A/N: Hello again! Here we are for Part Two. Thank you, to everyone who has read, followed, favorited, or commented. The response to this story has been overwhelming. Thanks for the support. So without further ado...
Beca sees the yellow cab turn off the lane onto the long driveway leading to the Beale's house, and stands, wiping off the stray tears still slipping from her eyes. Before the cab pulls up, she approaches the front door, not wanting to leave without giving it one last shot to explain the situation to Chloe properly.
She knocks on the door a few times, and when Chloe doesn't answer, she rings the doorbell.
"Chloe, come on, please open up," she shouts, praying the redhead will come to the door.
The driver parks his cab in front of the house, and greets Beca with a nod of his head. She gives him her best impression of a smile, though she can feel that it translates to something much closer to a grimace.
He takes it upon himself to put her carry-on in the trunk, while she's still rooted to her spot in front of the door, knocking once more for good measure.
A few minutes later, the driver rolls down the passenger window and calls out to her. "Miss, I just wanted to let you know the fare started accruing when I parked the car."
"Oh, right," she mumbles.
Grudgingly, she gets into the cab, and when they begin to pull away, she chances a glance back at the house, just in case Chloe had come to the door after all.
She's not sure if she imagined it, but she's pretty certain she saw Chloe standing, arms crossed, at one of the upstairs windows.
The driver tries to make light small talk, and Beca hopes that the redness still staining her eyes and her short, one-word answers will tip him off that she's not at all interested in conversing with him.
Eventually, he gets the hint, and they spend the rest of the drive to Downtown Atlanta in silence.
/
That night, Beca forces herself to shrug on her dress and strap on her heels, even though attending this party for her label's opening is the last thing she wants to do.
But she loves her job and she wants to keep it, so despite the turmoil she's feeling, she needs to go.
At the party, she plasters on the best fake smile she can muster, and schmoozes with label executives and the other people she's been working with for the last year or so. If they can tell that her enthusiasm isn't genuine, they don't say anything about it.
She thinks that, even if they do notice, they wouldn't care enough to ask. But she's almost glad they don't. She couldn't imagine opening up about her problems like that with any of these people.
It's ironic that the one person that she could even fathom sharing herself with like that, aside from her father, is the same one that is making her feel this way in the first place.
But she's Beca effin' Mitchell, damn it. She's struggled through her issues alone before, and she'll do it again.
/
After she's given the little speech she'd been required to give as the lead executive on this project, she heads straight to the open bar.
She consumes far too many drinks, and when she orders a Jack and Coke to finish off the night, she can feel her eyes begin to well with tears when she remembers that Chloe had given her a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels on the flight where they'd had their first real conversation.
She doesn't want her colleagues to see her in this state, and since she's already said her piece and made nice with the right people, she thinks it'd be alright if she takes off.
She leaves the Jack and Coke on the bar top, completely untouched, and slips discreetly from the premises.
/
Through the hazy fog of the alcohol in her system, her mind takes it upon itself to lead her to the place she wants to be most right now, and that's how she finds herself once again on Chloe's wrap-around porch, pounding on the door.
The lights are all off, and she can see a dim red light flashing from the alarm system inside the front door telling her the house has been secured.
She figures Chloe is long gone, probably on another flight somewhere. This was only supposed to be an overnight stay for the redhead as well.
She returns to the cab empty handed and with an emptiness in her heart, and instructs the driver her to take her back to downtown.
/
When she arrives back in her hotel room, she falls on top of the bed, still in her party clothes, and calls the redhead.
The call goes straight to voicemail, so the best she can do is leave her a message. It's not the way she wanted to let Chloe know about her son, nor is it as eloquent as she would have liked, but she manages to get through a thorough, albeit teary, explanation of the situation.
She asks Chloe to call her back when she gets the message, but there's a sinking feeling in her gut that she's not going to get a response at all.
The next day, Beca wakes up exhausted. Her head is pounding from her hangover, and with each pulse of her temples, she hears Chloe's voice. It's not the bubbly, melodic tone Beca had become so fond of. It's the venomous timbre she used when she kicked Beca out her front door and out of her life.
Get. Out. Get. Out.
This may well be the worst hangover Beca has experienced. And thinking back on her days in college, that's saying something.
Thanks to the difference in time zones, Beca estimates she can make it all the way back to Los Angeles and to her father's home just in time to tuck Olly into bed.
Neither Beca nor Oliver was used to her being away from home so often, so when she's had to travel to Atlanta these past months, she and her father had done everything they could to keep his life as normal as possible, including his sleep schedule. So while she could take him back to their own house, she figures she'll just sleep there tonight as well.
When she lands at LAX, Beca finds her way to the short term parking garage to find her car. Sitting in the driver's seat, she checks her phone for any missed calls, texts, or voicemails from Chloe, and finds none. With a pained sigh, she sends the redhead a text message, once again thoroughly explaining the situation. Through text, Beca is able to come up with a more comprehensive, and significantly less tearful description of her motives in keeping Oliver a secret than she did in her drunken voicemail last night.
/
Around 8:00 PM, Beca pulls into the driveway of her father's ranch-style home in Sherman Oaks and doesn't even bother to remove her bag from her car. She's already got a drawer full of clothes in the room her father had prepared for Oliver when he was born, and a toothbrush in the guest bathroom. It's a little past Olly's bedtime, so she's resigned herself to just being there to wake him in the morning.
"Oof!"
She hasn't even taken two steps into the house before there's a tiny body wrapped securely around her legs. When she registers what's happening, she ruffles his shaggy brown hair. He detaches his grip from her body, and looks up her through the lenses of his glasses.
She knows she will rue the day he starts wearing contacts, because the way the thickness of the lenses magnify his light blue eyes is downright adorable.
She bends down to his eye level and wraps him in a bear hug, squeezing him as she says, "Hi, Olly. I missed you, buddy!"
She wonders how it's possible that one hug from her son can dull the anguish that she's felt since the morning prior. She holds onto him for a moment longer, then lets go so she can hold him at arm's length and look at him properly.
"I missed you too, mommy. Do you have to go away again soon?" he asks, finishing his question with a yawn.
"Nope," Beca answers, popping the 'p', "I'm not going anywhere. But I am wondering what you're doing up past your bedtime," she finishes, shooting a pointed look at her father, who'd gotten up from his seat on the couch to give Beca a welcome back hug of his own.
He only shrugs, muttering, "You know I have a hard time saying no to him, Becs. Have you seen his face?"
She laughs, still hugging him when she responds, "Once or twice."
When she releases her dad, Oliver tugs at the hem of her shirt and raises his arms up, flexing his tiny hands. She obliges, picking him up and settling him on her hip.
"I asked-ed Pappy if I could stay up till you got home, and he said I could," he says proudly.
She's been working on getting him to use proper grammar, but she's too damn happy to see him right now, so she lets it slide.
"I'm glad he did! Now I get to tuck you in myself," she tells him.
"He's all ready for bed, Becs. Olly even brushed his teeth without me having to tell him," Ethan says, and Oliver nods enthusiastically.
"Good job, Olly!" she exclaims, lightly bouncing him on her hip. He grins widely, before yawning a second time. "Okay, let's get you off to sleep, little man."
Beca carries him across the living room and down the hall to his bedroom, Oliver babbling on about all the things he and her father did together all the while.
She reaches his room, and lays him gently in his fleece racecar sheets. She pulls the comforter up to his shoulders, and he giggles when she tucks in the edges of it tightly underneath him like she does every night, effectively cocooning him in his bed.
Some of her own earliest memories were of her parents doing the same thing with her when she was around Oliver's age.
"Good night buddy," she whispers. She leans down to brush his hair back and place a light kiss on his forehead, and gently removes the glasses from his face.
"Night, mommy," he answers with a sleepy smile.
After grabbing some basketball shorts and a loose t shirt from her designated dresser drawer, she switches on his night-light, which casts dim images of stars and planets across his ceiling.
When she reaches the door, she turns to face him, and flicks off the overhead light, which causes the night-light to burn a little brighter.
"Sleep tight," she says with a grin.
"Don't let the bed bugs bite," he responds, finishing off their nightly ritual.
She closes the door, changes her clothes in the guest bathroom, and makes her way back to the living room to join her father on the couch, pleased to see that he has prepared them both a hot cup of tea.
/
An hour later, Beca is trying her best to keep up appearances and make small talk with her dad, but her words come out muted and fragmentary. Her lackluster conversation, and the way Beca's eyes are glued to her phone must betray her, because her father breaks yet another awkward silence and turns fully to her, asking, "Beca, what's going on?"
"Nothing," she replies, her eyes refusing to meet his. He doesn't ask anything further, a move very uncharacteristic of Ethan Mitchell, so she chances a glance his way and finds him still staring at her as if trying to read her, and clearly, thoroughly unconvinced. "You've been staring at that phone for the last hour like it's about to telling you the winning lottery numbers. I can see it's not 'nothing', Becs."
A heavy sigh escapes her, and she knows there's no getting out of this conversation. Though, part of her is glad that he's here and that he's pushing her, because, apart from the short time that she spent with Oliver tonight, she hasn't ever felt more alone than she has since Chloe ousted her. Not even after a blind hookup on her 21st birthday resulted in an accidental pregnancy, and she was thrust into adulthood and motherhood, while the father told her he couldn't have a kid jeopardizing his plans for his future.
She didn't care about him. Hell, she was shaky on his last name. But Chloe...well, she was Chloe Beale. And to Beca, that was everything.
"It's not nothing," she confirms weakly, her fingers fiddling with the handle of the mug of tea, which has long since cooled. "I met someone," she continues, glancing once again at her father. He doesn't have any visible reaction, instead only raising his eyebrows, encouraging her to continue.
She clears her throat and tries to figure out how best to explain her connection with the redhead. She takes a lesson from her favorite actress, and starts at the very beginning. "She's a flight attendant...and we got to know each other on my flights to Atlanta."
For the next hour, Beca tells her father all about Chloe. When she describes the way Chloe would distract her from turbulence with funny faces and silly accents, or how she would sometimes sneak Beca snacks from the first class flight attendants' station, she laughs. When she tells him about the night that they shared together (sans any of the details, of course), she blushes. And when she explains the mountainous misunderstanding they'd had, the fight that followed, and all the ways that she's already tried to make it right, she cries.
When the thin streams of tears turn into heavy sobs that wrack her body, and her breathing becomes labored, her dad wraps her tightly in his arms. He rubs soothing circles on her back with one hand, and runs the other down the length of her hair. Beca doesn't try to hold back the tears. She's gone this far already, and she figures that letting them fall is the best thing to do. So she lets them fall until there are no more tears to be spilt, and her breathing grows steady.
The experience turns out to be pretty cathartic; she feels a little less like her head might explode. It had felt good to unload her emotions and tell her story out loud.
Ethan loosens his grip on her, and Beca leans back and moves back to her spot at the end of the couch, only slightly embarrassed by the tear stains she left on her father's shirt. He's looking at her with a sympathetic expression and she can she the glint of a few unshed tears in his own eyes.
"I'm so sorry, Becs. She sounds like a wonderful person, but I hope that she gets her head out of her ass and realizes what a catch you are," he says, waving off Beca's look of shock at his profanity.
"Seriously though, I mean it. If she can't recognize what she's missing out on, it's her loss. You are a wonderful young woman. You're driven, you're kind, you've managed to work your way to the top of a vicious industry and still keep your humility and your humanity. And you're a hell of a good mother to that kid in there. And...and your mother would say the same thing if she were here," he finishes, glancing at the family photo that hangs on the opposite wall, a few tears finally falling down his cheeks.
Beca manages the smallest of semblance of a smile, and responds with a shaky, "Thanks, Dad." She's so thankful to have him in her life. Their relationship was strained, to say the least, after her mother died the year she turned eighteen. They didn't speak much during the first three years of college, Beca having withdrawn into herself, and Ethan having found it hard to comfort her when he was so devastated by his wife's death himself. But her senior year, Beca learned that she was going to be a single mother, and any disconnect between father and daughter gave way to an unspoken agreement to get over their issues and make sure that her child would grow up loved, as part of a stable family.
He gets up from his place on the couch and grabs a blanket and a fresh pillow from the linen closet, bringing them back to Beca. She gladly accepts them, and smiles when he bends over to kiss her forehead.
"Love you, Becs. Don't be too hard on yourself tonight, you've done nothing wrong here. Tomorrow is a new day," he tells her.
"Night, dad," she replies, and he makes his way down the hall to his bedroom.
Beca can't seem to stop herself from checking her phone one more time before she lays down to let sleep take her, and once again, she's disappointed. She isn't sure whether read receipts are a blessing or a curse at this point. Looking through the small thread of text messages, she can see that the messages she sent after leaving Chloe's house have been delivered, but not opened. She assumes that if her texts went unread, there's a pretty solid chance that Chloe hasn't listened to her voicemail either.
/
Sleep does not come easily for Beca that night. Despite the pep talk from her dad, Beca's mind wars with itself until the wee hours of the morning. Eventually, the fatigue of a day spent travelling catches up with her, and she succumbs to exhaustion.
/
She wakes to the swishing sound of paper, and small clammy hands patting her skin. Confused, she opens one eye and sees Olly standing in front of the couch, still in his pajamas.
"What..Olly?" she asks, her voice still scratchy and riddled with sleep.
"Morning, mommy. Are you okay?" he answers, his face scrunched up in concern, eyes flitting across her body.
"Yeah, wh-..." She doesn't finish her sentence, because when she follows his gaze, she discovers no less than two dozen Band-Aids riddled across her skin, featuring a variety of animated characters.
"What's with the Band Aids, kid?" she questions, half amused, and the rest of her still confused.
When she looks at him, he's pulling at the hem of his shirt and shifting side to side on his tiny, socked feet.
"Well...well, Pappy said that I shouldn't dis..disturb you because you are hurting. I wanted to help, but I couldn't find any boo-boos" he explains, his magnified eyes wide with compassion.
While she is awed by Oliver's display of selfless empathy, her heart breaks a little, in that moment; the innocence of a child is both precious and painful. She already laments the day her son will learn that not all pain can be healed by physical treatment. That nothing but time can begin to mend the pain of heartbreak.
But for now, she gives him a wide smile and thanks him, pulling him onto the couch so that his back is nestled against her front. When she reaches over him and squishes him slightly into the cushions to grab the remote from the coffee table, he giggles his tiny infectious laugh, and she tickles his side before turning on the TV. and choosing an episode of some 90's Nicktoons she's saved on her dad's DVR. Beca has always believed that she grew up in the golden age of animation, and thinks it's her duty to expose Oliver to the same brilliance. If she happens to think that the cartoons these days are lame, and gets a throwback to her own childhood at the same time...well, Oliver doesn't have to know that just yet.
/
When they laugh together over an episode of Angry Beavers, she thinks that she has the only Band Aid she needs, right here in her arms.
I said in the first part that this was going to be a 3 part story, in total. That may no longer be the case. But rest assured, this is not the end. Basically, what I'm saying is that it's probably going to end up between 3 and 5 chapters.
I apologize for the lack of Chloe in the chapter. I promise she will be back next time.
ALSO! I finally made a Tumblr for my Bechloe obsession. So please come follow me at commanderbeclexa on Tumblr. We can talk Bechloe all day long. (And Clexa, if you're into that. Because I am, no matter what ass hat showrunners do. Still so salty.)