Beca wakes up at noon with a splitting headache from consuming too many cans of cheap beer (essentially wiping out her entire stash) and severe sleep deprivation. She's already beginning to hate herself for suggesting lunch. Because lunch with Chloe is just about the last thing she wants to do right now. She wants to stay under the covers, curl up into a fetal position and pretend none of the previous night's events happened.

Her phone vibrates.

Chloe: You don't have to, you know.

She groans and tosses her phone aside, staring up at the ceiling. Chloe was offering her an out. Of the lunch, of a friendship, of maybe ever seeing each other ever again. She's probably the most idiotically nice person Beca has ever known. Which isn't exactly helping matters at the moment. After a while she rolls over and retrieves her phone.

Beca: We don't have to do anything except die, Beale.

Chloe's reply comes almost instantaneously.

Chloe: You know what I mean, Mitchell.
Beca: Shut up, Beale. I'm coming.

Before she has too much time to hate herself, Beca drags herself out of bed and into the bathroom. Predictably, she looks like shit. Her hair looks like it's a nest hastily cobbled together from a pile of scratchy twigs. Her eyes are blotchy and there's a small imprint on her cheek from falling asleep on top of her laptop. "And this is how I snag all the ladies," She mutters, splashing a handful of cold water on her face.

An hour later, scrubbed up and looking as human as she possibly can, Beca successfully navigates herself to Chloe's office building with some (frankly, very little) help from Google Maps.

She steps into the building – all chic and sleek, everything you'd expect from the work place of the great New York fashion designer – and immediately attracts suspicious glares from the receptionist. Beca looks down at her torn jeans and holey sneakers, then up again at the impeccably dressed woman at the counter and wonders (rather grumpily) why everyone else seems to be better paid than she was. Then again, even if she does get paid more, Beca doubts that she'll spend the additional money on clothes.

"Can I help you?" The receptionist asks, tapping her glasses down to her nose – possibly so she can glare at Beca with greater intensity.

"No," Beca says glumly, sinking into a seat on the sofa. "I'm a hopeless case."

The receptionist narrows her eyes and stares at her through thick fake eyelashes. "What dyou mean?"

"Nothing," Beca says, sighing. "Sorry." The receptionist snorts impatiently and goes back to staring at her computer screen. Fortunately, it isn't long before Chloe comes out of the lift, flanked by two colleagues who are laughing and talking to her animatedly. Beca swears that the man on her right looks exactly like Ryan Gosling.

"Case in point," She mumbles to herself. "I'm fucked." The aforementioned Ryan-Gosling-lookalike gives Chloe a jaunty, almost arrogant wave and peels off to the left towards the other exit. Chloe spots her and smiles. It's a wonderful smile, genuine and warm and a little bit goofy.

"Hey Beca," She says, coming closer. Now that they're side by side, Chloe seems nervous. She fingers the hem of her dress as though she's not quite sure what to do with her hands, not quite sure what to say to someone she has just tried – and kind of, strictly speaking, failed – to kiss her.

Beca falls into step next to her. "Don't give me that, Beale. I'm not a man-eating troll. I'm sure you've had more than enough spurned lovers to know how to behave around them by now."

"Spurned lover?" Chloe quirks an eyebrow. "How melodramatic."

Beca grins wryly. "Yeah? You should've seen me last night. My neighbor came over and asked me if anyone died."

Chloe bites her lower lip guiltily. "Really?"

Beca rolls her eyes. "For God's sake, Beale, I'm kidding. Are we gonna go get something to eat, or are we going to continue standing here, feeling sorry for me?"

Chloe smiles and leads Beca out of the lobby. "I know the best Thai place."

Beca pulls a face. "Man. I was actually kinda enjoying the attention."

Chloe laughs, and it's been so long since Beca has last heard that sound that she can't help but gape. "We can continue feeling sorry for you after I get some food." Chloe says, zigzagging her way through the crowded midday streets with Beca in tow. "I'm always more charitable on a full stomach."

Ten minutes later, they successfully elbow their way through the crowded restaurant and claim the last empty table. Chloe orders for the both of them, because it's so authentic that the menu is in Thai and there are no pictures. Chloe settles into her seat and clears her throat. "So – uh, what've you been up to the past few months?"

Beca shrugs. "I think you've pretty much guessed most of it by now – I'm here, so clearly I quit my job at L.A., and I tried to shove my tongue down your throat last night, so clearly Jesse and I aren't together anymore."

Chloe grimaces. "Don't – don't say it like that," She says weakly. Beca raises her eyebrows. Chloe looks away, embarrassed. "I just – it wasn't shoving – never mind." There was a short pause as Chloe struggles to find something to say. She blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. "Why did you and Jesse break up?" As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she blushes and wishes desperately that she had just kept her bloody mouth shut. "Sorry. I didn't – you don't have to answer that," She says hastily.

"I'm gay," The words come tumbling out of Beca's mouth before she has time to filter them through her brain. But either way she doesn't regret saying it. She's tired of all the hiding and the pretending and she figure that if Jesse Swanson has the guts to come out to his devout Christian parents then she could at least tell her – best friend? almost-lover? five-year-long crush? what the hell was Chloe anyway?

Chloe sucks in a breath and blows it out slowly. "Gay or bi?" She asks, after a while.

"Gay," Beca says.

"And Jesse...?"

"Gay too," Beca says.

Chloe shakes her head and lets out a quiet chuckle. "All those times I'd held back because I didn't want to be a stereotypical redhead wife-stealer... I shoulda just did what Aubrey'd suggested right from the start."

Beca winced. She'd put her feelings on the shelf for five years because she was too scared to admit that she was gay, and Chloe had suffered right alongside her because she'd been too damn noble to say anything while Beca was still attached. It kills Beca to know that Chloe had once wanted her like she wants her now and she'd been too busy pretending to be in love with Jesse to act on it – and now it was too late.

"For a fake relationship, you and Jesse lasted pretty damn fucking long, don't you think?" Chloe isn't mad, but the sentence comes out a lot shakier than she wanted it to.

Beca runs a hand through her hair. "It probably lasted so long because I didn't actually have to do any coupley things like remember his birthday or stick around when he goes into histrionic fits."

"You don't remember his birthday?" Chloe asks, incredulous. "You're a terrible girlfriend."

"Well, now you'll never know." Beca shoots back, the undercurrent of wistfulness not quite hidden from her voice.

"I think I've heard enough by now to stay away," Chloe says lightly.

"I remembered your birthday," Beca protests.

Chloe laughs. "Only because Aubrey shoved a piece of paper and a pen in your face and literally told you to write a birthday card for me. Yes, don't look at me like that, she told me."

"That bitch," Beca grumbles. "I'm gonna kill her."

"Oh yeah? Good luck with that," Chloe says, grinning. "Aubrey's indestructible."

The food comes, and they settle into a comfortable, friendly conversation that reminds Beca of rainy afternoons at the library and lazy mornings spent on the living room couch. Chloe munches thoughtfully on a spoonful of noodles, then sets it down carefully and says, "Beca. I want to be friends. I really do. I want you in my life."

Beca nods. "Same," She says simply. Because it's true. She does want Chloe in her life. And so despite everything, despite the heaviness in her heart, Beca finds herself willingly returning to the torturous, half-in-half-out limbo of college, as though nothing had changed between them. Except this time the tables had turned and Beca is the one struggling to keep afloat.

Maybe this is worse – maybe it's dysfunctional; maybe if they'd devolved into a raging shouting match, catastrophically awkward silences or something like that, she'd be able to walk away and stop herself from getting hurt. But that hadn't happened.

They still work as friends, and Beca doesn't want to throw that away even though it isn't exactly what she wants. Because when those blue eyes meet hers, she can almost convince herself that this beautiful, wonderful woman is still hers and hers alone...