I am so sorry this took so long! I've been working 50+ hour weeks, spending more time at work than I do at home, and I couldn't find the energy to work on this for more than a few minutes a night. I wish I could promise the next chapter won't take as long, and I do promise to try, but work is still crazy and now I have to look for a place to move again, so time might be just as limited. I really am sorry that I've kept you all waiting this long, so I hope this makes up for it.
It takes Beca longer than she'd expected to shake off her misery, the sense of loss that she's felt ever since moving from Chloe's side. She's barely conscious of her surroundings for most of the first day after she anchors; creating a dim little corner of the room that light doesn't seem to brighten. She's too lost in her own emotions to focus on impacting her surroundings, but her very unhappiness does that for her. It's more subtle than moving things or speaking, more subtle even than temperature, but it does the job and supplies her with the energy she needs to continue.
Even after she's managed to tear her focus away from that loss enough to be aware of her surroundings, she can't bring herself to reach out to her father. Not while she still feels as dark as she does now. She still remembers the mess she'd made out of her first attempts at communication, and has zero interest in scaring her father again. Maybe in the past she might have seen it as fair payback for what he'd put her through, but not now. Not after she's forgiven him, realized that she's as much to blame as he was for the situation between them. And even if she was still tempted, in the face of how much she hurts right now, the very thought just seems petty and unimportant.
It takes almost a week before Beca can manage to step aside from her pain enough to feel ready to communicate with her father. Not that her pain has faded even the slightest amount, but she can step outside of it when she needs to, set the raw emotion to the side in order to focus on what's in front of her. It's still a part of her, will always be a part of her, but she can deal with it now. She can function without it holding her back.
She doesn't jump directly into conversation with her father though, not the way she had with Chloe. She knows him well enough to know he'd be convinced he was going crazy before he ever accepted the presence of a ghost around him, and she doesn't want that. But he is at least minimally religious, enough to believe in heaven and the continuation of spirits after death, so she thinks she can work with that.
Ever since she was a child he had spent an hour before bed reading the classics, sitting in his comfortable lounge chair in front of the fireplace and shutting out the world as he lost himself in the words of the greats until he would doze off. She'd curled up with him a few times when she was young, listening to him explain some literary device or symbolism as she struggled to stay awake, not caring about the book but loving the time spent with him. After she'd gotten older and things had gotten tense between them she'd stopped, retreating into her music the way he retreated into his books. And as she haunts his study and sees that he still follows that routine, she knows how she's going to make contact.
Beca waits for a night that Sheila isn't in the house, just in case this plan backfires and her father ends up freaking out anyway. She's not entirely certain this will work, that she'll be able to catch her father in that stage between asleep and awake that will let him accept and remember what she says. She wants him to remember, to know she forgives him, but she wants him to think it's a message from somewhere beyond this world. Knowing that his daughter made the mistake of choosing an eternity on Earth as everything she's ever known fades into the past won't do him any good. It's better to let him think she's happy in some afterlife she'll never actually experience. It'll be easier on him.
Knowing that if she hesitates and lets her doubts get to her she'll miss her chance, Beca starts talking without thinking as soon as her father starts to drift into a deeper level of sleep. "Hey Dad. Can you hear me?" she starts off, trying to see if this will work.
"Beca?" he asks in confusion, too close to falling asleep to open his eyes, but looking around as if looking for her anyway. "Becs, is that you?"
She hadn't expected the rush of pain that comes from talking to him like this, even though she knows she probably should have. She hadn't known Chloe before anchoring to her, so talking to her for the first time hadn't been this kind of emotional. Her father though, is apparently a whole different story.
"Yeah, it's me, Dad. I just wanted to tell you, you were right. I should have come to Barden, and I shouldn't have pushed you away." Even though she's felt this way for months now, ever since her realization that she'd missed her chances with him, it's still hard to admit that. If she could actually talk to her father, maybe she wouldn't be so quick to assume all of the blame, but she knows that isn't going to happen. So for now, the important thing is helping him move on, not her. She'll have more than enough time to deal with her own emotions in the years to come.
"Beca, I miss you" comes the soft whisper, and Beca knows that if he starts crying she'll follow, but she can't bring herself to say anything, can't make the words come. "I wish you were still here."
"I wish I was still here too, Dad" Beca admits softly, hopefully to quiet for him to hear, mostly asleep as he is. "I just wanted to let you know I'm sorry, and I forgive you for everything, and I hope you can forgive me too." That's all she has time to say before he slips the rest of the way into sleep, but she thinks it might be enough. She'll stick around for a few days to see, knows that he won't wake up more than barely enough to get into bed tonight, won't process anything he remembers from this until he actually wakes up in the morning. Beca just hopes he remembers enough.
He's quiet the next morning, and Beca follows him around, a little concerned at the lack of reaction. He's not just tired and overworked like she's seen him any number of times in the past, he seems withdrawn somehow, and she's afraid she's somehow made things worse.
It's not until he heads back into his study to check his email that she gets a clue as to what's going on in his head. Just as he'd done the last time she'd anchored here, after starting up his computer he sat back in his chair, staring at the picture on his desk. But this time there's no pain on his face, or at least there's something that overshadows the pain. There's a sense of acceptance, of peace to his face now that had been missing, and Beca knows that even if he doesn't remember details, she's managed to help.
She still sticks around for a few nights, slowly explaining that she loves him, that she forgives him, and that she's okay. She lies to him when he asks if she's okay, tells him she's happy and not to worry about her. And maybe she'd gotten used to the way Chloe could always see through her deflections, but when he accepts that, she can't stick around anymore. She's hopefully helped him through the worst remnants of his grief, helped him move past her death, but she can't stick around and substitute this connection for the one she'd had with Chloe. Even though she knows they're wildly different situations, they're nowhere close to the same level.
And with that realization, she knows she can't make herself avoid Chloe any longer. She knows it will hurt again, knows that she won't be able to reach out and talk to the redhead without giving up on the reason she'd left in the first place, but she can't stay away. She needs to see Chloe, even if she can't talk to her. After all, she's already had so much she can't do with her, what's one more thing added to the list?
Even with that mental preparation, she isn't prepared for the stab of pain that comes from seeing Chloe walk into the rehearsal room with the other Bellas. There's a sense of sadness that still clings to the redhead, a hesitation to her laughter and a shadow to her smile that tell Beca she's still hurting. And Beca feels guilty at the sight, knowing this is all her fault, that Chloe deserved an explanation that Beca could never give. It wasn't fair to her to just leave the way she had, but there was no way that she would have been able to go through with telling Chloe and still leave.
It's already hard enough to see her now, knowing that she's probably gone about everything in completely the wrong way, from following Chloe to begin with, to falling in love with her, to the way she'd left. This is all her fault, but it stretches back farther than Beca particularly wants to admit.
Even with that, she can't bring herself to leave again, not so soon after seeing Chloe again. It's painful yes, but it's also helping. She can see Chloe is in pain, and knows that it matches her own, but she can also see Chloe enjoying herself, spending time with the Bellas before practice, and she knows that Chloe will get over the pain. Maybe not soon, maybe not completely, but she will be able to move on.
Beca is so busy watching Chloe that she doesn't notice Aubrey at first, not until something about the blonde's demeanor makes her stop and think. After a minute it becomes clear that Aubrey is no more fooled by Chloe's act than Beca, the way she's staring across the room with a slight frown gives her away. That doesn't surprise Beca; someone who has known Chloe for as long as Aubrey has should be able to tell when something is wrong. No, what makes Beca stop is the fact that Aubrey looks like she feels just as guilty as Beca does.
And while part of Beca wants Aubrey to feel guilty, wants to give in to the temptation to blame the blonde for what's happened, she can't quite bring herself to do so. Because Aubrey might have pushed her to admit what was going on and how she felt, but that doesn't make her responsible for the situation, or for the fact that the only possible solution could only end with someone getting hurt. Wanting Aubrey to feel guilty is nothing more than misery wanting company, and that's as unfair to the blonde as the situation is to Beca and Chloe.
And once Beca works through those realizations, she puts Aubrey out of her mind. She can't, and wouldn't, do anything about how the blonde feels, and Aubrey is definitely not the reason she's sitting through another Bella's practice despite not being tied to Chloe any longer. If Aubrey feels guilty about any of this, then that's her problem, and she can deal with it on her own. Right now, Beca just wants to make sure that Chloe is okay, even with the hidden pain.
She's so busy watching Chloe that she barely notices the group launching into the same old routine with the same boring harmonies. It's all background to her focus on Chloe, the way the redhead's brow furrows as she reaches for notes that are just barely out of her reach, the effortless glide of her body as she moves through the choreography at odds with the struggle to reach the notes. And even with the feelings of guilt Beca is currently struggling with, she can't help remembering the mixes she'd been working on while she was still anchored to Chloe, the ones that she wouldn't admit were entirely inspired by a desire to see the Bellas perform an actually decent set. Because she doesn't care about the Bellas, damn it, only how their successes affect Chloe.
Of course, no matter how many times she'd insisted that to herself, the repetition hadn't had any effect on her creative drive. At least not for the last month or so she'd been following Chloe around. No matter what she'd intended to mix during that time; she couldn't seem to make it work without thinking of how the various voices and talents in the Bellas could make the music sound. She'd had to scrap more than one project completely when she simply couldn't find songs and beats that matched the visions in her head, a fact that would have completely irritated her if not for the fact that it ultimately revolved around Chloe's happiness.
And Chloe had loved the mixes, no matter that Beca had never admitted the inspiration behind them. She'd just hummed them to herself while studying, occasionally breaking out into songs when she'd get particularly caught up in the music. And of course Beca had chosen songs that fit perfectly into Chloe's current comfortable range, minimizing any affect the redhead's nodes could have on the singing. There were no impressive riffs or breathtaking highs, but that had just inspired Beca to make every other nuance of the music perfect, letting the seeming simplicity speak for itself.
Those memories make Chloe's struggle that much more evident, and Beca starts feeling a wave of concern fight with the flood of guilt and pain she's been dealing with since seeing the redhead again. She's never liked watching Chloe struggle, not since awkwardly watching the breakup early in the year, and knowing that there are alternatives starts to make her angry at Aubrey's stubborn insistence that they stick to the outdated set. Can't the woman see what it's doing to Chloe?
But it's not her place to say anything, not anymore, not that it ever was. She's taken a step back from Chloe, and any association with the Bellas that had come from that, no matter the distance she'd intended to keep. And as much as she wants to speak up and defend Chloe, she can't. Chloe doesn't need her to. Despite what she'd heard the redhead say before leaving last time, Chloe doesn't need her, not for this or for anything else. How could she? How could Beca be there for her even if she did?
So rather than speaking up, Beca just watches as Aubrey leads the Bellas through repetition after repetition of the set, not noticing when she starts to absentmindedly hum under her breath, finding the spaces in the songs that the current routine ignores, finding the rhythms and counterpoints that work almost by habit. It's not like she hasn't heard the routine thousands of times, hasn't spent more than a few practices thinking about how to improve things, so thinking of songs that fit takes no effort. It's just a distraction from the ache she still feels from being this close to Chloe.
It's not until Chloe stops singing in the middle of a song to look around almost frantically that Beca realizes she'd started singing aloud, and not until she realizes Chloe is looking for her that she remembers what had happened the first time she'd sung with the redhead. Something about mixing their voices seems to cross the divide between their existence without effort or conscious thought from Beca, and the ghost almost gives herself away by cursing loudly when she realizes Chloe remembers just as well as she does.
"Chloe, what the hell?" Aubrey asks when she literally runs into Chloe, the rest of the Bellas stopping around them, clearly grateful for the break and side benefit of potential drama.
"I heard her" Chloe says softly, still looking around rather than meeting Aubrey's gaze, and Beca can tell Aubrey knows exactly who Chloe is talking about. "She was singing with us, I heard her. She's here." Beca worries for a minute that the rest of the Bellas will hear and get suspicious, but the fact that they're keeping their distance from Aubrey's wrath combined with how quietly Chloe is speaking seems to keep them from hearing.
"Chloe, I know you want to believe she's here, but she said she was leaving. She's gone." Aubrey's voice is as quiet as Chloe's, with no hint of anger, but something about her posture is still keeping the rest of the women away, and Beca starts to relax, at least about that potential disaster.
"How are you so sure she isn't coming back?" Chloe asks, finally looking at the blonde, a surprising amount of challenge in her eyes. "What did you say to her to make her leave? You're my friend, Aubrey, my best friend, but whatever you said, you had no right to say. We were fine, we were great, and then she left. So what did you say?"
That's a surprise; Beca had fully expected Aubrey to tell Chloe everything, to paint Beca as being entirely in the wrong. She hadn't really expected the blonde to keep her secret, not when Chloe was the one asking. Beca had been half convinced it was impossible to keep secrets from Chloe, at least when the redhead set her mind to finding something out.
"I didn't tell her anything she didn't already know" is all Aubrey says, and Beca thinks maybe that's how she's managed it. Refusing to give any details at all would certainly limit how much information Chloe could piece together, without any need to lie or misdirect. It's probably the best balance Aubrey can find in her own mind between whatever level of consideration she somehow has for Beca and the honest care she has for Chloe.
"We aren't performing this set at Semis" Chloe eventually says, loud enough for the rest of the Bellas to hear as she stares Aubrey down. And the blonde is as thrown by the seeming change of topic as Beca is, but the rest of the group greets the pronouncement with cheers that would probably be louder if not for the look Aubrey sends them. "You might not be willing to tell me what happened, but you owe me this much. We're using one of the mixes she made for me."
"Wait, who made you a mix?" Cynthia Rose asks from where she's settled into the bleachers, noticing Chloe's choice of words before any of the other Bellas.
"That's not what's important here" Amy says with a knowing yet exasperated look at the woman. "The point is that ginger over there has a set that has to be more interesting than this one."
"There is nothing wrong with this set!" Aubrey insists, looking away from Chloe for a moment to glare at the rest of the Bellas, the apparent mutiny enough to momentarily distract her.
"Aubrey, I can't sing half of it, the others hate every note and every step, and you're the only one who thinks it gives us a chance to win Nationals" Chloe say before the other women can speak up or shrink back from the glare. It's obvious that Chloe has decided this is what needs to happen, and there is no way for Aubrey to convince her otherwise. "Besides, no matter what you're saying, I know you had something to do with this, and whatever your reasons were, you owe me."
"It was the best option" Aubrey insists, obviously hurt by the accusation in Chloe's voice. And Beca wonders whether she should step in to take some of the blame off of the blonde, because she'd been just as involved in making the decision as Aubrey had. It really was the best decision to make; there wasn't another option that would have done anything but hurt more in the long run. But there's no way to do that now, not without one alerting the rest of the Bellas to her existence, and two ignoring all the reasoning that had led to leaving Chloe's side in the first place.
"You guys want to tell us what's going on?" Cynthia Rose asks after the silence as Chloe and Aubrey stare challengingly at each other goes on long enough to get awkward.
"What's going on is that we need to come up with choreography for a new set" Chloe says with no hesitation, her eyes not leaving Aubrey's for a second. And something in her voice or demeanor finally gets to Aubrey, the blonde visibly wilting as she gives in.
"Fine, let's hear the mixes" she says, and Beca can hear the apology in her voice, maybe the only apology Chloe is likely to get. And Chloe clearly hears it as well, because the challenging set to her posture eases slightly even as she pulls her laptop out of her bag, already beginning to forgive her friend even if the hurt hasn't faded.
And Beca knows that she's had enough emotional stress for the day without seeing Chloe react to her music, so she leaves before the redhead can decide which song to start with. It's a little easier this time, without being connected to Chloe there's no gut deep sense of loss, just the normal disorientation of drifting that barely registers for her anymore.
After the first painful experience of seeing Chloe without being able to talk to her, it gets easier to see her around campus, the months spent following her giving Beca more than enough familiarity with her routine to find places to anchor where she can see the woman without getting too close. She avoids Bella practices though, not wanting to deal with those emotions again this soon. She'll follow the group to Semis and watch them perform, but she can't bring herself to watch them practice.
Once they get to the competition Beca has gotten better about dealing with her emotions, knowing she'll need to keep careful control over them to avoid giving herself away. Even if no one else realizes what's happening if she gets distracted and affects the area around her, Chloe knows her and her abilities well enough to easily pick up on even subtle interactions.
She nearly loses control of her temper when the group before the Bellas is on, despite the effort she's put into making sure her emotions can't get the better of her. Their lead singer is arrogant and annoying, and looks immature enough that one solid scare would probably be enough to completely set him off and ruin his team's chances. In the end it's more the knowledge that Chloe will realize what happened than any kind of maturity of her own that keeps her in line, but Beca knows that no matter what the reason it's probably the best choice.
Once the Bellas start performing she's glad she resisted the urge, because if she'd given into her emotions earlier she definitely wouldn't have been able to keep them under control as she watches. Chloe had chosen the mix Beca is most proud of, one that highlights every voice in the group but still manages to feature Chloe's voice time and again. And if Beca had been making the mixes for the Bellas as a whole rather than using Chloe as a foundation for the music she might feel bad about the way Chloe is the focus so often, but as she listens to the redhead sing she can't bring herself to feel guilty.
After the passion that the group put into the performance, Beca isn't surprised at all when they manage to snag first place from the shocked Trebles and Footnotes. It's not just the fact that the set is ten times better than the old one; it's the fact that every single Bella had put everything into the performance, even Aubrey. The other groups had clearly sung for the competition, but the Bellas had sung for the music, and that made all the difference. It's even enough that Beca doesn't give into the urge to find the lead singer of the Footnotes after the competition and at least freeze him out, content that his loss is enough punishment for the arrogance.
She does report him to the organizers though, leaving an anonymous email in five different inboxes to make sure it's seen. Losing might have been enough for the arrogance, but the attempt to cheat needs addressed all on its own, and Beca knows that an official reaction will be better than what would in effect be petty revenge.
Despite the fact that she'd loved the routine the Bellas had chosen for Semis, she's glad to see them choosing a new one the next time she watches a practice, knowing that becoming attached to the first new set would ultimately be just as bad as Aubrey's stubborn attachment to the original. And with the number of mixes that Beca had made for Chloe, there's plenty of inspiration to be found, probably at least for as long as any of the current Bellas will be in school.
The performance at Nationals goes over just as well as the one at Semis, and Beca knows this is the moment she has to start saying goodbye to Chloe. She'd expected it to be the redhead's graduation, but something about seeing Chloe lifting the trophy over her head with Aubrey holding the other side seems like the right moment. She won't stay away forever, knows that she couldn't manage that even if she wanted to, but she can't keep holding on either.
She'll still attend graduation, still check in on Chloe at least once a month, but she won't keep anchoring where she knows the redhead will pass her, won't seek out the sight of her on a regular basis. She has to at least try to move on, because the longer she holds on, the harder it will be, and no matter what she decided eventually life itself will make the decision for her. At least this one is on her terms.
It's small consolation in the days ahead, but at least it's something.
This is not the end of the story! There is another chapter to finish things up, and I'm looking forward to getting it written, it has one of the scenes I've had in my head since I saw the prompt that led to this. Please feel more than free to comment and let me know how you're liking this and whether this chapter lived up to the rest, I know I've left it sitting so I'd really appreciate knowing if anyone is still reading and enjoying.