She'll admit, when the Bellas had first proposed taking a last-minute flight to a haphazardly-planned trip to one of the most populated Spring Break concert events, she had genuinely considered staying in Barden and doing her homework would have been a better use of her time. Heart strained to near-breaking and thinking of a phone conversation gone wrong seemingly on an endless loop hadn't been ideal, but neither was the prospect of spending time in the middle of a desert, concert or no concert.
If she had known she would be spending most of her time in the California desert with Aubrey and being brought to a bunch of parties that doubled as work events for Aubrey and Jill, she would have brought a lot less casual wear and more stuff to subtly seduce Aubrey with.
Not that anyone really noticed, or that she really needed any help from any kind of clothing, or even that she and Aubrey were capable of spending even one night apart.
Because whatever epiphanies Aubrey might have had during their week-long silent treatment, a part of it seemed to be the resolve to never let Stacie, even for one minute, doubt their relationship.
It's not that Aubrey has suddenly turned into a clingy, dependent girlfriend, but she made it a point to consider Stacie when she made plans, asking her if she wanted to join them in attending meet-and-greets or listening parties, even completely opting out when Stacie didn't want to go. It was, and Aubrey admitted as much, her way of making up for lost time, to be able to enjoy just spending time with Stacie without worrying about a job she needed to be doing.
And while that was undoubtedly rewarding, Stacie couldn't help but feel that Aubrey seemed to be operating under some kind of timer, as if their time together was running out – which could very well be the case, since Stacie and the rest of the Barden Bellas were heading back to Georgia on Saturday and Aubrey was due back at work once her week-long vacation was over. And going back to their regular lives meant they were going back to the same things that had led to their momentary break.
It was something Stacie didn't particularly enjoy giving much thought to, but she still felt like it needed to be addressed.
"You know, I've been thinking," Stacie began, wrapping an arm around Aubrey's waist as she pressed up against the blonde from behind, and looking over her shoulder to frown at the lengthy block of text on the screen of Aubrey's tablet.
Aubrey smiled, "How's that going?"
"Don't be mean."
Aubrey chuckled. "Go on."
"You obviously can't leave your job."
Aubrey hummed her agreement.
"And you told me your boss wants to keep you in New York more but one of the reasons why you're still traveling is because it's the easiest way to see me more often." Stacie continued.
Aubrey paused, unsure of where Stacie was going with her individual points, "Yes…"
Stacie leaned down, setting her chin on Aubrey's shoulder, and mused, "What if I applied for NYU?"
That made Aubrey stop, momentarily freezing in place, before she cleared her throat and managed, "What would you study?"
"I'm going to finish my double major," Stacie frowned, pulling away from Aubrey and moving to sit off to her side, so she can look her girlfriend in the face. "What the hell was that?"
"What?" Aubrey feigned innocence.
"That pause." Stacie told her. "What's so wrong about—"
"What about the Bellas?" Aubrey countered.
Stacie shrugged, conveying a nonchalance she didn't really feel. "They'll manage. People are lining up to join the Bellas."
"That's not…" Aubrey closed the cover on her tablet and set it aside before she turned to fully face Stacie. "Why would you leave Barden? Granted, its academic standing isn't the best, or anything, but you're talking about leaving the Bellas, a double major program, and talking about moving to a new school in a new city for your final year. Why?"
"So I can spend more time with you?" Stacie proposed, lilting her tone as if to indicate the 'duh' inherent in it.
Aubrey winced. "That's not a good enough reason."
"Bree—"
"No, I'm not," Aubrey took a deep breath, and shook her head. "This isn't about what you said, or how I interpreted it, or a lifetime of not being good enough, I'm talking about uprooting your life for a relationship that's barely a year old."
"You say that, but maybe you're forgetting the fact that we've been hanging out with your friend whom you've explicitly told about a girl you've been hung up on since we met." Stacie reminded.
Okay, that was fair, but being hung up on a girl and moving an entire life for a relationship were two very different things. "Stacie…"
"I know you think it's naïve, or maybe even stupid, but you've made the case about long-distance relationships before," Stacie argued. "Call me crazy, but I don't want us to break up the next time one of us has a crisis of faith."
Aubrey opened her mouth to reply, paused, and had to ask: "'A crisis of faith'?"
Stacie faltered, hesitating, before she grumbled, "shut up."
"No, it's…" Aubrey tried to find the right word, but she found it endlessly endearing that Stacie had obviously stumbled into an internet search engine rabbit hole of relationship advice, because she knew her girlfriend, and Stacie was a facts and figures girl. For her to be spouting off phrases like the one in question was a clear indication that the suggestion she was putting forth was not something she was pulling out of thin air. She sighed, letting some of her mirth and amusement fade, as she considered the depth of what Stacie was suggesting. "It's not because it's crazy."
Stacie arched an eyebrow.
"You have to admit, it's a little crazy," Aubrey prodded, but Stacie didn't verbalize an agreement. She blew out a breath. "And I'm not going to say you don't know what you're talking about, because maybe you do. And it definitely sounds tempting." Aubrey admitted. "But."
Stacie made a face.
"But schools in New York are a lot more expensive than Barden, and you're on a scholarship: don't waste that. And that's not just the part of me that screens people for promotions talking. I'm also talking about the fact that you just have one year left before you graduate." Aubrey reminded. "Who knows what'll happen then. Or even between this moment and your graduation. You don't know what you'll be up to or what you'd be doing."
Stacie's lips quirked. "Or what you'd be doing."
"Or," Aubrey agreed.
"As long as we're still doing each other," Stacie noted.
Aubrey let out a soft laugh. "That's the plan."
Stacie rolled her eyes. "But it's Barden. What even happens in Barden?"
Aubrey shrugged. "Maybe something will happen during your summer tour."
"It's collegiate a cappella," Stacie reminded dryly. "I seriously doubt anything too exciting can happen." She paused, and grinned: "Other than a hot girl displaying an ability to projectile vomit, but-"
Aubrey glared at her. "Remember that sex we're never having again?"
Stacie frowned at her. "Don't even joke about that."
"Pick your battles, Stacie."
Stacie rolled her eyes, but they digressed. "So that's a 'no' on me moving to New York next year?"
"That's a no." Aubrey confirmed.
"Pretty sure that could've gotten me some hot girlfriend points."
"Your girlfriend is practical."
Stacie smirked, moving closer to Aubrey and straddling her thighs. "Maybe you have some hot secret other girlfriend you don't want me to know about."
Aubrey rolled her eyes, even as she placed her hands on either side of Stacie's hips to hold her in place. "Sure. And when I'm not moving my schedule and finances around to keep my job and enjoy my relationship with you, I totes have fun with my imaginary second girlfriend."
"I'll claw her eyes out." Stacie declared.
"That's why I love you." Aubrey replied, smiling as Stacie leaned in to kiss her.
After a few moments, just when Aubrey slanted her head to deepen their kiss, Stacie pulled back and asked: "Breakfast?"
Aubrey whined. "Now?"
"Store up some energy." Stacie mused.
Aubrey sighed, but couldn't argue. She nodded, and they soon found themselves in the kitchen of the main house, with Stacie preparing coffee while Aubrey prepared some scrambled eggs.
Not soon after, probably smelling the food, the girls sleeping in the living room area of the house started to stir.
"Look at who came up for air," Beca teased as she and a handful of Bellas joined Aubrey and Stacie at the dining table. It was an overstatement, but she wasn't completely exaggerating about the fact that the Bellas haven't seen much of Aubrey or Stacie during the week. "Good to know you're not completely subsisting on sex."
Stacie shrugged and deadpanned, "Tuck your toner back in your pants, Beca, she's mine."
There was a pause, a collective moment of stunned silence around the table, Aubrey's shoulders started to shake, betraying her amusement, which then allowed the other Bellas to express their own amusement; however Beca turned bright red in response. "That's- No. No!"
"It's okay, Beca, there's no shame in admitting you're into Aubrey," Stacie said comfortingly.
"You're going to give her a complex." Jessica warned.
"Or emotional trauma." Beca protested.
"But, Beca, we had whiskey shots together," Aubrey said earnestly, unable to help herself from teasing the other girl and using Beca's own reminder of their grudging friendship in the process.
"I hate you all." Beca grumbled, grabbing a piece of toast from the table and biting into it, hunching over as if someone would fight her for the piece of bread.
"Last two days in California," Cynthia Rose noted. "What should we do?"
"I don't know," Stacie mused, glancing over at Aubrey. "Bree?"
Aubrey's attention, however, was on her phone, which had sounded with an incoming message. She frowned, and distractedly told the others at the table, "I have to take this." She stood up, letting her hand drift over Stacie's shoulder as she passed the seated girl on her way out the patio doors.
Stacie watched her go, lips pulling into a pout, before she shook her head, and turned to her friends. "We'll probably end up hanging out with Jill again."
"Or you could hang out with us and not your girlfriend, like you have been the whole week." Jessica pointed out, to Lilly's agreeing nod.
Stacie scoffed, laughing lightly as she said in defense, "I haven't been spending that much time with Aubrey."
The statement was met with looks of incredulity, as the Bellas have hardly actually seen or hung out with Stacie since she and Aubrey made up.
"I haven't!" Stacie protested.
"We went to a club the other night," Ashley told her.
"And Chloe made us check out the installations yesterday," Jessica added. Beside her, Lilly added something that for all their efforts, none of them could discern.
Beca turned to Stacie as she reached for a new piece of toast, and reiterated, enunciating the syllables slowly, "we looked at the installations."
Stacie tried not to smile at the horror in Beca's tone.
Cynthia Rose addressed Stacie. "Point is, we've hung out."
"Face it, Stace, you're that girl now." Denise teased.
Stacie opened her mouth and closed it, unsure of how to proceed, until she settled on: "Well, my girlfriend's hot and I'm getting laid, so."
Jessica gave her a mocking thumbs-up. "Clever burn."
"Shut up." Stacie retorted as Chloe joined them at the table. Chloe glanced around, taking the piece of toast from Beca's hands, and settled on the seat Aubrey had abandoned.
"Dude." Beca frowned, reaching for more toast.
"What are we talking about?" Chloe asked curiously.
"What to do for our last two days." Denise told her.
"Didn't Fat Amy want us to go to a party at a hotel somewhere?" Chloe asked.
"We're trying to convince Stacie to hang with us and not Aubrey." Jessica added.
Chloe glanced at Stacie, and then turned to the rest of the Bellas. "The options are to hang with us or keep getting laid? I love each and every one of you, but I'm gonna vote for sex."
"Yes." Stacie held up her hand, and accepted the high five Chloe gave her.
"Gross, you don't know where that hand's been." Beca muttered.
"She's sleeping with Aubrey," Chloe reminded. "Hygiene is observed, no matter what."
Beca shook her head. "I did not need to know that."
"Nobody did." Jessica agreed.
"But seriously, where have you been?" Ashley asked Stacie.
"We know you and Aubrey went out yesterday, so we're almost sure you haven't just been 'catching up' in the pool house," Chloe added.
Stacie wanted to tell them all about the progress she and Aubrey have been making, catching up both literally and metaphorically, but she found herself unwilling to share more than a few arbitrary details about her relationship with Aubrey, so instead she admitted, "We've mostly just been hanging out."
Jessica queried, "With Jill?"
"And a bunch of other people." Stacie added.
"I thought we didn't like Jill." Ashley voiced, turning to Chloe inquiringly.
Chloe lifted her hand in the air, as if to indicate how she didn't know, either, and Stacie tried to guess what exactly went down between Aubrey and Chloe and their fight after Jill's party.
Ashley's hand darted out, and prevented Lilly from consulting her phone to confirm whether or not they should hate Jill. She shook her head when Lilly articulated this.
"Trina wants to hang out, maybe Aubrey wouldn't mind doing that," Beca suggested, although Stacie couldn't tell if Beca was bringing it up for her benefit, or if she, too, had noticed the way Aubrey and Chloe were both trying to avoid spending time together or Chloe's active avoidance of the older former Barden coeds also living in the house. It was a sticking point that made Stacie wonder what had been said during Chloe's argument with Aubrey, because while things seemed fine on the surface, she knew both Aubrey and Chloe missed each other, and it was weird that they weren't finding time to spend more time away from the other girls.
Then again, Aubrey was obviously making it a point to spend as much time as possible with Stacie, so it wasn't implausible for her best friend to let her do that without making a fuss.
Stacie watched Aubrey on the opposite side of the patio doors, and considered the fact that they only had a few days left before they had to return to their regular lives.
Stacie hadn't been entirely half-assing her earlier proposition to Aubrey - even if she hadn't had most of the details ironed out yet – but she would be lying if she said she wasn't a little relieved Aubrey had shot the idea down. She wanted to spend more time with Aubrey, but she knew uprooting and moving her life wasn't the most sensible solution.
She just wished there was a way for them to see each other more without being dependent on Aubrey's job to bring her near Barden.