for now the last time. But why didn't you or Stacie tell me you were seeing each other?"
"Because until Christmas, there wasn't really anything to tell." Aubrey insisted. "And even then… we're still figuring this relationship out. We wanted to be in a more stable relationship before we started really telling other people."
"So why didn't she say anything before you showed up?"
Aubrey sighed. "I don't know. I thought she was going to, but the way she explains it, she just kept chickening out of telling you."
"Why?"
Aubrey looked at her. "You know why."
Chloe frowned in confusion.
"Because the Bellas are her best friends, Chloe. That counts for something. But her relationship with the group is different from mine, and she and I built this relationship separate from the Bellas." Aubrey shrugged her shoulders. "And she doesn't want it to be."
"That's why you're here?"
"That's why I'm here this weekend." Aubrey corrected. "Because even though you forced it to happen, and made her invite me over this weekend? I know she was tired of sneaking around."
Chloe regarded her friend, her earlier marvel at the woman Aubrey had become now made greater. Because she had witnessed many of Aubrey's college relationships, and had listened to her stories about the boy she'd dated throughout high school; and through all of those narratives, she had never seen Aubrey voluntarily put herself in the position of vulnerability, or put anyone else's needs or desires above her own.
Chloe stopped walking, and grabbed Aubrey's arm to make her stop and turn to face her. Once they faced each other, she confessed, "I've missed you."
Aubrey smiled warmly. "I've missed you too, Chloe."
"Of course you have." Chloe joked, although her jovial tone was tinted with some sadness in her voice. "But maybe you can try to be less of a stranger from now on?"
Aubrey's smile faded somewhat at the reminder of what was ahead for her, and how it would affect her relationships in Barden. "Easier said than done. I got a new assignment, and won't get to travel as much anymore."
"Oh." Chloe tried to mask her disappointment, but failed as she frowned at Aubrey. "But you'll try, right?"
"Of course." Aubrey reassured her. Operative word being "try". But she didn't say that part out loud.
"And I'll try not to be so avoid-y next time." Chloe noted dryly.
Aubrey's gaze was laden with scrutiny at the reminder of her primary concern regarding her best friend. They've been for the most part estranged, sure, but that didn't mean Aubrey liked being out of the loop on Chloe's decision to stay another year in Barden. "Chloe…"
"Please don't." Chloe interrupted, knowing what Aubrey was likely to say. She looked at Aubrey in earnest, almost pleadingly. "I don't want to talk about it."
Because Chloe was someone who wore her heart on her sleeve, and Aubrey had spent four years living with Chloe's particularly honest and straightforward soul, she understood that when Chloe admitted that she didn't want to talk about something, she meant it. And Aubrey had learned to pick her battles. "Okay."
Chloe's relief was nothing if not obvious.
"But you're fine?" Aubrey asked instead. She might be willing to let Chloe keep quiet about her decision-making process, but she still needed some reassurance regarding Chloe's well-being.
Chloe gazed at Aubrey, and nodded.
Aubrey smiled faintly. "Then that's what matters, right?"
Later, when Stacie asked if she and Chloe were better, Aubrey had to sigh. Because 'better' was relative, and while she and Chloe were at least talking now, Aubrey knew she and Chloe still had a long way to go in repairing their relationship. Because just as Chloe refused to talk about why she had stayed in Barden for another year, they hadn't addressed why they haven't really talked in over a year, or what Aubrey had been up to since graduation.
At least Chloe seemed to be over her shock of Stacie dating Aubrey, and had even acquiesced by letting the couple have some time alone before Aubrey left for the airport, with the request that they kept it out of her side of the room, and for Stacie to invest in air fresheners.
They had rolled their eyes at Chloe's insinuation, but inevitably proved her right anyway.
When Aubrey's phone alarm went off, signaling her last hour left in Barden, it also effectively burst the insulated bubble that had been their Galentine's Weekend/Presidents' Day date. Stacie watched with a heavy heart as Aubrey did a final check of her bag, having packed up that morning before they left for the diner, and asked, "What are you doing for Spring Break?"
Aubrey glanced over her shoulder at her, and smiled. "Still not a holiday."
"And the state of Georgia doesn't actually celebrate Presidents' Day, but here we are. Your point?"
Aubrey zipped closed her overnight bag, and returned to Stacie's bed, sitting at the edge. "I thought you were going to go to New Orleans or Florida."
"Or I was thinking, I could come up?" Stacie suggested, reaching out and taking Aubrey's hand in her own, tangling their fingers together. "You don't even have to entertain me, I swear. I just want to see you for a whole week."
Aubrey glanced down at their hands, smiling wryly to herself at the reminder of Stacie's dedication to cuticle care, and then visually traced up Stacie's arm, finally landing on Stacie's expectant gaze. "You'll probably be celebrating your victory at semifinals."
"And I'd love to be able to celebrate with you." Stacie countered.
Aubrey smiled at her, and leaned down to kiss her. "I'd like that."
Stacie released Aubrey's hand so she could bring her hands to cup either side of Aubrey's head, holding her close. "You might want to file some leave time."
Aubrey placed one hand on the bed beside Stacie's head to leverage her weight, and she couldn't help but arch an eyebrow with a smug coyness. "Oh? Are we going somewhere?"
"No," Stacie smiled, before kissing Aubrey again. "I might not let you out of your bed."
Aubrey chuckled against their kiss. "I'll look forward to it."
After a few more series of kisses, Aubrey's phone interrupted again, making Stacie groan into their kiss. "Ignore it."
"I might miss my flight." Aubrey murmured, but didn't make a move to heed her phone's alarm.
"I'm not seeing a problem."
Aubrey slid a hand to Stacie's back, and pulled her along as she sat back up, and immediately resumed their kiss. "I'm going to miss you."
Stacie sighed into their kiss. "I'll miss you more."
They have been through this enough times in the past for the dance to be familiar, but this was the first time the concept of next time felt vague and abstract. In the past, they had always both known that Aubrey would find a way to be within traveling distance to meet Stacie, it was only a matter of when. They didn't have that this time around.
So if their kisses got a little desperate and needy, it was an accurate reflection of how they felt.