"You know," Stacie said, examining the interior of the car briefly before turning to Aubrey, "I don't think I've mentioned this, but you really should have told me your dog sleeps on your bed."

Aubrey smiled weakly. "I thought you would've noticed he has an affinity for furniture."

Stacie rolled her eyes, and glanced out the car as she declared, "If we get a pet, it's not allowed on our bed."

When there was no forthcoming response from Aubrey, Stacie turned face her and found the blonde looking at her with a pensive expression. Perplexed as to what made Aubrey so deep in thought, she questioned: "What?"

Aubrey shook her head dismissively, and smiled at her. "No pets, got it."

"No pets on beds," Stacie hastily corrected. "Yes pets. Yay pets. I love all the pets. I want all the pets."

"This is noted," Aubrey laughed. She pointed to something outside of the windshield. "I hate to sound like your mom, but if you want a pet you're gonna have to get on that bus and go back to school."

Stacie glanced out at the indicated bus, checking the time of its departure and glancing back at Aubrey. They have been at the bus station for some time already, even after a lengthy detour en route to the station for their goodbyes, but still neither of them were willing or felt inclined to separate just yet, though Stacie had a class early the next day and Aubrey had to pack her things for the company retreat.

"Why can't you drive me to Barden?" Stacie asked.

"It's kind of pointless to go all the way to Atlanta and then head back north," Aubrey pointed out. "And honestly I'm not sure I trust you in this car for any length of time."

Stacie glared at her. "I like cars."

"I can tell." Aubrey nodded. She paused, and turned to Stacie in curiosity. "Is it the engineering of an internal combustion engine, or is it because of the speed and power of any motor vehicle?"

"Don't make fun."

"Babe, you really like cars," Aubrey commented lightly. "It's cute, really, but it's also… well, a little disconcerting, actually."

Stacie gave her a dry look. "I hope you enjoyed the sex we're never having again."

"What, in a car?" Aubrey quipped, and then yelped when Stacie lightly punched her shoulder. She couldn't help but laugh and query, "So what is it about you and cars? Is it autoerotic?"

"As long as it's not carjacking," Stacie retorted. "You suck so hard right now."

Aubrey smiled at her, her previous amusement and teasing fading as she regarded Stacie. "I'm glad you came."

Stacie shot her a look.

"I'm glad you showed up?" Aubrey amended, understanding the possible misinterpretation of her statement and trying hard not to laugh. "And I'm sorry Kathryn had to call you."

Stacie reached over, and took Aubrey's hand in her own. "Next time, you call me."

"I'm kind of hoping there won't be a next time," Aubrey admitted.

"Yeah? And how likely is that?" Stacie questioned.

Aubrey nodded in acknowledgment of the mild accusation, since they both knew the truth of the matter. "Not very, but a girl can hope."

Stacie smiled, and shook her head. "Maybe you should consider other jobs."

"Not a lot of jobs would pay me to do what I do." Aubrey pointed out.

Stacie shrugged. "So maybe it shouldn't be about the money."

Aubrey glanced at her, a little suspicious. "Why do you sound like my mom right now?"

"Babe, that's gross." Stacie remarked flatly. "And you started it."

"Gross." Aubrey echoed Stacie's observation.

"I'm just saying," Stacie asserted, gliding past the awkwardness, "I haven't heard you talking about your job like you enjoy it since you got kinda-promoted. You've been super stressed out, and honestly, you're like the last person who needs the extra anxiety in your life. Especially since your job also keeps you away from your awesome source of stress relief." At that last part, she pointed at herself, as if Aubrey needed that clarified.

Aubrey conceded Stacie's point, and she allowed, "Well, let's find out what the fall out is from Nashville, right? I either get promoted or they keep me at a desk for the time being, I might not even need to give it too much thought."

"But first, you're gonna go have fun in the woods," Stacie agreed.

"Stacie, seriously, I don't know how much camping you've done in your life, but mud and mosquitoes." Aubrey reminded. "There is no 'fun' to be had."

"Find your fun." Stacie replied. She noticed a man in his bus driver uniform approach the bus she and Aubrey were watching, consulting his clipboard, and she sighed. "Looks like I'm up." She leaned over, and gave Aubrey a kiss. "Have fun at your retreat."

"Mud and mosquitoes." Aubrey reiterated.

"Love you." Stacie replied, before reluctantly pulling away to grab her bag and left the car. Before she closed the door, however, she turned back to Aubrey. "Just so we're clear, this is your car, right? We haven't been defiling your grandparents' car?"

"You want me to lie to you right now?"

"Aubrey!"

Aubrey laughed. "It's my car. And am I now going to have to worry you're dating me for my car?'

"I don't love you that much." Stacie retorted. She paused, and then obliged, "It is a nice car, though." She winked at Aubrey and purred, "Very nice."

"Don't perv on my car." Aubrey requested, and pointed at the bus. "Get on your bus, nerd."

Stacie laughed, and waved goodbye. "See you at the ICCAs!"

The ICCA Finals, which was fast approaching and only Chloe seemed to be hyper-focused on, only served to reinforce Stacie's suspicion that the redhead was not feeling particularly inclined to graduate any time soon. But at least most of the finalists were the same names they had encountered in previous years, and all a cappella watchers still held the Bellas as clear favorites, with the Treblemakers a distant second; not to mention that with Beca's new lease on music influences and this being their third year as a group making it to the finals, they were pretty confident as a team on their chances of replicating their past success.

"Stacie," Fat Amy called one afternoon, when Stacie entered the kitchen to get something to drink, and smiled at Stacie when Stacie turned to join the brainstorming session a handful of Bellas were having at their dining table. "Do you have requests?"

Stacie opened her mouth to answer, but then shut it closed, pausing, unsure of what that question was about.

"We are planning our summer tour," Flo explained.

Stacie nodded in understanding, as they had always included their own preferred performances in addition to the performance dates they were obligated to include as ICCA champions. If they lost – which Stacie doubted, but stranger things have happened – then they could remedy their bruised egos with performances to adoring fans.

And by "adoring fans" that meant stops in their home states and perform for friends and family, but she digressed.

"Where's Aubrey going to be at this summer?" Cynthia Rose queried.

"Who knows." Stacie replied, shaking her head. "She can come to me."

A handful of the girls snorted their amusement, and Fat Amy mused, "That's what she said."

Stacie rolled her eyes before she glanced over her friend's shoulder at the list. After a moment of reading, she frowned. "Those are a lot of stops."

"Chloe said she doesn't want a repeat of what happened two years ago." Jessica explained. At Stacie's confused look, she expounded, "With Aubrey graduating and taking a job right after graduation, missing the tour and stuff. She figures we'll do this now, since Denise is the only one graduating this year."

Oh. Right. Stacie hesitated, and subtly glanced around the room for Denise, and then wondering where their absent teammate was. She knew Denise had previously sent Aubrey her resumé, but after that she'd been kept out of the loop regarding that interaction. And, honestly, Stacie tried to avoid the topic, careful not to know too much about it so she wouldn't have to lie to any of the other Barden Bellas, particularly Chloe.

"Those aren't the final stops, though," Jessica quickly added, when Stacie didn't acknowledge what she'd said right away. "Since Ashley has an internship she's already promised to do and I have that summer job at home."

But Stacie had a feeling that with Chloe insistent on an honest-to-goodness tour, and Beca probably inevitably backing her up – not to mention Fat Amy already complying with making an extended list of possible tour stops, they were probably in for an exhausting summer tour.

So she was going to have to figure out new and inventive ways to convince Aubrey to make time so they could at least spend some of the Barden summer break together. Because while she loved hanging out with the Bellas, she also lived with them throughout the school year, and if things continued the way they were going, who really knew when she'd be able to have time to really spend the summer with Aubrey.

Aubrey, who had taken all of an hour into her first day at her retreat before sending Stacie a series of text messages complaining about mud, mosquitoes, and the fact that the team she had been assigned to had elected her as their leader almost immediately.

And the fact that she had been wrong about one factor regarding the retreat: instead of bad internet service, they were, instead, dealt with no connection at all.

Stacie knew the retreat was supposed to last a whole week, but considering the trend in the messages Aubrey was sending her – including one only mildly cursing, obviously relieved there was running water and electricity in the site – then Stacie was a little worried over the state her girlfriend (her teammates, and whomever was in charge of the retreat) would be in by the end of said week.

At least, there was decent cellular reception.

"What's the damage?" Stacie joked, one night when Aubrey called her.

"We're not doing trust exercises anymore, so things are looking up." Aubrey grumbled.

"That's a real thing, huh?"

Aubrey sighed. "Yes. But whoever put together this program has obviously never worked with our kind of team because- Is that a spider?"

On instinct, Stacie ducked and glanced behind her, but then realized she and Aubrey weren't on video, which made her ask: "What?"

"Just a sec." Aubrey told her, before she instructed someone on her end of the call not to move.

Stacie waited as she heard Aubrey's instruction to be greeted with chaos and pandemonium – apparently even midlevel corporate managers freaked out in the presence of a spider – before she heard Aubrey yell at everyone to stop and shut up.

Followed by a lengthy silence, ending when someone yelled: "Ow! What the fuck, assholes?"

"Hey." Aubrey greeted back into the phone.

"Do I want to know?" Stacie asked, but already laughing.

"Spider."

"You hit that guy?"

Aubrey chuckled. "Bunch of us did."

"Was the yelling necessary?"

"Maybe."

Stacie exhaled loudly. "You know what your yelling does to me."

"We really need to talk about your weird kinks, Stacie Conrad." Aubrey mused.

Stacie paused, and offered in warning, "Are you sure? Because I don't mind, we haven't done the phone sex thing in a while, and don't get me wrong, knowing you want to talk dirty with people around's kind of hot, but I thought you and your team were sharing a cabin."

A pause, this time on Aubrey's end, and then Aubrey slowly admitted, "I was talking in general, but I think we're including this in your list of weird kinks."

"I thought we've established I'm plenty–" Stacie groaned. "Shut up."

"It's cute."

"It's good you think so, since I'm gonna have to try and draw it out and prolong the slow reveal." Stacie retorted. "You're gonna have to keep dating me for a while, Posen."

"You know, I think I'd like that."

Stacie smiled. She settled on her seat at the front steps of the house, enjoying the light breeze she knew would be soon be forgotten, when the Atlanta summer set in. "So what makes you think your camp counselor's never worked with a bunch of upstart junior executives for an international conglomerate?"

"The fact that this is supposed to encourage us to work on our teamwork skills but no idea how to do that when we're all from different departments and offices is a glaring factor," Aubrey sighed.

Stacie frowned. "Yeah, that doesn't make sense."

"It's easy to encourage being a team when you work together and see each other every day," Aubrey pointed out. "What we have to do is a little harder."

"So try to make it work with how they do it."

"Stacie, not all teams work the same way."

"So how does your work?"

"Well, for one thing, when you work at our level, it's not about everybody getting along, it's about getting the job done."

"Cutthroat." Stacie observed.

"Yeah, but that's what makes us good at what we do." Aubrey stated.

"Can't you talk to your camp counselor?"

"You're really gonna call them that?"

"Yes." Stacie responded flatly.

"I don't know. Everybody's just happy to be out of the office."

"Including you?" Stacie asked. "Is there anything about the retreat that you even like?"

"The outdoors are nice." Aubrey conceded. After a beat, she added, "Although a part of that might be the fact that we all know our lives is nothing but cubicles and computer screens if we weren't here."

Stacie rolled her eyes. "Enjoy the great outdoors, Aubrey. Run with wolves, or whatever. Eat some s'mores."

"Fine." Aubrey let out a long-suffering sigh. "But what about you? What are you and the Bellas up to?"

"Planning the summer tour."

"Fun."

"Chloe has it in her head we should do a big one this year." Stacie told her.

"Because you're graduating next year?" Aubrey surmised.

Stacie paused, and thought – not for the first time – that she had no idea how Aubrey and Chloe could be so different and at the same time be so alike. "Yes."

"Send me a postcard, I guess?"

Stacie rolled her eyes, because Aubrey could be the worst at flirtation. "Let me tell you where we want to make stops."

"You know I probably won't make it to any of your stops, right?"

"Shut up and pay attention."

"Okay."

It was a lot like the early stages of their relationship, when Aubrey had a vague idea of the places she would be traveling to and the two of them making arrangements to meet; except there was a lot less subterfuge and just an honest hope for them to possibly spend some time together.

But Stacie knew the deal, and she knew that if any of Aubrey's predictions were true, then Aubrey would either be promoted, which would make the nature of her job more busy than it already was, or she would be concentrating on areas far from the southeastern USA, since what had happened in Nashville had made headlines. And Stacie understood, from what Aubrey had told her, that the following weeks would be hectic and that she would be swamped at work, the retreat possibly the last time Aubrey would be in the southeast region for the next few weeks.

So it was a source of great confusion and perplexity when she woke up one morning and found Aubrey sleeping on Chloe's bed.