"You two are honestly the sweetest", Stacie cooed, as Jesse and Beca strolled through the doors of the Bellas space.
"Hey, I thought we weren't allowed to bring the enemy to practice!" Fat Amy protested. "No man candy in here, Beca".
"We're here to discuss the Christmas riff-off", Jesse said smoothly, dropping Beca's hand.
"Oh, what was it you said earlier this year, Bec?" Fat Amy stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Something about-"
"Amy", Beca said warningly.
"Something about the Christmas riff-off dying along with Aubrey's flight attendant uniforms".
"I seem to remember something like that", Stacie agreed, and Beca scowled at them.
"Girls".
"You don't like the Christmas riff-off, Becs?" Jesse turned to Beca, eyes wide in mock surprise.
(He didn't know why he was surprised. A Christmas riff-off was not something that Beca Mitchell would do. The year before, Stacie had suggested that they wear Mean Girls-esque costumes and he had heard about that for the next four days.)
"Beca's got a Christmas sweater this year", Jesse informed them.
(He had tweeted out a picture of Beca in her Swanson family Christmas sweater and it had received three retweets and seven favourites. She was going to kill him when she realised.)
"We should hang some mistletoe around here", Cynthia Rose declared, and Fat Amy was quick to protest.
"No, no, that won't be necessary".
Jesse chuckled (because Beca had filled him in on all the details he had missed on the infamous 'flying Mexican food' adventure that they refused to speak about). "Beca and I have also decided we're going to initiate duets between the Treblemakers and the Bellas".
The noise the Bellas made was unlike anything Beca had ever heard before. Screams of 'I'm gonna crush their flat butts' and 'just to be clear, the Oath doesn't exst any more, right?' filled the performance space and Beca laughed, leaning into Jesse's chest.
The year before, Beca Mitchell wouldn't have been the girl singing 'Baby Its Cold Outside' with Jesse Swanson. And yet there she was, wrapped up in layers of clothing, singing with the aca nerd, Stacie swaying suggestively behind them (despite Beca's best effort to curb that habit), Fat Amy arguing with one of the junior Trebles over how she was going to win.
She was in deep.
(Aubrey Posen was so right.)
(Not that she'd ever admit that.)