A/N: Warning for Kate, and… all her associated problems.

Jesse is already there at the station when Beca arrives, pouring over a stack of CDs with a morose expression. She runs up to him, meaning to poke him or something else to get his attention, but excitement wins out and she ends up pounding him on the back with her fist instead.

'Ow!' he cries, whirling around with anger contorting his features. 'What are you – Beca!' His face clears when he sees it's her.

'Hey!' Beca says brightly, clasping her hands behind her back and grinning up at him.

Jesse stares at her, obviously taken aback by her unusually cheery greeting. Even if Beca wasn't supposed to be mad at him, it would've been odd. 'What are you doing here?' he asks.

'I'm here to work, silly!'

'Oh…' Jesse warily puts down one of the CDs he's holding, giving Beca his full attention now. 'No graveyard shift today?'

Beca shakes her head. 'Nope! Thought I could do with some actual sleep for once.' She tries to keep her smile down, and Christ, she feels so queerballs right now, but she can't help it. Judging by the way Jesse takes a cautious step away from her, he is clearly spooked by her strange behaviour. He probably thinks she's going to kill him or something – that's what Beca would think if someone ran up to her with a smile like that.

Just to unnerve him further, Beca deliberately lets her smile turn a little creepy, the corners turning up in a vaguely sadistic fashion.

'So…' Jesse says slowly, surreptitiously taking another step away from her. 'How're you, Beca?'

'Oh, I'm good,' she tells him cheerfully, practically bouncing on her toes. 'I'm really good.'

He blinks. 'Um. Okay. Any reason for that?'

'No reason…' She drifts closer to him, laughing inwardly when he tries to retreat again, his posture tense. 'Just good things happening in my life, right now, you know…'

'Great,' replies Jesse nervously, 'that's great.'

'Yep.' She nods, and lets the tense silence fall. Jesse looks pretty terrified, and Beca seriously wonders what he's expecting to get from a girl a whole foot shorter than him. 'So… Jesse,' she drawls. 'I hear you talked to Chloe.'

A beat.

Beca says, 'Thank you,' while at the same time, Jesse shouts, 'Don't stab me!'

Beca and Jesse both stare at each other, each realising what the other said.

'Thank you?' repeats Jesse incredulously.

'Stab you?' Beca echoes, similarly incredulous. 'Sorry, Jesse, I left all my knives at home. You're ridiculous, you know that?'

'Can you blame me?! You were acting really weird and then you brought up Chloe and I thought you were going to hurt me!' Jesse whines. 'I've never seen you smile like that.'

'Well, to be honest, I was trying to freak you out a little,' she admits. 'But it's kind of hilarious you thought I might've been toting a knife. Says a lot about your perception of my character.'

'You never know with girls like you,' Jesse says under his breath. 'But anyway… Thank you? What on Earth are you thanking me for? I thought you'd be furious with me.'

'Normally I would be, and I'm a little angry, sure…' Beca shrugs, her smile creeping back up on her face despite her attempts to keep it down. 'But surprisingly, I think you doing that actually helped a lot.'

'Ah.' He picks up a new crate to stack, also giving Beca one so she can start as well. 'So…. You and Chloe are doing okay, huh?'

'We're doing great,' Beca gushes, not even realising her smile has turned into that of a crazy person's and Jesse is looking at her weirdly again. 'I'm not even kidding. Once we really started talking about what was going on, things just felt so much easier. She's so patient and understanding about it, now she knows a bit more about what I need from her. And Jesse, I even hugged her. Of my own accord! Me!'

Jesse's eyebrows shoot off into his hairline. 'You hugged her?'

'Yeah!' Beca says excitedly. 'Did I mention I did it of my own accord, too? I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but then I just said "fuck it", and I did it!'

'Well, that's great, Beca. I'm happy for you.' Jesse smiles back at her, but even Beca in her Chloe-related-happy-haze can tell it's forced. Her own slips a little too.

'What's the matter?' she asks. 'I thought you'd be happy for me.'

'Of course I'm happy for you,' says Jesse, putting his CDs in a pile hard enough to make the cases make a loud crack every time they hit the other.

'But?' Beca demands.

'But nothing. I'm happy for you. End of.' He takes his CDs and walks off into another corner of the room to start stacking them.

'Then why are you acting all weird?'

'I'm not.'

'You are – don't even bother lying.' He doesn't reply. 'Jesse!'

'What?' he snaps.

'Tell me what the hell is wrong!'

'Nothing is wrong!'

'Well there obviously is, or you wouldn't be acting like this!' Beca suddenly realises she's probably talking too loudly considering she's at work and Luke is in the booth next to them – but not quickly enough to tell Jesse to shut up before he yells, his cheeks bright red, 'Well guess what, Beca, you were wrong! I'm completely fine!'

The door to the booth bangs open and Luke pokes his head out, scowl in place. 'What the hell are you guys shouting about? You're supposed to be working!'

Jesse shoots him a scowl of his own. 'Nothing,' he responds moodily.

Luke's eyes narrow disapprovingly; he looks to Beca next. 'Becky? What's going on?' She glances at Jesse. Seeing this, Luke adds, 'And don't give me that "nothing" crap.'

'We were talking about Chloe,' Beca tells him hesitantly, unsure of what else she could say.

'Chloe? As in, Chloe Beale?' His face immediately softens; Beca rolls her eyes at the effect Chloe seems to have on everyone. 'What about her?'

Now Beca really has no idea what to say. Luke doesn't know that she's into women, let alone Chloe, and she rather wants to keep it that way – at the same time, she can't give him another excuse or he'll get mad.

Unfortunately, Jesse makes the decision for her, muttering, 'Beca is really into Chloe.'

'Dude!' Beca exclaims. 'A little discretion, please?!'

Luke looks taken aback by this news. 'I didn't know you were gay, Becky.'

'Yeah, well, I might have told you someday if Jesse didn't out me like that,' Beca says, glaring at Jesse.

'Why are you looking at me like that?' he says. 'It's not like Luke is likely to be homophobic, his sister dated Chloe!'

'That's not the point. It's my decision whether to tell someone or not.'

'She's right, mate. That's not on.'

Jesse grumbles. 'Fine. Sorry, Beca.' Beca doesn't accept his apology, still annoyed at him for being so moody with her before Luke came in. Thankfully, (or maybe not thankfully) Luke directs the conversation away by asking Beca some more questions.

'So you and Chloe are together?' he asks, turning to Beca interestedly. 'That's nice, I always thought she was a great catch for Kate.'

'No.'

'You aren't?' That's Jesse this time, raising his head up and staring at Beca in disbelief. 'Why not? I thought you said things were "great" between you two.' His little finger quotes indicate his sarcasm.

'They are. We're talking it slow,' she says defensively.

He snorts. 'Really slow, apparently…'

Beca has had enough of Jesse's attitude. 'What is your problem, seriously?'

'My problem?' He drops the stack he's holding back onto the trolley, getting a reproachful look from Luke. 'My problem is that you're not taking this seriously!'

'Taking what seriously?!'

'This whole thing with Chloe! You've just rushed straight back into her arms, without really thinking things through or taking the time to sort through your problems properly. If you're not careful, someone's going to end up with a broken heart again either because you hurt her or she hurt you, and I'll be the one to pick up the pieces again!'

'Hey,' Luke says sharply. 'Don't talk about things you aren't part of, Jesse. I know Chloe, and I know she'd never hurt someone deliberately.'

'It doesn't matter whether it happens deliberately. The point is that the two of you have this knack for completely ignoring what the problem is and end up hurting each other regardless.' Seeing Luke's blank look, he throws his hands up. 'Does no-one see where I'm coming from here?!'

'I get it,' says Beca quietly, getting disbelieving looks from both men. 'Don't look at me like that, I'm not completely stupid. I thought about all that already.'

'You did?' Jesse says, sounding surprised.

'Of course. I'm scared of that too, of us falling back into old habits.' She wipes her hands on her jeans, ridding herself of the nervous sweat that's built up on her palms. 'But I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with her. I never said we were totally fixed, just that we're finally trying. And we've got a long way to go, but we have to start somewhere.' She looks at him pleadingly. 'Can't you just be happy for me?'

Jesse deflates, looking ashamed of himself. 'Yeah… You're right. I'm sorry…' He sighs, rubbing at his face. 'I don't know what came over me. I'm such a douche.'

'You're not a douche. Most of the time.' She smirks; he rolls his eyes. 'But it's nice you were looking out for me, and stuff.'

'I just don't want to see you get hurt again,' Jesse tells her honestly.

'Nor do I. And hopefully neither of us will be. But we're working on it, so that's the main thing, right?'

Jesse nods. He scuffs the bottom of his shoe on the floor a little in embarrassment. 'Right,' he mutters. 'I'm… I'm sorry, Beca.'

'That's okay,' she says, meaning it.

Luke is looking between the two of them, obviously completely lost. '… Are you two done now?'

'More or less,' says Beca, shrugging.

'Then get back to work, already, I'm not paying you to stand around crying about your relationship issues.'

'You're barely paying us at all,' Jesse mutters, but only loud enough for Beca to hear and crack a smile at. Luke turns on his heel and walks back into the booth.

'Back in a minute,' Beca says to Jesse, already following Luke in there and shutting the door. Luke doesn't even realise she's there until she's closed it.

'No freshmen -' he begin, but Beca finishes his sentence for him with 'No freshmen in the booth, yeah, I know. I just wanted to ask you something… privately.'

He pauses with his finger over a switch, raising an eyebrow. 'I'm guessing this is about Chloe.'

'How'd you guess?'

'You're not that hard to read, Becky.' He sighs, giving up. 'Today's going to be a slow day, I suppose… What do you want to know?'

'You and Chloe were close, right?'

Luke considers the question as he lines up some more tracks to play while he talks. 'Well. Maybe not close, but we got on pretty well, yeah.'

'So you were like… Around, when she was dating your sister?'

'Yes…' he says slowly, 'Becky, what's this about? Just cut to the chase, already.'

With a lack of anything to busy her hands with, Beca resorts to twisting her shirt between her fingers in nervousness. 'Look, this might be a personal question, but I can't help but wonder… What were your sister and Chloe like as a couple?'

'That is a personal question.'

'I know… The thing is, she hasn't said much about it, and the few times she has she's seemed pretty upset about the whole thing. I just wondered what actually went on between them.'

Luke sighs. 'If she's not brought it up with you herself, that's probably a clue that she doesn't want to talk about this kind of thing, or that's she's not ready to talk about it.'

'Can't you give me at least a brief outline of what happened?' Beca pleads. 'I promise I won't bring it up ever again.'

Luke turns to her seriously. 'Becky, I really think this is something the two of you should discuss together, not with me.'

Sensing a way in, Beca notes casually, 'I'm guessing Kate wasn't a good girlfriend, then.'

'Erm… Not the best, no,' Luke says delicately, taking the bait without thinking. 'It wasn't entirely her fault. Kate had a lot of issues.'

'Issues?'

'Yep.'

'Like what?'

He shifts, putting his weight on his right foot. 'I don't really want to discuss that with you, Becky.'

'Right, right. Sorry.'

Luke coughs, turning back to his screen and putting his back to Beca. 'Maybe you should ask Chloe about this rather than me. I mean, Kate's my sister. This conversation sort of puts me in an odd position.'

'Right, right,' Beca mutters. 'Sorry, I shouldn't have asked.'

'It's okay to ask, I know you're just worried about her.' Luke looks at her closely. 'You care about her a lot, don't you?'

'What makes you say that?'

'Just… the look on your face. Kind of the look she used to have on her face with Kate.' He shrugs and turns away. 'Ah well. No freshmen in the booth, Becky.'

A few days later, Beca finds herself in a very familiar scene. It's one she got used to pretty quickly with Chloe; lying side by side at the head of Chloe's bed, Beca's laptop balanced on her stomach. Distantly, Beca thinks about how far she's come: only a few months ago she was yelling at Chloe for touching her while in this exact same position, now she's lying on her bed with Chloe with just slight twinges of discomfort every so often that she can more or less overcome. Strange how the person who was giving her the most discomfort not long ago was the person she'd opened up to the most now.

Chloe had apparently managed to get Aubrey to stay out of the room for most of the evening – as far as Beca knows, she is aware that Chloe is spending time with her, but isn't too happy about it. As such she didn't need much convincing to leave the room to Chloe, clearly having wanted to avoid Beca.

('I think she wants to stay away from me too,' Chloe said miserably, when questioned by Beca. There was nothing she could think to do to help besides pat Chloe's hand in the most sympathetic way she could muster, which probably wasn't very.)

Somehow, Chloe had managed to convince Beca to watch a certain movie with her, one she had promised her she would "definitely" like. She hadn't shown her the case, saying it would give too much away, but she did tell Beca that the title was "Imagine Me & You", whatever that was. At the beginning Beca was at least vaguely entertained by the English accents and the wedding antics, but wasn't quite sure why Chloe thought she would like this one – it didn't seem that different to other romcoms.

When the bride met the eyes of the florist as she walked up the aisle, though, Beca's jaw had dropped and she looked over at Chloe. She was very deliberately not meeting Beca's eyes, but there was a massive grin on her face.

'You've gotta be kidding me…'

'No kidding here,' Chloe said, giggling to herself. 'You'll love it. I promise you.'

Half an hour later, Beca has to admit she isn't minding it too much. Although cutesy romantic comedies like these ones are probably her least favourite genre (as much as she has favourites, anyway), it's a nice change watching one with a lesbian couple for a change. And as Chloe whines to her part-way through, 'This one is so great because it's happy. I hate how lesbians in film always seem to end up with a guy in the end, or dead.'

'I guess that's like real life,' Beca says, snatching up some of the popcorn Chloe made them from the bowl resting on her stomach. Like Jesse, she finds it impossible to watch a movie without any, and well, Beca just likes popcorn in general. 'Us lesbians are doomed to a life of misery.'

'That better not happen to you,' says Chloe, waving her own piece of popcorn mock-threateningly. 'If you end up with a guy or die, I'll kill you.'

'That doesn't even make sense.'

'Exactly. That's how serious I am.' She throws her popcorn into her mouth, smirking when Beca rolls her eyes at her. She deliberately makes an attempt to focus her attention solely on the movie, pretending to ignore Chloe who is crunching her popcorn extra loudly just because she knows it irritates Beca. Apparently she 'looks really cute when she's annoyed'. If it were anyone other than Chloe, she probably would've kicked them out by now. Never mind that they're in Chloe's dorm. She'd find a way.

Unfortunately, after another ten minutes of the movie, Beca starts to find her attention slipping, going back to her earlier conversation with Luke.

She's been putting off this conversation with Chloe for a few days now, as despite her initial curiosity she has to admit she's kind of been spooked by Luke's lack of willing to share any information with her. She doesn't think Chloe and Kate's relationship was that bad – relatively speaking - but then, there's no way for her to know that definitively. And what if it was, and by asking Chloe she ends up upsetting her? She might well end up making things worse, what with her sub-par comforting skills.

A whole range of worries like these, each varying in their selfishness (and each one causing her to chide herself for being such a bad gi – friend, rather) keep springing up in her mind, and no matter how much she tries to focus on the movie, they continue coming back until she's missed a whole quarter of it by zoning out into her thoughts.

Chloe's giggle is the only thing to draw her out of it. 'I love that line,' she says.

Beca blinks back into focus – the main character and her husband are in a park, now, and she has no idea why. 'Yeah,' she replies, trying to sound enthusiastic about it.

'Are you enjoying the film?'

'Yep. It's great.' Why did she say that? Beca inwardly cringes. It would've been more realistic for her to say no.

'The part with the robots is my favourite.'

Robots? What on Earth had she missed in the short time she'd been thinking of other things? 'Um, same here,' she says, not wanting to sound like she wasn't paying attention.

To her dismay, Chloe is not fooled one bit. She suddenly reaches over and pauses the film. 'Okay, now I know for sure you're distracted. Want to tell me what's going on? Because this isn't your usual "I hate movies" grump. Normally you at least pay enough attention for you to complain about the predictable plot lines.'

She shrugs noncommittally, fiddling with her fingers. When she doesn't answer, Chloe touches Beca hand gently. 'Okay, I'm guessing you don't want to talk about it. If you want to tell me what's going on, I'm here whenever you're ready.' She goes to unpause the movie, but Beca stops her.

'You're too damn nice sometimes,' Beca moans. 'It makes it really hard to stay all closed off and distant from you.'

Chloe winks. 'Why do you think I do it?'

'So you're not just being nice to me because you want to be? I am shocked and appalled, Chloe.'

'Yep. This ginger is a sneaky one.' Chloe sits up and closes the lid of the laptop, setting it aside. 'I'm assuming that means you do actually wanna talk about it.'

'I don't really want to, but I get the feeling it's probably something we should discuss. I dunno. I'm still getting used to this whole opening up thing.'

'You're not doing so badly,' says Chloe, giving Beca a little poke in the side and chuckling when she twitches. 'Most of the time.'

'Thank you. That was almost a compliment.'

'I aim to please.' Chloe flops on her stomach, resting her head on her arms. 'Now tell me what's on your mind already before you burst.'

'Are you sure? You probably won't like it.'

Chloe shrugs. 'Maybe. But I promise not to get mad or upset with you.'

'You don't even know what it's about.'

'Beca, stop stalling already. Things would be a lot easier and quicker if you just came out and said what you're thinking, you know.'

'Ugh, fine then.' Beca clears her throat. 'It's about Kate. You know. Your ex-girlfriend?'

Chloe's barely reacts, which is a surprise in itself – Beca had been expecting her to start tearing at the slightest mention of her name. 'Yes, I know of her. Now, what's your question?'

Put off by Chloe's unemotional approach to the topic, Beca says nervously, 'I dunno. I just wondered if you'd tell me about her a bit.'

'Sure,' says Chloe neutrally. 'What do you want to know?'

Beca looks at Chloe in disbelief. 'Why aren't you more upset about this? I'd have thought you'd be … well, at least a little more upset.'

'Why should I be?' asks Chloe, balancing her chin atop her folded hands. 'It was a long time ago, and as far as I'm concerned I cried all my tears over her years ago.'

'I thought she was horrible to you,' Beca says without thinking.

Chloe frowns. 'What makes you say that?' When Beca turns sheepish, she says, 'Beca?'

'I may have asked Luke about it,' she mumbles.

At this, Chloe finally looks upset. 'You went to Luke before me?'

'He didn't tell me anything,' Beca says quickly. 'He pretty much told me to do that – come ask you, instead of him, and I did that. So, woo Beca, well done for maturity right?'

'I don't think you get points for maturity if the only reason you're doing it is because the first option didn't work.'

'It wasn't like that,' Beca says, feeling like she should defend herself. 'I only asked so I'd know if it was likely to be a sore topic for you – I didn't want to bring it up if it was going to upset you.'

'There are plenty of ways you could have brought this up without doing that, Beca.'

'Yeah, and I realise that now. I really am sorry,' says Beca, as sincerely as she can.

Chloe regards her severely for a few moments, then sighs. The crease in her brow relaxes. 'Don't worry about it. I'd probably be curious too.'

'So you aren't mad?' Beca says, shocked that it was so easy.

'No, Beca. I'm not mad. Like I said, I think I'd be a little curious too. Although I'd prefer you talk to me first about these kinds of things, alright?'

'Of course,' says Beca, nodding frantically. 'So… Will you tell me about her now?'

'I could tell you a lot of things,' Chloe says matter-of-factly, and Beca starts to sense she isn't the only one stalling. 'What do you want to know specifically?'

'What were you two like together?'

Chloe grimaces. Maybe that wasn't the best question to start with. 'We had a weird relationship, to be honest. Kate… She had a lot of… issues.'

'What kinds of issues?'

'Serious emotional issues.'

'Like what, though?'

'I don't know,' Chloe replies tersely. 'Just issues. She was never diagnosed with anything, mostly because she never wanted to get help. I have no idea if there was ever something at the root of it all.'

'What sort of things did she do?'

At this question, Chloe turns onto her side, now face to face with Beca's arm. 'Things that weren't very nice, to me or to her.'

'Chloe, you're being pretty vague…'

'It's a difficult topic,' Chloe snaps, 'give me a little time to answer.'

'I thought you said it didn't make you upset anymore.'

Beca, who is watching Chloe very carefully despite the fact she can't see her expression anymore, sees Chloe's shoulders hunch up slightly. 'Well, I lied. It is hard and I don't want to talk about it now.'

'Okay,' says Beca gently, 'okay. We don't have to. Sorry I brought it up.'

She reaches out, tentatively pulling some of the hair that's fallen into Chloe's face back behind her ear. Seeing that her hand is still intact, she smoothes the rest of it back too, unsure what else to do to comfort Chloe. Beca feels more than hears Chloe take a deep breath in and let it out.

'She cheated,' Chloe says. Beca says nothing, just lets her fingers linger anxiously but tenderly on Chloe's cheek – she already knows this. 'She did that a lot.'

'How much is a lot?'

'I don't know the exact count - those are the times I caught her doing it. After the first few times I think she stopped bothering to hide it. It's somewhere close to eight times.'

'Eight?' Beca's hand stills. 'She cheated on you eight times, that you know of? And you never thought to leave?'

'Of course I did. But I didn't want to,' says Chloe. 'I loved her. That was all that mattered.'

'That's not love, Chloe, that's bending over backwards for someone so they can kick you in the balls repeatedly.' She sits up, putting the pillow behind her back so she can peer down at Chloe. 'I can't believe you would let her do that to you.'

'It was years ago, Beca, and she was my first girlfriend. I cared about her.'

'Sounds like she didn't care about you all that much.'

There's a brief silence where Beca wishes she could punch herself in the mouth.

'Thanks, Beca.' The words are hollow.

'I didn't mean it like that,' Beca says, tugging apologetically on Chloe's shirt collar. 'Just that she was clearly a fucking bitch and I stand by what I said ages ago when I said she didn't deserve you. You're too damn compassionate.'

Chloe sighs, burying her face in her bed.

'She won't hurt you anymore, Chloe,' Beca says soothingly. 'If she comes back then I'll kick her ass.'

'You don't understand,' says Chloe, her words muffled into the bed sheets.

'I don't?'

'No.'

'Then explain it to me.'

Chloe sighs again, lifting her head enough to peek up at Beca. 'Will you hug me while I do that?'

'Sure.' She doesn't bother moving much, knowing Chloe will situate herself in the way that makes her the most comfortable without much input from Beca. Sure enough, she leans her head against Beca's shoulder, twisting one leg underneath hers. She takes Beca's hand and lifts it to her hair, demonstrating the stroking motion she needs right now, letting go when she's convinced Beca is comfortable doing it.

'Thanks,' says Chloe quietly.

'No problem.' She's being mostly honest – it does bother her a little having Chloe pressed all the way up her side, her weight heavy and warm on half of Beca's body, but not in a greatly unpleasant way.

'You don't have to tell me anything about Kate, you know.'

'I know. I want to, though. It's just that I've never really spoken about it with anyone before.'

'Not even Aubrey?' asks Beca, surprised.

Chloe leans her forehead against Beca's cheek. 'She knows some of it, but she didn't even know I was with her at the time. No one except for Luke was aware we were together back then, and even he only knows parts of it.'

'Okay,' says Beca, not sure how to respond to that. 'You don't have to tell me right now, is what I'm saying. We can leave it for another day, or, erm, for never, if you'd prefer that.'

Chloe turns her face so it is pressed into the material of Beca's plaid shirt, just over her collarbone. When she next speaks, it's so quiet Beca has to strain her ears to hear what she's saying.

'I used to have nightmares every night about getting calls where someone would be telling me she was dead,' Chloe whispers, already cracking with that one sentence. 'I would sometimes get calls from her telling me she was going to be, or wanted to be. I had to talk her out of it so many times.'

'Jesus,' Beca breathes, inaudible to Chloe, who is still going. Fuck. She should've never brought this up.

'She hurt so much,' Chloe says, her voice beginning to strain with the beginnings of tears. I don't even know why she hurt so much, but she did, and I tried so hard to make it better for her, but it was never enough…'

'Hey, hey, don't cry,' says Beca, panicking a little as Chloe descends into full on, noisy, wet sobs. 'Wait, don't cry! I don't have any tissues – one sec…'

She detaches herself from Chloe and jumps up from the bed, running to the bathroom to grab a toilet roll and rush back. When she comes back, Chloe is already sitting up using her sleeve to wipe her eyes, but she's crying too much for it to be effective and is now simply rubbing the skin of her face raw.

Beca breaks off a wad of the toilet roll, plopping down on the bed again and handing it over. Chloe presses it to her face, trying to stem the flood of tears. Beca watches helplessly as she does this, wishing she knew what to do and hating herself for having caused this by opening her big fat mouth. All she can do is wait for Chloe to calm down, digging her nails into her palms to push back the anxiety and frustration she feels at not being able to help at all. Chloe doesn't need her problems on top right now.

Eventually Chloe's sobs start to subside, and she sinks down into a weak little ball on top of the covers, the wad of tissue clutched tightly in her hands.

'I'm so sorry,' Chloe says hoarsely, peering up at Beca through wet eyelashes. 'I didn't think I was going to react like that…'

Beca just shakes her head silently, indicating that it's not a problem.

'This was supposed to be a happy night,' whispers Chloe. 'I was going to ask you out on a date after the movie.'

Beca's heart drops, feeling yet another pang of regret at the fact she brought this up. 'You still can.'

'Would you even say yes?'

'Maybe,' says Beca. 'If you asked.'

Chloe turns her face away. 'Not tonight. I don't want to ask now, after all that. It wouldn't be right.'

'Okay,' Beca replies, trying to keep the disappointment out of her speech.

'And I don't think I can talk about Kate anymore. Is that okay?'

'Of course.'

'Are you okay?' asks Chloe.

'I'm fine,' she lies. 'You shouldn't be worrying about me.' She gets up from the bed, dusting off her jeans. 'I should go.'

Chloe reaches out and grabs Beca's arm, stopping her. 'Wait. Beca.'

'What?'

'None of this was your fault.'

She doesn't need to ask what Chloe means. 'It kind of feels like it is. Seeing as I brought it up, and all.'

'It was a long time coming,' Chloe tells her, squeezing her. 'It needed to happen. And I'm glad you were there for me during it, and I hope you still will be if and when we come back to it.'

'"There for you"?' Beca scoffs slightly. 'I didn't do anything.'

'You were there and you stayed. I know the physical comfort bit doesn't come naturally to you, but there's more than one way to be there for someone.' She kisses Beca's knuckles and lets her go. 'Are you still leaving?'

'Yeah, I think I should.' She looks at Chloe guiltily, who still has tear-tracks staining her cheeks. 'Will you be okay?'

Chloe smiles at her weakly. 'I'll be fine. I think I'm going to have a nap. Let me know when you're home, won't you?'

'I will.' She leans down and wraps an arm around Chloe's head, letting go after only a second before she rushes out the door.

On her way out, she almost walks straight into Aubrey. At the sight of Beca coming out, her expression turns into one of annoyance and her mouth opens as though to say something, but Beca cuts her off, keeping her words in an undertone. 'Chloe's in her room. She had a rough day. I have to go, but will you keep an eye on her for me?'

Aubrey pushes past her to poke her head around Chloe's door, taking one look at Chloe's curled up figure and whirling on Beca with a glare. 'What did you do?'

'Keep an eye on her,' Beca repeats, setting her jaw determinedly to show Aubrey she isn't backing down to her intimidating look. 'We talked about Kate,' she adds, seeing Aubrey's eyes widen a little in understanding.

She asks critically, 'You're just leaving then? You're not even going to stay to comfort her?'

Beca shakes her head. 'She needs a friend, Aubrey, and you're probably better at looking after her than I am. Can you put aside all the Bellas stuff and just help her? If I thought I could do anything to help, then I would.'

'Fine,' Aubrey says reluctantly, after a moment. 'Make sure you text her or something, though.'

'Way ahead of you, Aubrey,' says Beca, whipping out her phone.

As Beca makes her way back to her dorm, she shoots off a text to Chloe with shaking hands:

'How about you and I think about that date again after finals? I mean, if Aubrey will even let me back in.'

'! YES' is the reply she gets back, not even a minute later.

Beca pockets her phone, smiling a little easier at last.