Hello, everyone. Long time, no see! I thank everyone who has prodded me along into updating. You have done your job! It's shorter than some, and I can't say that it's going to be worth the wait, but it's something.
In case you've forgotten, here's the tl;dr:
Beca met Chloe on a plane. Chloe the Flight Attendant disassembles Beca's massive walls and they share a special night. Chloe overhears a phone convo and assumes Beca's got a significant other at home. Turns out it's Beca's son, Oliver. Beca tries to contact Chloe afterwards and Chloe has none of it until she encounters the Mitchell family on a flight, and realizes her mistake in refusing Beca's explanation.
The two weeks after her chance encounter with Beca...and her family, passed by agonizingly slowly.
Chloe isn't too proud to admit that in those weeks, she'd made sure that her phone was never too far from her reach, and that its battery didn't drop below a 30% charge.
Every sound that it emitted brought with it a stirring of hopefulness that, maybe this time, it'd be Beca. Every time, the hopefulness was followed by a pang of disappointment when she saw that it was just another damned Bath and Body Works email, some filler text message from her dad informing her of her hometown's weather this week.
The disappointment wasn't directed at Beca, though.
No, it was most definitely disappointment in herself. She'd done this to herself, and more importantly, she'd done this to Beca. Chloe had let her past dictate her emotions and had pushed away a chance at happiness at the very first sign of trouble.
It was only fair that Chloe should feel the way that Beca had probably felt after Chloe kicked her out and refused to talk to her.
"And this is my mommy."
God, looking back on that morning and the night that preceded it, she knows that there were signs she missed. The slight conflict that played on Beca's face when she artfully dodged Chloe's question about her family. The lighthearted playfulness that had taken Chloe by surprise as they roasted marshmallows in the fireplace. The flood of emotion that filled her dark blue eyes when Beca laid Chloe down on a nest of pillows and blankets, and loved her in the most tender way.
And if there was one sign that Chloe should certainly not have missed, it was the way that Beca had begged, quite literally, begged Chloe to calm down and let her explain. The tears that streamed down her face and the desperation in her voice when Chloe accused her of something Chloe had now come realize Beca wasn't even capable of doing.
Beca was no adulterer; she was a mother. To the cutest little being that Chloe had ever laid eyes on.
Late at night, when Chloe was feeling particularly masochistic, her mind wandered to far off places. Where she and Beca were happy. Where Chloe had given up her life as a flight attendant, and had become a teacher. Where Oliver had a red-haired brother or sister.
But that wasn't going to be her reality.
/
"Chloe. Chloe. CHLOE."
She jumps when she finally recognizes Bree's sharp hiss a few feet away. Apparently she'd spaced out smack in the middle of mid-flight beverage service.
"Sorry, Bree," she mumbles, reacquainting herself with reality. At Aubrey's concerned look, she merely responds with a half-shrug before plastering on a smile and serving the next passenger.
After the two had finished passing out drinks and snacks to the coach passengers, they rolled the beverage cart to the back of the plane and stored it, reclaiming their spots in the tandem seats at the rear of the plane.
After a few tense moments, Aubrey breaks the silence, and Chloe is shocked by the uncertainty that she hears in place of the blonde's usual commanding tone.
"Chlo, are you okay?" Aubrey chances.
Chloe offers an admittedly weak smile and nods, "Yeah, Bree, I'm fine."
"Well, you don't seem very 'fine.' You haven't for the last few weeks. I mean, come on. You're actual-ray-of-sunshine-Chloe-Beale. It's pretty easy to tell when you aren't feeling very 'Chloe.'"
Chloe gives a hollow chuckle at that, not sure whether she should be thankful that she could be so easily read.
"Yeah, well, you aren't wrong," Chloe starts. "You remember Beca, ri-"
"I had a feeling it was about that little troll. I heard her bitch out that skeeze the one time, but I just knew she was bad news from the start! What did she do? I swear to god, Chloe, I'll-," Aubrey rants, seemingly all in one breath.
Chloe is wide-eyed when she cuts Aubrey off, waving her hand. "No, Bree. It was me. I fucked it up; Beca didn't do anything wrong."
Aubrey's quirked eyebrow and pursed lips make it clear to Chloe that the blonde doesn't believe her.
"No, really," Chloe continues.
She regales the whole saga that's occurred between herself and Beca. Aubrey doesn't interrupt her, probably for fear that Chloe will retreat back into herself the way she has the past two weeks. She's silent and contemplative as she takes in Chloe's story.
"I mean, the kid looks just like her, Bree. I don't know how I didn't see it immediately. But once he said it, every thing kind of fell into place. I tried to talk to her before they de-planed, and I asked her to call me, but I really doubt she will. And who could blame her? I know we had something special and I just straight up refused to hear her out," Chloe finishes with a sigh, bringing her hand up to wipe away the wetness that gathered at the corners of her eyes.
"Oh, Chloe," Aubrey whispered, resting a comforting hand on Chloe's knee. "It's going to be okay. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that you weren't in the wrong. But you aren't entirely to blame."
Chloe opens her mouth to argue, but a comforting squeeze of Aubrey's hand on her knee quiets her, and the blonde continues.
"It's true that you should have let yourself hear what she had to say, but Beca could have been more direct with you that day. What this sounds like to me is a miscommunication that blew up into something way out of proportion. This can be fixed, Chloe," Aubrey finishes.
"You think so?" Chloe asked, registering an optimism in her voice that she hadn't felt in weeks.
"I know it. After what I heard just now, I don't think you should wait for her to contact you. She doesn't seem like the type of person who would reach out to you in a case like this, even if she wanted to."
Chloe considers this, and she's positive that Aubrey is right. After the lengths that Chloe had to go to to even pull a full sentence out of Beca, Chloe thinks she might have to wait for a decade to get Beca to even answer her phone.
So where should she start?
" I wouldn't even know where to begin looking for her. All I have is her phone number, and she won't answer that. She lives in LA. That's the only other thing that I know," Chloe ponders.
"Chloe. This is 2016. You can definitely find her. She's a music producer, right?"
And with that, the gears in Chloe's head start to turn at double speed.
After a full 24 hours of flying, Chloe is finally settled into a hotel room in Denver, Colorado.
Her and Aubrey's conversation is still weighing on her mind as she brainstorms the best route of contacting Beca.
's a producer. She could easily find Beca's label and approach them. But, she doesn't want to interfere in Beca's professional life. That would probably also make her look like some stalker-ish fan.
2. Beca was on the plane with her son and her father. There's no guarantee that Beca had told her father who Chloe is, and what had happened between them. But even if she had, Chloe's not sure that a father would so much as entertain a conversation with someone who had treated Beca the way Chloe did.
3. Beca has a son who's in school. She could try and contact the various kindergartens and/or elementary schools in LA, but that would probably put her on a variety of watchlists.
A few hours of contemplation later, Chloe decides there's only one course of action.
"Hello, Ethan Mitchell."
Chloe's heart pounds for a few moments when she registers that she's actually doing this. She's calling Beca Mitchell's actual father, for help with a problem that she had caused.
"...Hello?"
Shit. She hadn't had the foresight to figure out what she was going to say before she worked up the nerve to dial the number.
'Act before you think,' a classic Chloe Beale maneuver.
"Ethan Mitchell," the voice repeats, a little more loudly, and Chloe is impressed that he doesn't sound annoyed like people usually do when they answer an unidentified number.
This gives her a fragment of hope, so she takes a deep breath and gives it a go.
"Hi, Mr. Mitchell, my name is Chloe Beale."
There are a few moments of tense silence while Chloe waits for him to say something...anything.
She's about ready to hang up and try something else when she hears Ethan take a deep breath.
"I've heard a lot about you, Chloe."
It sounds like this phone call might be a giant but, and Chloe feels the same readiness to end the call as she did she first dialed, but then Ethan speaks up again.
"I can't say that all of it's is good, of course, but I've heard a lot."
Chloe take inhales as though those two seconds will fill her with inspiration, but nothing comes.
"I...yes, your probably right. But I'd really appreciate a few moments to talk to you, sir," Chloe answers, standing from the hotel bed that she'd been laying on.
"Chloe, see...Beca's been through a lot in her life. And I don't intend to add any more pain onto what she's already experienced. So you have two minutes to explain to me why I should hear you out. Starting when I answered the phone."
Chloe takes just a moment to gather herself, pacing back and forth in the narrow hotel room, trying to prepare some kind of statement that would justify the way she's treated Beca, and indirectly, Oliver, before she begins, but she can't find any words.
But she thinks that the best place to start is just...the beginning. And so she starts.
"Mr. Mitchell, I met your daughter on a flight some time ago, and there hasn't been a day gone by that I haven't thought about her. I talked to her, and I certainly haven't heard her entire story, but I know that she doesn't open up easily. We got to know bits of each other over some months and I'd like to think that I can read her fairly well, but I definitely can't presume to know all of her. I wouldn't be surprised if she told you, but she tried to share Oliver, the most important part of herself, with me, and I accused her of the worst. I wouldn't hear it. And I will regret that every day of my life."
"Your minute and-, " Ethan tries to interject, but Chloe is on a roll and she won't let herself go out like that if she can help it.
"NO, SIR! I'm sorry, but my feelings for your daughter can't really be constricted to less than two minutes," Chloe continued, feeling galvanized by the silence of the man on the other side.
"I spent months trying to reach Beca. It's not hard to figure out that she has spent a lot of time anesthetizing herself to the opinions of everyone else, but within my first few conversations with her, I could see that she does it only to protect herself. I could see that the two of us have a kind of chemistry that a lot people spend their whole lives looking for. I know that I had the primary role in ruining the relationship that we shared, but I also know that it was a gut reaction on my part to think the worst of her. Given the opportunity, I would try my damnedest to repair it. For my own well-being, for Beca's...and for Oliver's."
Chloe feels a slight bit of guilt in resorting to use Beca's son as part of her argument, but this is the best shot she has at reaching Beca without being blacklisted as some stalker, so she hopes that it reaches Ethan.
She waits for almost half a minute, Ethan's even breathing letting her know that she hasn't at least been hung up on.
"Well, Chloe Beale. You've convinced me. I'll try to manage something, but ultimately, it's up to Beca," he says.
If she's honest with herself, she'd expected a little more of a fight from Ethan Mitchell.
But at the same time, Chloe can imagine that a father would want someone who is willing to lay themselves bare before his daughter; someone to ask Beca to love them for all that that person is, and isn't. Not in a lewd way, of course, but a more substantial way; wherein the two lay down all pretense and expose their vulnerabilities to each other and can find solace, understanding, and appreciation in each others' flaws.
And that is exactly what Chloe is willing to do.
So she and Ethan Mitchell converse for the next 45 minutes, trying to figure out the best way for Chloe to present herself to Beca and Oliver.
She only hopes that it will be enough.
I could try and promise you that the next chapter will be up soon, but who's to say. I've got two other fics that haven't even been updated since I've started this guy, so that should give you an idea at how great I am at updating stories. Rest assured, every single one will be completed at some point. I can't guarantee when, per se, but I know the sorrow of a good fanfiction that's been abandoned. My fics will never be abandoned, even if there's only one person still reading.
Thank you to everyone who's read, reviewed, commented, favorited, kudos-ed, what have you. It may not seem like it, but they really do keep me goin'.
As always, find me on tumblr at commanderbeclexa . I patiently await your opinions and suggestions.