Chapter 2

Thursday - April 7th

Chloe had not returned.

She had gone to collect some of the free cake in the office kitchen. That was ten minutes ago. The redhead wasn't the type to ditch work.

Beca couldn't continue without the her and had decided to browse the web. For completely work related reasons. Completely work related reasons. She needed to watch horrible acoustic covers of rap songs by white people for work.

It had become a sort of guilty pleasure for her to cringe at the horrible performances. She shouldn't laugh, they were clearly talented people wasting their time on the wrong type of songs but it was endlessly entertaining.

By the third song, Chloe's delay began to worry her. Deciding that a checkup was in order, she made her way to the kitchen. It was a short walk. Passing the other cubicles, she realized that she hadn't really gotten to know any of the others. It wasn't entirely her fault, not like any of them had approached either Chloe or her. The notable exception was Tom and the less said about that, the better. These cubicle based offices could be so isolating. She was lucky to have someone as friendly as the older girl.

The office kitchen was a small space with a blue hued faux granite counter stretching across the width of one side of the room. The other side contained a sink and a fridge. There were a few cupboards above the counter. It was a standard office kitchen, although a little unused as most people ate at the local restaurants.

Chloe was found fumbling with something. As Beca got closer, she could see that it was the coffee machine.

Chloe didn't like coffee.

"Hey," the brunette announced herself.

She felt that the sudden jump and cover-up of the coffee machine by the other girl was unwarranted. Luckily, Chloe relaxed as soon as she realized it was Beca. "Oh, it's just you."

"That's hurtful," Beca joked. Chloe grinned.

She began to look around, like she was making sure there was no one around before moving away from the coffee machine. Beca began to see why the delay had been caused. On the kitchen counter was the coffee machine in its normal space, in four to five pieces, coffee grounds all over the counter.

"I kinda sorta knocked it over trying to reach behind it and it fell to the ground." Chloe seemed to be panicking a little.

Beca considered it a fact that coffee machines don't explode into bits when they hit the ground, especially considering the small drop.

"Anything else you want to tell me?"

Chloe's expression was similar to when Beca had caught her about disliking coffee. "After the fall, I tried to put it back together and I ended up spilling the coffee by opening up this flap thing here which then broke off to make it even worse." The flap thing? The lid where you pour water into, designed to not break off when opening. "I pulled this handle thing on the side which came clean off and this soil-like stuff started dropping out of it," she explained. The soil-like stuff was old coffee grounds which were scattered around the counter.

On closer inspection of the redhead's hands, it was clear she had battled the machine and lost quite badly. There were trails of coffee running up her arm nearly reaching her elbows.

The brunette analysed the damage for a moment. It was still somewhat salvageable. "Start cleaning the coffee grounds and the spilled liquid, make sure they haven't stained the counter in any way," Beca instructed.

After a questioning look, the other girl did as she was told. Beca took the pieces of the machine and began to reassemble them. In truth, she had no idea what she was doing but having broken things that didn't belong to her in the past, there was always a foolproof way of making sure she wasn't blamed for it.

She placed the pieces in the positions they were originally in. It required a level of shoving and forcing to get the pieces to lock in place. Any internal pieces she couldn't properly attach were thrown into any empty space inside.

Once she was done, the coffee machine looked untampered to anyone not paying too much attention. The handle was the only part she had managed to fit perfectly and that was all she needed to do anyway so she considered it a success. She finished her work by wiping down the surfaces to remove fingerprints.

By this time, Chloe had finished cleaning up the mess. It was time to come up with the redhead's alibi.

"Chloe."

"Hmm?"

"You didn't touch the coffee machine, do you understand me? You only came into the kitchen to get a piece of cake and left straight away. You don't even like coffee so you wouldn't be touching it anyway."

The redhead gave her a second questioning look. "I'm not going to lie about this," she said firmly.

"This coffee machine costs close to $500 and I heard it was bought for the office by Luke."

Luke was the boss. The name looked to give Chloe pause.

"I didn't touch the coffee machine," she stated.

Beca grinned. She led the other girl to the bathroom, helping her clean the remains of the coffee from her arms. Luckily it didn't stain. Back at their desk, she requested the older girl's perfume and sprayed both herself and the redhead. She took her empty cup of coffee and deposited it in the communal bin at the edge of the room.

Chloe was impressed to say the least. Beca was crafty. Usually, she would frown upon lying and would have come clean much earlier but breaking the boss' coffee machine on your first week on the job would not have the best consequences. It was certainly not something she could afford to replace anytime soon. She did vow to buy another for the office once she had the cash, she wasn't a crook.

Beca had come up with a plan within seconds of assessing the situation and gone about it in an extremely efficient way, almost as if she were a career criminal. She had effectively cleaned up a murder. A murder of an innocent coffee machine but a murder nonetheless. If the need ever arises for Chloe to end someone, she now knew who to call.

Her joy was short lived as the infamous Luke came to their desk not twenty minutes after the cover-up. He looked angry, steaming even.

Luke was a relatively tall man with blonde hair and a strong build. His accent indicated that he was from the UK. Currently, he was dressed in an expensive looking black suit combined with a purple tie. Chloe wasn't overly fond of the guy. He seemed like a nice enough person until you broke one of his rules. Some were reasonable, like no fornication in the cubicles, something that apparently happened, but others were just unnecessary. Being angry about breaking a coffee machine was justified though.

"Miss Beale, Miss Mitchell. We need to chat," he said sternly.

The confidence that Beca had been gaining over the past couple of days returned. It seemed to flare much more when she was confronted and Chloe got to see it from much closer this time.

"Sure, what about?" The brunette was rather calm and perhaps a little more casual than she was naturally but only the redhead could really see that. She had yet to even face their boss.

Unfortunately, it looked that Luke wasn't buying it. He became a little more angered. "The coffee machine. Excuse me, MY coffee machine is broken. You don't know anything about that?"

"Nope." Beca was still looking at the computer screen, now typing.

He looked questioningly at Chloe who became immediately worried. The need for a cover story had not been discussed because she had assumed that the cover-up had been solid. Currently, nothing was coming to her mind. The words 'It was me' were flashing in her mind in bright neon. She only had to squirm for a brief second before Beca redirected the attention back to her.

The brunette looked rather annoyed by Luke. "Haven't had any coffee all day and I certainly wouldn't drink from a commercially available coffee machine. Gross. Some of us have standards. As for Chloe, she doesn't even like Coffee," Beca said. More lying. Chloe knew that the brunette wasn't someone who really cared all that much about what type of coffee she drank. It was just a shot of caffeine to jump-start her day.

Luke was still not fooled.

"Then how come I was told by another employee that you were both in the kitchen for a weirdly long amount of time?"

"We were getting cake," the brunette answered simply.

"Was the machine broken when you went in there?"

Beca shrugged. "Couldn't say. Wasn't paying much attention to it."

Luke turned to back to the redhead. "Miss Beale? You haven't said a word."

Chloe wanted to come out with the truth. She didn't feel right lying about this. Luke may not be her favourite person but she would probably be furious if someone had broken something she had invested significantly in. The guilt was already beginning to eat away at her. Glancing towards Beca, she was met with a signal from the brunette, her eyes had widened a little and were moving from side to side quickly. The other girl seemed to be telling her to keep her mouth shut.

"I was busy trying to steal Beca's piece of cake so I didn't see anything," she said quickly, a nervous laugh threatened to come out. Looking at Beca, the small smile on the corner of her mouth confirmed that Chloe had done well.

Beca had thought that no one had seen them exit the kitchen. It wasn't a lunch hour and the cake had been cut up and eaten by the rest of the staff earlier. The pair had been working and had no time to eat the cake. It would have been unlikely that anyone would have seen them, let alone paid attention to how long they were in there for.

The angry blonde had brought the broken coffee machine with him and there was something about the handle that gave Beca pause. She was seeing it in an angle she had not seen it in previously. The handle part of it had a cut on it. The cut was clean and it made her hunch a little stronger.

"How did it break?" Beca asked.

"No idea," he replied. "But it looks like it had been dropped and someone had put it back together."

The cut was too clean. It was cut with something. The wires poking out of it indicated that the coffee machine had broken due to the incision on the handle. Beca thought she recognized that cut from somewhere. During her time at college, she had taken a woodwork and plastics workshop as a side project. It was supposed to be an easy credit. She remembered that on her first week there, she had cut into a piece of plastic using a hacksaw blade. It had not been the correct tool for the job and she was marked worse due to the error. The hacksaw blade did leave a unique cut, similar to the one on the coffee machine.

"Did you ever think that someone might have been trying to break it on purpose and put the blame on us?"

"Like I'm going to believe that."

"No, seriously. What kind of drop leaves a coffee machine in that state?"

"So what was it then?"

"That missing part on the handle where the wires are sticking out. The plastic doesn't look like it's been shattered, it's been cut," she explained. Luke lifted the machine and observed it carefully. He might even believe her.

"Don't mean to be rude Luke but you aren't the most likable guy and any number of people could've broken this to spite you." Apparently pointing this out to Luke wasn't the best idea. He became even more enraged after looking at the cut.

"You're coming with me," he said, pointed at Beca.

With that, he indicated that Beca should follow him. Chloe looked like she wanted to say something to stop them but a quick wave of a hand from the brunette stopped her. She hadn't actually broken the thing so it wouldn't be right for her to take the blame. As Beca glanced back along her way to the office, she saw Chloe move towards one of the other cubicles.

Luke's office was a large space big enough for a large set of drawers in the far corner, a sizable desk and a couch. The desk was situated in the middle of the room. On it, sat a strange flower that looked like a cross between a cactus and a tulip and it certainly had no right being inside an office building. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was beaming in through the large window that stretched all across the back of the room. The couch, suede and coloured a dark blue felt strange. Unfortunately, it was where Beca was forced to sit.

A whole hour passed in the office. An hour where she refused to admit that she broke the coffee machine. An hour where every question was deflected, answered in a dismissive manner or flat out ignored. Hopefully Luke would get the picture that she wasn't going to give up Chloe, especially considering she hadn't technically broke the machine.

"This is the not the behaviour I expect from my employees Miss Mitchell," Luke said.

"This conversation would go a lot smoother if you didn't come into it already thinking that I'm the culprit." Luke was starting to become frustrating. "You literally have nothing to go on apart from offhand information from someone saying we were in the kitchen for too long," she argued.

This made Luke stop. Over the past hour, his accusations and supposed evidence against Beca had thinned. He really had nothing to work with anymore. Beca suspected that he was waiting for her to talk given a long enough time in here. It wasn't technically illegal so she couldn't complain but it was incredibly tedious. She decided that now was the time to strike and hoped that her words got her released from the temporary prison rather than just get her fired.

"You know Luke, it shows poor leadership skills for you to jump on the first person you think may have done something wrong." Luke was a young guy and was more likely to be influenced by her words.

"Well, you're the only person I can reasonably suspect!" he shouted. Apparently getting to him was rather easy. "If I don't punish someone, I'm going to look like a goddamn pushover and then the whole office will run wild." He looked somewhat exhausted.

"So you admit that I'm not the offender," Beca countered.

"No, but I can't have you addressing me in such a manner as you did earlier. It makes me look like I can't keep control of my employees." He looked forlornly down at his desk.

"Acting irrationally and throwing a fit is better in what way exactly?

All attention in the room was suddenly diverted as the small wooden door to the office flew open in great speed, slamming onto the wall adjacent.

Three figures walked into the room. Beca instantly recognized Tom, who was showing genuine fear. There was a thin line of sweat on his brow. The next person was Chloe. This was a different side of her though. One which looked very angry, specifically at Tom which she guessed from the way the redhead was holding the boy by his collar, like he had been dragged here. The third person was a blonde woman, slightly taller than Chloe. She looked to be around her age.

The blonde nodded to the redhead before departing. "Thanks, Aubrey," Chloe called out. She then turned her attention back to the two confused faces in the room.

"Luke, Tom here has something he would like to tell you," she said with a forced smile on her face.

The aforementioned was pushed lightly into the center of the room. He seemed fidgety, looking back at Chloe then coming face to face with Luke.

"I was the one who broke the coffee machine," he said, not making eye contact with their boss.

"And?" Chloe added sternly.

"And when I saw Beca go into the kitchen, I told you, so that you would think it was her," he finished.

Luke looked at Tom. He seemed disappointed. "Tom, are you a child? Do you not understand how to operate in a work environment? This isn't the first problem about you that's come my way." He pointed towards his computer screen. "I've received emails from several female employees complaining about harassment."

Luke turned to the two woman. "Miss Mitchell, you and Miss Beale are dismissed."

Beca began to make her way out of the room when she realized that the redhead had not moved from her spot in the room. Her anger was still in effect and she was staring down their boss.

"Luke!" Chloe began. "Don't you have something you need to say as well?" She then looked towards the shorter girl.

Luke replied rather dumbly, "What?"

This was clearly the wrong thing to say as fury within Chloe intensified. Luke visibly shrunk back a little at the glare.

"Not only did you falsely accuse Beca of wrongdoing, you made her wait in your office for a good hour doing god knows what. Then, when the person who actually broke your dumb machine was found, all you can say is that she is dismissed. I'm surprised Beca herself isn't blowing up at you." Apparently Chloe was also unafraid of being fired.

Luke seemed to understand what Chloe was getting at. A little flustered, he attempted his best apology. "Sorry Beca. I probably shouldn't have let my emotions take control of the situation," he said. "It was unprofessional."

The brunette was relieved that Luke had taken her words to heart and not just fired her. She felt a little sorry for the guy, who was probably attempting to keep control of staff that had no real respect for him.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the taller girl grabbing her hand.

"Ready to go?" she asked. Luke could be heard telling Chloe about not talking to him in such a tone but she was flat out ignoring him, her back turned.

"Thanks for pulling me out of there," Beca said.

"Now we're even," the redhead replied, her usually sweet smile had returned. "Seriously though, thank you for helping me earlier and for not telling Luke about it."

"I'm no snitch," the brunette said rather seriously.

Chloe chuckled. "Between the ways you covered our tracks in the kitchen and your interrogation where you didn't give me up, I'm starting to suspect that you're a criminal mastermind."

"Apparently you're a great detective. How did you know it was Tom?" Beca asked.

"After you said it couldn't have been you who broke it because of the cut, I asked Aubrey to help me look around for anything suspicious, especially any sort of blade. She said she saw Tom walking around the office with a small knife this morning so I went to him. Needless to say, he squealed like a pig. That Aubrey girl is scary."

Chloe was glad to have met Aubrey though. They had briefly chatted on the first day and she seemed like a nice enough girl. Chloe had been surprised when she had agreed to her weird request and shocked further by her scary display in front of the guilty saboteur.

On another note, she was finding Beca more intriguing with every minute they spent together. Her knowledge base was weirdly versatile and included things not really needed for office work. She only really interacted with Chloe and they were still getting comfortable with each other. It was clear that she was an introvert.

Chloe knew a little about introverts. She had to understand the difference between extroverts and introverts to understand learning techniques during college. She picked up a few things. Firstly, introverts don't make friends easily. They need to warm up to people over a period of time. As a result they have fewer friends than their extroverted counterparts. The difference is that once an introvert makes friends, they tend to hold onto those people tightly. While an introvert may appear shy and closed off to others, they will be as vibrant and as active as any other person to their friends. Chloe could see the truth in that.

Today had been a good showcase of the kind of person Beca truly was. She could have not helped the redhead with the coffee machine. She could have left her to deal with it on her own. She could have reported it to Luke. She could have told Luke about Chloe when he first arrived. She could have told Luke about it during the hour they were in the office together. She could have been angry at Chloe for getting her into trouble. She could have done a great many things that would have gotten her off the hook for the coffee machine and yet she had decided to help the older girl in every single situation.

Despite only knowing each other for four days, Chloe had already made a great friend.

Friday - April 8th

The last day of a particularly strange work week was a much calmer time and both Beca and Chloe were grateful for the lack of mishaps.

It was raining today. Beca liked the rain. It had the positive effect of calming down the world around her. People didn't like going out in the rain so a look out of their window showed a much more peaceful world with fewer inhabitants. Inside, people were trying to keep warm and the damp conditions made everyone far less active. Lunch hour had just ended so most people had become lethargic as a result of whatever they stuffed into themselves.

Spring rain was particularly nice because it didn't have the added effect of making everything cold as well.

The two of them had completed most of the hard work earlier that day so the drowsy feeling was manageable with the work they were currently doing, coasting till they could go home and relax.

All in all, Beca could describe it as pleasant.

There was something else though. Something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. It was certainly a positive something but it was a sensation that she was unfamiliar with.

No, not unfamiliar, more like something she wouldn't have felt when working in the financial department in her lonely little cubicle.

That something, that Beca saw as she glanced down, was Chloe's leg. Said leg had wormed itself underneath the brunette's and had nestled up against her calf. The redhead seemed to be unaware of this. To be fair, Beca had not noticed either and she had just described the feeling as pleasant so complaining about an invasion of personal space would just be lying to herself.

It then occurs to her that for Chloe's leg to be nestled comfortably against her, she would have to be sitting rather close. In fact, they were sat very close together.

Neither had needed to speak since lunch so silence pervaded the cubicle. Usually this would cause Beca's brain to overthink a situation and worry that the silence was because the other person didn't like her or was bored of her. This silence was different though. It was a type of silence usually born out of months or years of friendship with a person, where the need to keep them entertained or interested is no longer a concern, safe in the knowledge that they are happy to just be there with you.

She knew that the silence was mostly because they were just getting on with their work but the feeling was similar. She doubted that it would be different even if they were just sat there doing nothing.

She was getting comfortable with Chloe. It was perhaps the shortest she had known someone before reaching this stage and it perplexed her.

Beca had met people with sunny dispositions before. They were perfectly nice but they never seemed to actually care about Beca. In fact, most people didn't actually seem to want to put the effort into getting to know the brunette and she couldn't really blame them as she wasn't really making it easy for them.

Chloe had made the effort. That was what made her different. Her positivity and friendliness were not just for show. She had sensed that Beca was trying on that first day rather than assume that there was something wrong with her like most people had.

The younger girl enjoyed showing up to work. Chloe was interesting to listen to, fun to talk to and was attuned to Beca's sense of humor. Beca greatly enjoyed her company.

The best part was that Chloe seemed to enjoy her company too.

At that moment, Chloe moved away to work on her computer. Beca mourns the loss of contact right away. This is then followed by scolding herself for being saddened at the loss of something so insignificant.

At least now she could get back to work instead of being distracted by the lingering leg. It wouldn't help her to get super weird with her new friend. Chloe liked her and she wanted to keep it that way.

Beca never thought herself to be a touchy feely person. It was less that she didn't like physical contact and more that she didn't really seek it out. That was until today anyway.

Her attempt to get back to her work, which had been stopped by the distraction and then further paused by her dwelling on it and analysing her thoughts about it was again paused by the return of the leg. It seemed subconscious action for the redhead who didn't even inquire if it was alright with the Beca. Not that she would have answered truthfully so the brunette was grateful.

Chloe then decided to discard her shoes, kicking them off. When she kicked off the shoe on the leg that was nuzzled against the other girl, the action caused Beca to also lose her shoe.

Again, Chloe must have been completely oblivious to her actions as she was now rubbing her bare foot against Beca's. It sent blood up to the younger girl's cheek, coloring them. Chloe's foot was warm, much warmer than she had expected. It was also incredibly soft as it pressed against the top of her own foot, almost massaging it. All in all, it felt wonderful.

Beca sighed quite loudly. It was pathetic how much she enjoyed this. If Chloe knew, she wouldn't be continuing.

The sigh seemed to catch the redhead's attention. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah." And that was part of the problem.

Second chapter down! WOO!

Thanks to acatrash, MidnightWinterNeige, annakendrickhuh, Dog98, ear spike witch, Wdavidson and the guest for your reviews.

Thanks to all the people who favorited and followed the fic as well.

Thanks to all the people who read my oneshot and were led here.

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You guys are all fantastic.