She had heard the songs included in the Barden Bellas' finals set before, having been present for rehearsals that weekend before her employer kept her confined to New York; she had even seen the costume, albeit not while it was being worn; and she knew how good the Bellas were.

Aubrey had seen the Bellas perform at the ICCAs the previous year, and had been pleasantly surprised at how much better they had become in her absence, attributing their vast improvement to Chloe's ear for catchy music brilliantly coinciding with Beca's ability to mix genres, as well as the individual contributions of the other Bellas.

And still, she was in awe of their set for the current ICCA finals, tamping down on her envy of how good they had become, the way the group just gelled and made a mockery of calling it a competition.

And, yes, seeing the costume as it was supposed to be worn – and indubitably very well worn by one Stacie Conrad – had Aubrey leaning forward and gripping the arm of her seat tightly.

Beside her, Dan was endlessly amused. "You know you're already dating her."

Aubrey didn't take her eyes off the stage. "It's like she gets hotter each time I see her."

"You're ridiculous."

Aubrey chose to ignore him, that time. But at least Dan understood how important it was to both Aubrey and Stacie for Aubrey to be present at the Lincoln Center for that year's ICCA Finals – and Stacie's awareness of Aubrey's attendance – which was why Aubrey had chosen him to bring along, instead of any of her other friends in the city.

And Dan knew just how ridiculous Aubrey's crush on her girlfriend was, so if Aubrey let out a small whimper when Stacie briefly made a show of pushing up her breasts and winked in their direction before falling back in formation, well, Dan could only pat Aubrey's back in sympathy.

When Aubrey's torture was over, she slumped back in her seat, with a slightly flushed complexion, and turned to look at Dan.

Who grinned back at her. "Need a cigarette?"

He could tell she was trying to glare at him, but the whiplash of the show she'd just endured obviously still lingered in her mind. Instead, she only shook her head.

"I'll admit, I'm kind of getting this whole college a cappella thing now," he allowed.

Aubrey paused, and gave him a sidelong glance.

He caught it, and hazarded, "No hitting on your Bellas?"

"Yes." She emphasized the declaration with the same glare that once had local executives cowering and submitting to her will.

"Okay." He said quickly. He paused for a second before inquiring, "What are we doing on Wednesday?"

Aubrey raised an eyebrow at him.

"Your last day? Are we torching your desk, do you want me to hire a marching band?" Dan suggested. "Seventy-six trombones?"

"I have a meeting in Atlanta on Friday."

"You know you're supposed to dwell on the unemployment a little." Dan remarked.

Aubrey shook her head. "I don't know how it's going to go, but Stacie and I agreed to spend as much time as possible together before their summer tour starts and my job hunting starts in earnest."

Dan rolled his eyes, because he'd been in Aubrey's position before, and he knew exactly how in demand Oversight members were to the competition. "How many offers do you have?"

"Five, but that's not the point."

Dan frowned. "Only five?"

"Only five who are willing to buy out the non-compete."

Dan whistled. He'd had the same number last year, but he had been working in Oversight for at least five years longer than Aubrey. Then again, he hadn't been in as many high-profile projects as his friend. "And?"

"And I don't know," Aubrey admitted. "I don't want to burn too many bridges in leaving. And it's too much a betrayal, I think."

Dan had to agree. So he changed topics. "You could spend a few weeks being a Bella groupie and tag along with your girlfriend on their tour."

"Me and my girlfriend and her nine friends in a bus?" Aubrey said dryly.

"Sounds like fun." He paused, giving it some consideration, and smiled wistfully. "Yeah."

Aubrey hit him with the ICCA program in silent reprimand, which Dan took as a sign that the topic of discussion was closed.

Dan wouldn't say it was a foregone conclusion, but Aubrey clearly had a favorite in the competition, and admittedly, none of the other performers had delivered a set as riveting as the Barden Bellas, so when they were declared winners, well, he wasn't really surprised.

"How awesome were we?" Stacie asked them as she approached, still dressed in her performance costume, grinning brightly and in an obvious state of victory-caused euphoria. Not waiting for an answer, she zeroed in on her girlfriend, and before Aubrey could even begin to formulate a response, had the blonde swept up in an embrace, lips pressed together and hands in borderline inappropriate places.

Dan never grew tired of seeing this entirely new side to Aubrey, whom he had first met when she had joined Oversight as a girl from one of their subsidiaries' management factory, a graduate from some no-name university and somehow got the attention of their leader and Vice-President; whom they had all let sink or swim from the deepest end of the metaphorical pool. She had been cold and calculating, her ambition all but worn on her sleeve; they had all seen the video from that disastrous ICCA Final that should have been Aubrey's ultimate shame, but to their collective horror, Aubrey had simply asked them to consider how she had gone from the girl who threw up all over an audience to a position in a Fortune 500 company's Oversight Committee.

It took a while for Dan to figure her out, for them to become friends and not just coworkers who hung out sometimes, but he knew enough.

So he'd known about the dysfunction of her supposed relationships, and why almost exactly a year ago, with Aubrey facing likely confrontations from two such relationships, and in the wake of a bad week at one of their offices, he had suggested checking out the ICCA Finals at the Lincoln Center.

It had been clear, even then, that she'd missed her former teammates, but Aubrey was a tough nut to crack, and he had watched her more than he had watched the performances; he hadn't known what he had been looking for back then, but it had given him some insight into his new friend.

Because after the whole thing, after she had dodged his suggestion of her catching up with her friends, there had been a steely resolve in her countenance. He hadn't understood it at the time, but in hindsight it must have been the earliest stirrings of an epiphany, or at least some self-reflection.

And she hadn't even needed a near-heart attack to gain that insight.

And it had gotten so much easier to interact with Aubrey and talk to her with her guard down in the past year, ever since she had escaped to Philadelphia and came back to New York with a strange sense of calm that he hadn't figured out at the time.

And then one day she started talking about Stacie.

So it was nice to see Aubrey so obviously smitten and unabashedly affectionate; if maybe a little too affectionate, if the way their little display was quickly escalating.

"Congratulations," Dan said loudly, which seemed to do the trick in interrupting them, if Aubrey's glare and Stacie's look of amusement in his direction were any indication. "I don't know a lot about a cappella, but that was pretty great, Stacie."

"Great?" Stacie repeated, scoffing. "We were awesome. Amazing, even. Or more accurately," she added, grinning at Aubrey, "we were aca-mazing."

Aubrey grinned back, the two of them obviously sharing a joke.

Stacie bit her lip, smiling coyly at Aubrey, and asked, "What are you doing after this?"

The answer, not that Aubrey ever had a real say to the contrary, was celebrating the Bellas' win, pregaming at one of the Bellas' hotel rooms, and then at a club the group somehow managed to get into without getting carded – the benefits, Aubrey supposed, of being champions of an unknown entity as competitive collegiate a cappella – where Amy managed to wrangle them into the VIP lounge and Stacie kept her from glaring too much at the handful of Treblemakers the other Bellas had invited along.

"Stacie," Beca interrupted, a note of hesitation in her voice, "you and Aubrey could maybe tone it down?"

Stacie broke the kiss she'd been sharing with Aubrey and glanced at her, ignoring the chorus of mild complaint around them, and shrugged. "Endorphin overload."

"We could just start charging for the show," Amy suggested.

"Or not," Aubrey replied, frowning at her. She pat Stacie's side. "We have the rest of the night."

Stacie pouted.

"I have to talk to Denise, anyway." Aubrey added. "And I'm getting a real drink; you'll have your usual?"

"Please and thank you," Stacie preened, and pecked Aubrey's lips in a quick kiss before she grabbed Beca's hand and forcibly pulled her to the dance floor, followed almost immediately by Ashley, Amy, Cynthia Rose, Flo and Lilly. Chloe shot a suspicious look in Aubrey's direction before she, too, stood up to join her friends.

After a beat, the Treblemakers seemed to collectively realize they had been left with the Bellas' former terror of a captain and quickly left.

Over the course of the night, whenever she wasn't dancing with Stacie or unsuccessfully trying not to make out too heavily with her, Aubrey kept an eye out on the other Bellas out on the dance floor, and at one point realized that whoever was manning the door wasn't being very discerning in who he let inside, as other members of the other competing a cappella groups had also arrived, and it was almost like one big ICCA soiree.

And she gets it, really, collegiate a cappella was a relatively small world and people tended to become friends, if not friendly acquaintances, over time.

Still, though, she realized belatedly that she wished she'd brought Dan along for the party, because he was one of only two other people who knew she had been at the ICCA finals the previous year, and he had been with her for every second of last year's experience.

Because as the Bellas mingled with their defeated competitors, one guy sidled up to Stacie and started chatting her up.

And Stacie, who was overly friendly and easily defaulted to flirty banter around people, seemed to be completely unaware of who she was talking to.

And that was true, for about a minute or two, until the realization sank in and Stacie quickly ducked out of the conversation, making it as clear as she possibly could that she wasn't looking for a repeat of their flirtation last year. She wished she had an eidetic memory, to avoid the situation she had just escaped, but that just wasn't in her wheelhouse and she wished she didn't have to worry when Aubrey wasn't at the couch where the Bellas had been hanging out.

Stacie frowned, and glanced around the club, hoping to catch sight of her girlfriend, except the place wasn't the most well-lit, and there were too many blondes in the room. She turned to Jessica, who didn't seem inclined to join the dancing, and was happily sipping on her drink. "Where did Aubrey go?"

Jessica pointed in the direction of the bar. "She went to talk to someone."

Stacie reined in her jealousy, careful not to jump to conclusions, because, 1) if Jessica was being accurate, Aubrey had just gone to talk to someone, and 2) Stacie had just been doing the same thing, and a mere twelve months ago Stacie had actually slept with the guy she'd just been talking to/kind of flirting with, so she had to give Aubrey the same benefit of doubt she really hoped Aubrey would be giving her.

Besides, she needed to refill her drink, so she had totally valid reasons to look for the bar.

Once she caught sight of Aubrey, though, Stacie had to tamp down on her jealousy some more, because Aubrey was engaged in a conversation with a woman who wore an indecently-tight red dress that left little to the imagination, and Stacie could tell, from Aubrey's posture and the way she was carrying herself, that this was not some simple casual conversation.

Stacie watched as Aubrey handed the woman her card, while the woman took a napkin from the bar and wrote down something before handing it to Aubrey.

Benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt.

"Who was that?" Stacie demanded, the minute the woman left Aubrey at the bar.

"Well, Lisa owns the bar," Aubrey told her, and then showed Stacie the napkin with the number written on it. "We haven't seen each other in a while, and we agreed to be better at keeping in touch."

Stacie arched an eyebrow at Aubrey, waiting for further explanation.

"We used to hang out – or at least run in the same social circles together - until she went to rehab and I started dating a former intern."

"That label, again."

"The circles I hang out in? They understand the implications of just what it means that I'm actually dating, and not just randomly hooking up with, an intern." Aubrey explained.

"Okay, fine, but what did she want?" Stacie asked sharply, glancing in the direction 'Lisa' had disappeared to. d

Aubrey smiled, recognizing the signs of jealousy easily. "She gave me an open invitation to this bar and the restaurant her dad owns."

Stacie arched an eyebrow. "Did she miss the part where you're dating someone?"

Aubrey rolled her eyes. Stacie wanted to play the jealousy card? She could do that, too. "You want to tell me why you were flirting with the guy from Berkeley?"

Stacie's cheeks flamed, having momentarily forgotten her split-second (two-minute) indiscretion, and hastened to explain, "I didn't recognize him. I know, I shouldn't be flirty with people not named Aubrey Posen, but it's just easier, they don't ask too many questions or make stupid comments about threesomes – don't murder anyone – and honestly it's just reflex now, but I can stop, I guess, if you really want me to… Not that I'm saying you're trying to change me! I just mean, I don't want to give you a reason to be, I don't know, mad or pissed that I'm flirting with total randos, but it doesn't mean anything, I swear, I just-"

"Go out with me tomorrow night?" Aubrey cut her off, slightly amused, but also wanting to end Stacie's self-recriminating stream of thought.

"What?"

"I'm asking you out on a date." Aubrey explained.

"But my accidental flirting…"

"Was accidental, I know. I was just giving you a hard time." Aubrey reassured her.

"Baby, you're being very confusing right now," Stacie said, glad for the reprieve but feeling slightly petulant.

"I know you're a flirt, Stacie. It's part of why people are so easily drawn to you." Aubrey replied. "I don't think you even realize normal conversations with you can sound like flirting sometimes."

"No it doesn't."

"Babe, I love you, but you can crank your charm up to eleven without missing a beat."

Stacie frowned. "You say that, but I was flirting with you for a year and you didn't notice."

Aubrey had to laugh as she reassured Stacie, "Oh, I noticed. I didn't know how to do anything about it, and it caused a few restless nights, but trust me when I tell you: I noticed."

Stacie pouted.

"Stop pouting, I'm asking you out on a date." Aubrey reminded. "Actually, everything's set, so I'm really actually telling you we have a date tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Stacie echoed.

"We have a reservation at six. I'll pick you up."

Stacie paused, and hazarded, "But… I'm spending the night with you, right?" She bit her lip. "I'm still getting victory sex?"

Aubrey smiled at her. "I have to do something at the office tomorrow, so I'm going to have to pick you up for the date."

Stacie let that sink in, and she realized Aubrey was trying to follow through on a promise she'd made previously about setting up a date when the Bellas made it to New York. She grinned. "I'd love to go out on a date with you."

Aubrey beamed, and buoyed with optimism, asked: "Want to get out of here?"

Stacie nodded eagerly.