She plays the mix two more times that night.

It's not like that made it special. After all, her shift was 3 hours long, but she only had around 30 songs to play, which practically forced her to play some over. So no, it wasn't special.

But it was.

Because it was Chloe's song Beca was playing. Chloe's song in Beca's remix. And it sounded great. Deep bass lines and intricate drum beats and Chloe's voice. It would be an understatement to say Beca got lost in the music. A few seconds of silence followed after the song ended, and Beca was still reminiscing in the beat of the song, before she realized she was live and needed to do something. She scrambled for the microphone, took a second to compose herself, before hitting a button and lightly saying; "WBUJ; Music for the independent mind." before she put on a mix of Imogen Heap's Hide and Seek and Krewella's Live for the Night (and those songs where so different but Beca made it work.)

It was 2AM when Beca left the studio. She made a mental note to ask Luke when her next shift was, because he didn't leave her schedule in the same spot as usual. She hoped it was the same days as the last few weeks. She'd play Mondays and Thursdays, usually 11PM - 2AM, but occasionally Luke would change it a little depending on his schedule.

But today it was a normal night shift for her - thank the gods. Tomorrow she had a class at 8AM which god knows why she decided to take. Beca navigated around campus in the dark, trying to find Baker Hall which is where her dorm was. After wandering around for a couple of minutes, Beca was positive she was lost. Which troubled her, since she had gone back to her dorm dozens of times at 2AM.

She went into the nearest building, and began looking around for someone to help her. She recognized the building as the place where she took her English Lit class. Which was good, because that meant she didn't have to interact with other human beings to navigate anymore. She knew the way back to her dorm from here.

A few minutes passed as Beca walked at a brisk pace before she finally entered Baker Hall. She was most definitely relieved when she pushed open the heavy wooden doors, breathing in the all-too familiar scent of cologne, soapy water, and air freshener. It was an odd mix, in any case, but it had been he scent of the place Beca called home for the past year.

She was on the second floor when a door opened and nearly whacked her in the face.

She stumbled back a few paces, opening her mouth to scold the person who'd opened the door (probably with a lot of swear words) when the overwhelming smell of popcorn assaulted her nose, and Jesse turned around to close the door behind him.

"Of course you're here," Beca groaned under her breath. She reached up and ran a hand through her bangs, brushing them back and out of her face.

Jesse seemed not to notice her at first, what with his humming and tapping on his jeans, until he came nearly face to face with her. He jumped back, hand over his heart, before he raised his eyebrows. "Becs?"

Beca grunted in return. It sounded weird when Jesse called her that. It sounded... off. Not like when Chloe said it. And again, somehow her thoughts where brought back to the redhead again- because God forbid she have a moment without thinking back to the ginger.

Jesse took a moment to compose himself, before clearing his throat and continuing. "What're you doing here? It's like.. I dunno, sometime after midnight."

"Station," Beca said, shrugging nonchalantly. She shifted on her feet, swinging her arms and looking at the ceiling. "Where are you off to?"

Jesse closed his eyes, like he knew Beca would judge what he was about to say, which she probably would. "I ran out of popcorn."

Beca snorted, rolling her eyes. "Of course you did. Jeez Jess." she shook her head, before clapping her hands together. "I'm gonna head back now- before some of the freakish frat-boys get up for more beer. See you, Jesse."

The raven-haired man nodded, sending her a small smile she didn't reciprocate, before side-stepping her with a light; "Goodnight Beca."

And then it was over, and both freshmen where on their way again. There was nothing about the encounter with Jesse to be upset about, but as Beca opened the door to her dorm she found herself quite grouchy. She blamed it on the lack of caffeine.

Not bothering about possibly waking up Kimmy Jin, Beca closed the door rather forcefully before grunting and flopping down on her bed. She stared at her ceiling for what felt like an eternity, before doing half a sit up to cast a weary glance in the direction of her laptop, before falling back onto her mattress and turning onto her side. There would be no mixing tonight.

Her alarm went off at the proper time the next day, thank the gods. But this was one of the rare times that Beca wished it went off earlier. Mainly because the moment she glanced in the mirror, she groaned. Her makeup was messy and smudged seeing as she slept with it on, her hair was a mess of tangles and knots, she had dark circles on her eyes and her posture sucked, but that was the easy thing to fix.

She really didn't feel like going to her music theory class. She just wanted a cup of coffee and a few more hours of sleep and a back rub. God did she want a back rub.

But the DJ somehow found it in her to slip on something that looked like a flannel top and some jeans and shuffle into the backroom. She leaned over the sink (even though she had to tiptoe slightly) and splashed water on her face, though that did nothing for her makeup situation, it actually just made it worse.

"Great," Beca grumbled, looking at herself in the mirror, with mascara running down her face. "I look like a raccoon, just what I wanted." She reached over to turn off the faucet, before rummaging through the cupboard for something to help her with the whole... situation.

Half an hour later and after a ton of concealer, eyeliner, water and black rags full of removed makeup, Beca finally deemed herself at least slightly appearance ready. She slung her bag over her shoulder, before taking a deep breath and leaving the room and Kimmy Jin behind.

Of course, not for long. Around an hour later, and Beca was walking away from her class, oddly satisfied with herself. She'd managed to make the class just in time, and had slipped away at the end without anyone really noticing her (or hating her, hopefully.)

She was heading back to her dorm when she turned a corner and was immediately engulfed in the smell of brownies. She was momentarily confused, until she passed a dorm door where the smell was stronger then ever. She stared at the door for a few seconds before her stomach practically yelled "I'm hungry!" It occurred to her that she hadn't eaten yet today, and momentarily wondered how in hell or Hogwarts did she manage to survive this long on an empty stomach.

So of course, it was off to Reef's diner.

It took her maybe 10 minutes, but after a lot of stomach growling Beca caught sight of the diner about 30 yards away. Her speed walk slowed a little. But that was when she saw it. In the window of the diner, the same window that was just beside table four, was a head of flaming red hair that Beca would recognize anywhere by now.

The brunette pulled open the door to the diner and didn't even bother looking at the counter. She just took a sharp left and pulled out the unoccupied seat at table four, looking up at Chloe as she sat.

"Are you stalking me now?" Beca questioned with a hint of amusement, just to show Chloe she wasn't serious. She dropped her bag beside her chair, and began leaning on her elbows.

Chloe, who had seen Beca come in, already had a grin on her face at the DJ's inquiry. She waved her hand and set down the book she was apparently reading before Beca came in. And while Beca didn't notice she had it today, she did notice it was the same book as yesterday and that she bookmarked it the same way as before. "Not important," she started, pausing her sentence to take a sip from her cup of coffee that Beca also had not noticed. "What is though, is last night I had the radio on after you left right? And some DJ or something played a remix of my band's song. My band's song! That's amazing, right!?"

And Beca had to remember to breath, because she remembered she did not tell Chloe what exactly her job was ("I'm sorry I gotta go, I'm gonna be late for work.") or why it was so late at night ("My boss can be weird about hours and I get landed with the night shift a lot.") so Chloe had no idea the remix she heard was probably Beca's remix and Chloe had no idea that she was listening to the one station Beca played her mixes on.

Her first thought was to play it cool. So she tried. "Yeah?" she hummed, raising her eyebrows in an attempt to sell her lie. "Wait, hold up, you're in a band?"

Chloe nodded enthusiastically, apparently buying Beca's awful lie. "Yeah!" she confirmed, leaning forward a bit to say in a lower voice, "Not to brag, but they selected me as their lead singer." before giving Beca a half smile and a wink and sitting back in her seat.

Beca nodded slowly, like she was trying to process this. "So, you sing then."

"Oh yeah," Chloe said, smile back in full force as she continued. "Singing is kinda my life. The numbers of talent shows I used to do is ridiculous. What about you, Becs? Do you sing at all?"

It took Beca a moment to answer, as she was a little shocked by the question. "I uh.. I dabble a bit, but I don't really think I'm that great."

Chloe rolled her eyes, apparently unfazed. "Sing something for me," she said, like singing in public was pretty much the easiest thing on earth.

"What, dude, no! Not in here." Beca said quickly, vigorously shaking her head no.

"C'mon," Chloe prodded, reaching out with her arm and poking Beca. "I'll tickle you if you don't."

Beca raised her eyebrows. "Is that a challenge, Chlo?" she asked, tilting her head to the side a bit like she did when she was being provoked. But all Chloe did was push her chair up and stand, going over to Beca's side of the table and poking her under her rib-cage, to which Beca squirmed to try and get away from her finger, complaining slightly with a "No, stop it you... redheaded... person!"

Chloe laughed, rolling her eyes and crouching down to show Beca she wasn't going to move until she sang. And Beca cursed herself for doing this, but she sighed. A white flag. "Fine, fine you win." she muttered, turning herself around to face the ginger.

She took a deep breath, and sang the first few lyrics that came to mind, which happened to be part of High Highs song Open Season. "Crawl in the back seat, old friend, it is really all in your mind, it is all in your mind, you look..." and that's when Chloe joined in, seemingly knowing the words. It kinda shocked Beca at first, but then she got back into the rhythm of the song. "So tired of living like a kite... kite... kite... kite." And then Beca stopped, and smiled a little before pressing her lips together and looking away from Chloe's bright grin.

Because no, she didn't enjoy the way their voices meshed together so perfectly, or the way Chloe knew how to match pitch with her so well, or how Chloe's eyes lit up when she recognized the song, or how Chloe's smile made Beca feel like she did something right when all she did was sing.

And god, what was this woman doing to her.

I finally did it! I'm so, so sorry this took so long. I had a few writing issues here and there but tonight I pulled through and wrote like 1000+ words in an hour. I'd also like to apologize for minor typos. And psssst, come yell at me about this AU over on tumblr at i-said-oops. Baaaai.

xoxo

~Beale