A/N: Thanks for your comments/faves thus far! To those wondering - yes, this is a real quiz borne of a real study!
"Okay. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?" Chloe asks.
"I think I'd ask it if I was on the right path for happiness."
"You wouldn't ask to see your future?"
"No," Beca says with a shake of her head. "I wouldn't want to know my future. I feel like that would lead to anxiety or depression or something. I'd constantly be worried I was going to do something to mess up what my future was supposed to be instead of living my life. What about you?" She reaches for the bag of chips and rips it open at the seam to offer it to Chloe before helping herself.
"I'd want to see the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with."
Beca thinks about that: someone spending the rest of their life with Chloe. She thinks that would be pretty great. She doesn't press Chloe to defend her answer and instead reads the next question. "Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?"
Chloe seems wholly unprepared for the question and almost does a spit take with her beer. "Oh, wow."
"Guess you must have a good answer for this one." Beca's intrigue is quick to die when she realizes she's going to have to answer the same question.
"Um," Chloe says as she coughs. "Yes, and because I don't want to risk ruining a good thing. Go."
Beca wants more detail because that was exactly what she was going to say, but the question was posed as a yes or no answer and she isn't going to want Chloe to needle her for more information. "Yeah. I don't want to ruin a good thing either."
Her answer sits between them until she looks away; it feels too much like they were thinking the same thing with their identical answers, but Beca's mostly, relatively, fairly certain Chloe hasn't been holding back from kissing her for fear of ruining their friendship.
Because that's definitely what Beca's dreamt of doing for a long time.
"Do you want to get some air?" Chloe asks as she stands and heads for the sliding glass door that leads to her small balcony. There's only enough space for two chairs, but it's served them well so far. They've spent countless evenings there, talking, drinking, smoking, laughing, crying.
"Yeah, okay." Beca stands to follow. "Should I bring the…"
"If you want." Chloe's already outside when she answers.
Beca decides to grab the notebook and she joins Chloe, who's leaning on the railing, bent as her head rests on her crossed arms. "You okay?"
Chloe unfolds herself with a sigh and finishes with a stretch of her arms above her head. "I'm fine," she says as she turns to greet Beca with a smile. She does look fine and not at all affected as she had a minute earlier. "My turn, right?" she asks and then takes a drink as she holds out her hand for Beca to place the notebook in it. She flips the page. "What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?"
"You'd probably like it if I said winning Worlds and saving the Bellas from being shut down forever."
"Yeah, but I'd rather know what your real answer is." Chloe takes a seat and gestures for Beca to do the same.
"That's probably your answer anyway," Beca teases while she finishes thinking and sits. "I think it's too early in my life to have the greatest accomplishment. I don't know. I guess I'm pretty proud of finishing school instead of dropping out like I'd planned to do. I didn't think I'd be any good at it."
"What, college?"
"Yeah. I guess I did okay."
"You helped me graduate. Well, eventually," Chloe adds with a laugh. "So I think that's a fine thing to consider your greatest accomplishment."
"Couldn't leave you behind, now could I?" Beca says with a glance in Chloe's direction. The sun has long set and they're basically sitting in the dark, but there's enough light from the city that she can see Chloe's gentle, shy smile as she looks down at her lap. "So what about yours? Was I right?"
"Mm, no, sorry." Chloe shakes her head. "I was a bone marrow donor once? It wasn't anyone I knew, but I signed up for the donor registry when I turned 18 and they called me like three months later. Some little girl had leukemia and I came up as a match."
"Whoa, really?"
"Mhm. So I went in and had the procedure. I never met her; she lived in Pittsburgh. But they said she went into remission after the transplant."
Beca watched Chloe smile to herself as she told the story. It was awesome. Literally. "Dude, you saved someone's life?" She reaches across the space between them and puts her hand on Chloe's forearm. "That's...I don't even know what that is. Saying it's amazing doesn't seem...wait, how did I not know about this?"
Chloe laughs a little and glances her way. "I was way too self-absorbed and obsessed with winning when we met to think to tell you about something like that. And by the time I wasn't...it's not really something you bring up in casual conversation."
Beca lets her thumb glide over Chloe's skin. "So this quiz is a thinly veiled excuse to boast about your heroics."
"Ya got me." She places her free hand over Beca's and holds it there as they share a laugh. She bounces the notebook sitting on her lap with her knee. "Okay, hit me with the next one."
"M'kay." Beca scoots her chair closer so she can keep her hand resting on Chloe; Chloe seems to like it there, so Beca's not going to take it away except to snag the notebook. "What do you value most in a friendship?"
"Honesty." Chloe's answer is quick and she almost seems to regret it. She doesn't take it back, but she does seem to laugh at herself and shake her head. "What about you?"
Beca's sure in her answer. "Loyalty."
Chloe nods as though she expected or agrees with her response. "Pass it."
"You know, usually when you ask me that out here, it's not a notebook I'm passing you." Beca tosses the notebook into Chloe's lap and watches her laugh.
"Okay," Chloe says. "What is your most treasured memory?"
Beca raps her fingernails along the neck of her glass bottle as she thinks. "Remember my pie for dinner?"
"Your dad's homemade apple pie," Chloe confirms.
"Right. He and my mom, they taught me how to make it before they...well, before," she finishes. She considers going into more detail, and maybe sometime she will tell Chloe about the flour fight that her mom started while they were making the pie crust or how her dad cut his thumb slicing apples. But for now, she's shared enough of it. "What's yours?"
She watches Chloe smile to herself as she looks out over the balcony at the lights of the city and Beca knows she's remembering whatever it is.
"When I was seven, I was playing on the jungle gym at recess. Because I'm a classy lady, I was hanging upside down from it even though I was wearing a dress."
"Naturally."
"Naturally."
"You were wearing underwear I hope?"
"I said I'm a classy lady! They were my Tuesday panties."
"Was it actually Tuesday?"
"Beca!" Chloe laughs again. "Of course it was. Let me tell my story."
Beca holds her hands up and sits back in her chair. "Sorry. Proceed."
"Anyway, I was hanging upside down flashing the entire playground, so some uptight monitor rushed over to protect my honor or something by screaming at me to get down. But my dress was over my head so I didn't know she was coming and it scared me so much I fell off and broke my arm."
"No!"
"Yes!"
"How is this your most treasured memory?"
"I'm getting to it," Chloe says as she puppets her hand at Beca to tell her to stop interrupting. "So of course I'm lying on the ground crying and Angelica Morrison comes running over - she was a fourth grader and I was in second grade - and holds my hand and tells me dumb knock-knock jokes while we walk to the school nurse. Even after the bell rang, they let her stay with me while I waited for my mom to pick me up to take me to the hospital. When I went back to school the next day, she was the first person I asked to sign my cast. I had to wait until our first recess of course because she was sooo much older than I was."
"I feel like I'm still waiting for the punchline."
"There's no punchline. She signed my cast and when she signed it, she signed it with a heart, like, 'heart comma Angelica,' and I was giddy for a week over it."
"Wait - did you have a crush on her or something?"
Chloe nods. "I was way too young to really know it, but yeah. At the time, it made me feel so special that she spent time with me and even was tardy because of me."
"That's actually really adorable," Beca says with a fond smile.
"And then we made out at Ian Andrews's homecoming party when I was in tenth grade and she was a senior and I never felt cooler than I did that night. Well, up until that point, anyway."
Beca laughs. "There's the punchline. Hooking up with a senior - congrats." She extends her arm to offer her bottle to Chloe to tap and they drink to it. She tries not to think about all the times she wanted to hook up with a certain college senior. "So is the high school make-out sesh the treasured memory?"
"No; it's the stuff that happened in elementary school. That was the first time I remember someone being really nice to me - like, the going out of their way to be nice to me kind of nice - who wasn't someone in my family. I remember deciding that I always wanted to do whatever I could to make people feel the same way."
Beca feels every thought she's had about Chloe's over-the-top niceties slot into place. It all makes sense now. "I think you've succeeded."
Chloe turns to her and Beca can see that the memory or moment has moved her. "Thank you." She sniffs. "You're next."
"Oh, what a mood killer," she says as she reads the question with regret. "Sorry. What is your most terrible memory?"
"Really?" Chloe says with a whine. "Brutal. Umm...probably the day my mom told me she had breast cancer."
Beca doesn't even know what to say to that, but now she understands more about Chloe's previous answers, though Chloe's mother is very much alive and Chloe's never mentioned her being in treatment and seemed healthy every time Beca met her. "She's okay now, right?" she hedges.
"Yeah, she's been in the clear for a long time."
"Okay. Good."
"Your turn to remember something horrible."
Chloe smiles a little as she says it and Beca's grateful. "Gee, thanks. And...yeah, I mean, it's what I'd change about growing up because it was pretty much the worst thing: the day my parents took me out for ice cream to tell me over hot fudge sundaes that they were getting divorced."
Chloe looks sympathetic, then seems to come to a conclusion of some sort. "Is that why you don't like ice cream?"
Beca's surprised Chloe connects those two very distant dots so quickly. "Um, yeah. I mean, I actually love it. But I got sick every time I ate it after that so I gave it up altogether."
"Wow, I'm sorry," Chloe murmurs.
"It's okay. I mean, it sucks, but it is what it is." Beca averts her eyes, worried too much eye contact right now will cause something already weak to break.
To her extreme relief, Chloe stands. "Okay, I'm calling a timeout. I'm cold and my beer's empty. Let's go back in?"
"Sure."
They make their way back into Chloe's apartment and Chloe excuses herself to the restroom. Beca busies herself while she's waiting to try not to think too much about...well, about everything. She gathers up the empty pizza box, used napkins, and spent bottles and bottle caps and leaves to make a trip down the hall to the trash chute. When she returns, she's a little surprised to see Chloe's changed into pajamas - polka-dotted knit shorts and a well-worn T-shirt at least one size too big - and waiting for her on the couch looking at her phone. She doesn't have fresh beers out for them, but there is a glass with an inch or two of amber-colored liquor and a trio of ice cubes in it.
"Getting comfortable, I see," Beca says. She gestures at herself. "Now I feel terribly overdressed." She's wearing jeans and a hoodie.
Chloe puts her phone down and smiles at her. "You look great." She jerks her thumb over her shoulder toward the closet. "But if you want to change, you can borrow something."
Beca considers it and then decides she'd rather be comfortable like Chloe and heads toward the door in the corner next to Chloe's bed. Chloe's closet is organized chaos but it's organized enough that Beca's able to find a pair of blue and white striped pants. She tosses them on Chloe's bed and starts to undo her jeans but she stops when she notices Chloe watching her.
"Sorry," Chloe says and looks away.
They stopped being shy around each other for things as mundane as changing clothes years ago; sharing dressing rooms and hotel rooms and a house for as long as they did make a trivial thing such as that an unnecessary waste of energy. Other than herself and maybe two other people, Chloe is the person Beca's seen naked the most. And it's not a bad sight.
She doubts the same is true for Chloe, though.
"You know I don't care, dude," she says casually, though she thinks she might be blushing and strips herself of her jeans to replace them with Chloe's pajama pants.
Chloe's fiddling with the hem of her shirt when Beca returns to the couch. "Didn't want you to think I was perving on you." She looks up at Beca and winks, easily sliding back into her confidence.
"I said I don't care," Beca says as she reclaims her seat and manages to wink back. She's surprised when it seems to fluster Chloe a little as she jerks to the side to grab her glass of liquor.
"I wasn't sure if you wanted to keep drinking - if you were planning on driving home tonight - so I didn't pour you one. But if you want -"
"No, I…" she pauses when she catches the way Chloe's eyes linger on her before sliding away as she takes a sip. "I'm good. I mean, I'm already…" she rocks her hand side to side to indicate she's tipsy. "I'm good for the night. I don't think I should drive."
"That's okay, you can stay here," Chloe says quickly with a bright smile.
There really was never any question about whether or not Beca would be spending the night tonight; it was a rarity that one of their hangouts didn't end up turning into a sleepover. Beca figured it was some type of old-habits-die-hard situation that carried over from their time together in college. By now, they both had personal belongings at one another's homes. Things like toothbrushes and back-up makeup and hair products. More than once, they'd discussed the need to leave clothes, too, but for some reason - Beca knew what her reason was - they kept "forgetting" to do that.
She really liked borrowing Chloe's clothes.
"Cool, thanks." There's a beat of silence and it almost turns awkward so Beca clears her throat and nods at the notebook on the table. "Your turn to ask, lady."
Chloe smiles at her and grabs the notebook. "Okay. It looks like we're going to keep going with the dark stuff: if you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living, and why?"
Beca hisses as she inhales and thinks. The question is not dark in the way she expected; it's not about death. It's about life. "Yeah, I…" She hesitates. "I...if I knew I was going to die in a year…" She repeats the question to buy time and then decides to say what first came to mind. "I…I'd ask you to move back in with me."
Chloe seems taken aback by her answer. "What? Why?"
She shrugs and tries to play it off as nonchalantly as she can, but she doesn't want to take it back. It was an honest answer, and Chloe does value honesty above all else in friendships. "If I only had a year left, I'd want to spend as much of it as I could with you - with my best friend." It's still a half-truth, though, and one dangerously close to the whole truth. Beca's unsure that this little quiz is going to help her keep that whole truth from slipping its way out of her grasp.
She thinks about how if you squeeze something too tightly, it might pop right out of your grip.
"Why are you so frickin' sweet?" Chloe says as she reaches over to chuck Beca under the chin with a knuckle.
"Shut up," Beca says but she doesn't shy away from the contact and there's no bite to her words. "What about you?"
"My answer is the same. I'd want to spend more time with you, too." Chloe's hand shifts to frame Beca's face and her thumb brushes along her cheek before she takes her hand back. Beca feels her heart dip into her stomach at contact and loss. "And I would quit my morning runs so we could sleep in together." She grins at Beca as she sits back.
Beca's mind skitters at that - at Chloe's potential insinuation that in this hypothetical scenario, they'd not only be living together but also sleeping together on a daily basis. They've slept together hundreds of times, she reminds herself; just not in the way Beca would really like to experience someday. She clears her throat to try to clear her mind and looks at the next question to read Chloe. "What does friendship mean to you?"
"Aww," Chloe coos as she glances at Beca. "I like this one. It means always having someone's back. Being there for them when they need you. And they're there for you when you need them. And you can call each other on your bullshit or when you're messing up and it doesn't ruin anything. It means...being in each other's corners. Always."
Beca smiles at her because that's exactly what they have. She knows Chloe has her back every moment of every day, and she has Chloe's. "I could steal your answer, but I won't," she starts. "I think it's being able to trust someone. Implicitly. And you never have to worry if they're going to betray that trust."
"I love that," Chloe says before taking a drink and turning the page. "All right. We're really getting into the therapy now."
"And the last, what, 15 questions weren't?" Beca says with a laugh.
"Mmm, you're right. But this is number 21: What roles do love and affection play in your life?"
Beca feels her body try to seize up at the question and is glad Chloe hasn't yet lifted her head to watch her speak because her face is surely contorted into something very unattractive and concerning. She tilts her head hard to crack her neck and manages to get her body to relax a little. "Do I have a free pass I can use?"
Chloe looks up. "I'm not going to make you answer something you don't want to. I'll go first and if you want to answer it after, you can. How's that?"
"Yeah, that's…" Beca nods and feels the warmth of relief seep through her bones. "Yeah."
"Okay. Well, I think loving people, and being loved, is the key to happiness in life. We're not meant to be solitary animals. We need that human connection. To know that we matter. And I don't mean that if you don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend you're going to feel like you don't matter or that you need one to feel...worthy."
"I didn't think you did."
"Love is...everywhere. It's in everything." Chloe's glowing as she speaks. "Love makes the world a better place to live in. And I love everything and everyone." She pauses and then giggles. "Well, with a few exceptions."
"Am I an exception?" Beca smirks.
Chloe shakes her head and lets her arm rest along the back of the couch. It reaches Beca's which is doing the same and she entwines their fingers. "You are the rule."
Beca wasn't expecting that. Chloe's answer is so direct and delivered so sincerely, looking right into Beca's eyes with her hand held tightly that it feels like she can't breathe and suddenly her eyes feel wet.
The words sit between them for eternal seconds and somehow Beca manages to maintain Chloe's gaze.
"And as for affection," Chloe eventually continues. She squeezes Beca's hand. "I can't live without it. Giving or receiving."
Beca fails at steadying her breath before she exhales; she can hear how shaky it is and she knows Chloe can, too, because she squeezes Beca's hand again.
"You don't have to answer it if you don't want to," Chloe says quietly.
"No, I, uh -" Beca swallows the words that comprise the lump in her throat. "You, um, yeah you kind of taught me how to...love people again? Or whatever?" She waits for Chloe to say something, anything, that will help her shut up, but all she does is watch Beca. "My parents really fucked me over with that. I thought they were so in love and one day they weren't and it felt like they'd been lying to me my entire life. It felt like love was fake or something." She remembers her first year at Barden University. "And when I met you guys -" she stops and thinks about the importance of honesty to Chloe and takes a breath - "when I met you, I...I realized it was real. That they, my parents, had been in love. And...and that it wasn't the terrible thing I thought it was."
Chloe's silent and seems confused, or maybe stunned. She's just staring at Beca and making her want to crawl under the couch and hide and why isn't she saying anything?! And Beca's pretty sure she just confessed to Chloe that she's in love with her in not so many words and Chloe's reaction - or lack thereof - is making her wish she could rewind and try that answer again.
The silence is broken by Chloe taking a shaky, gasping breath. It returns as a nervous laugh that Chloe apologizes for as she covers her eyes with the hand not holding Beca's. Her laugh fades to a tight-lipped smile and she nods (to what? Beca's unsure) and the whole reaction makes Beca's heart stop.
When Chloe lowers her hand there are tears in her eyes and her cheeks are pink. Beca braces herself for whatever she's about to say, but instead, all Chloe says is, "Your turn."
Beca's unsure if she's relieved or upset by it; she's walked herself to the edge of the cliff and was ready to let gravity exercise its power. "Uh, yeah. Um." She turns the page. "Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of each other. Share a total of five items."
"Okay," Chloe says with what seems like a deep, cleansing breath. "You care more than you let on."
Beca tilts her head at that. It feels like an accusation, and she thinks maybe it is. She swallows and decides not to question it and instead tosses it back to Chloe. "You can make anyone smile."
Chloe's smile widens. "You are always in my corner."
Beca feels her heart buzzing a little. "I know it's not easy to be the positive person you are and I know you work hard at it because it makes other people happy and making people happy makes you happy. And it's pretty awesome you care so much about other people's happiness."
"You don't care if people underestimate you. And I know it's because it means you can impress them more easily, but you don't let it get to you that they underestimate you in the first place."
Beca's surprised Chloe picked up on that; she'd never talked about it before. But it was true, and something she'd taught herself in recent years and not without effort and strife. Beca doesn't have to think hard to come up with another thing she loves about Chloe. "I like that you let me be sad if I'm sad even though I know it kills you to not try to cheer me up right away." She likes that it's a battle for Chloe; she knows she's struggling with letting Beca be sad and thus making her happy versus trying to make Beca happy.
Because either way, Chloe's goal is for Beca to be happy.
Chloe's nose scrunches a little at that and Beca can't help but think how cute it is. "You are so driven and motivated and I really admire that," Chloe responds.
"You always do your best to treat everyone fairly."
"You're the bravest person I know."
Beca wants to reject that, but that's not the exercise. So, she takes it. And cherishes it. "You make me want to be a better person." She realizes she's smiling but doesn't stop. "Was that five?"
"Yeah, I think so," Chloe says with a nod. "That was, um...really nice."
For some reason, Beca feels immeasurably lighter. Maybe it's from the meaningful compliments, or the alcohol settling, or the way she just noticed Chloe playing with her fingers. Regardless, she feels light as air and she turns her wrist to trace her fingernails over Chloe's palm. It feels absurdly intimate and even arousing, and the way Chloe looks at her when she does it doesn't help things.
"Yeah, it was," she replies. Her whole body itches to move. She wants to get on her knees and cross the neutral territory of the cushion between them and show Chloe just how much she does care.
"My turn, right?" Chloe says as she breaks her gaze to read. "How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people's?"
"I think I should have saved that free pass for this one," she says with a bitter chuckle.
"You don't -"
"It's okay," Beca interrupts. "You know, I...I don't really think about it. But I guess now that I do...things were really bad for a long time after the divorce, but now...yeah. I mean, I guess we're all close again. And my mom and dad can be in the same room without fighting, and sometimes they even smile at each other. So I guess that's good. As for my childhood, well," she says with a sad huff. "I think it was pretty great except for that one thing. What about you?"
"Oh, I love my family." Chloe says it with conviction, like she's trying to convince Beca of something that has been grossly obvious to her since she and Chloe got to know one another. "We've all always been super close. As for my childhood being happier than most? I don't really know. I didn't have a bad childhood. I don't want to say it was better or happier than someone else's. But I have no complaints."
There's a beauty to the simplicity in Chloe's answer, as though there's no need to expound upon it because it's that easy: Chloe loves her family and Chloe's family loves her.
"Okay," Chloe says before Beca's decided whether or not she wants to comment on their answers. She nods at the notebook. "Hit me."
Beca's still partly caught up in how Chloe's fingers keep interlocking and tracing her own but manages to turn the page. "How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?"
"Oh, that's easy," Chloe says with a grin. "She's my best friend. Well," she interjects, "she's almost my best friend." She gives Beca's hand a playful shake. "We tell each other everything and we don't judge each other and I know I can go to her for help no matter what it is."
"I've always been closer to my mom than my dad," Beca starts when Chloe gestures for her to. "I don't really know if I could call her a friend, though. And I don't mean because she's a bad person," she hurries to clarify. "I've just never felt like she trusted me to take care of myself. Like, if something happened and I needed help, she'd help, but it would come with some version of an I-told-you-so. So, I guess, you know, that's my relationship with my mother. In a nutshell."
She feels Chloe's fingernails trailing up the sensitive underside of her forearm and it makes her shiver. Chloe must notice because she smiles and does it again, then smooths her palm over her arm as though to make it all better. Beca doesn't know why, but she does know she would like Chloe to keep doing it.
Instead, Chloe pats her arm. "Break time."
Something about Chloe calling for a pause to the quiz feels like a bubble bursting and Beca feels cold when Chloe stands up and leaves her for the restroom.
She'd like to think she doesn't know why she has a chill in Chloe's absence.
But she knows better.
To be continued...
