A/N: Sorry it took so long, I had to focus on my exams, then they were over and suddenly I had random stuff on all over the place then term finished, yes, I've officially finished my first year and passed it, then I was coming home then going back it was all over the place but I finally got the time to write so here it is. Only one chapter left after this. Now I was once asked if I could write it as though the dream in the first chapter had been real, now considering how this came out I'm not sure but let me know. Also I'm considering doing something along the lines of one shots in this 'universe' about their past and future etc. let me know what you think, now, here's the chapter, I'll leave you in peace to read it and see you at the bottom, I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Pitch Perfect or its characters etc...

So on with the next chapter...

Chapter 34

Beca was one of the first to be up the next morning. It wasn't really surprising considering pretty much everyone but her and Jesse were up into the early hours of the morning partying, those still in college being the latest to bed. Still surprisingly she wasn't the first up. She had decided to let Jesse sleep in while she got breakfast, they weren't leaving for a couple of hours yet, there was time.

When Beca got down to the breakfast lounge she found Fat Amy already up and eating her breakfast. It made sense really, she was a mum now, naturally she would be used to getting up early. Seeing that Bumper wasn't up, and that no one else was at the table for two, Beca took the spare seat. Once she had got her breakfast Amy spoke up.

"So, today's the day then." Beca froze and gave her a confused look.

"What?"

"The day you tell everyone the truth, the whole story." She clarified.

"Oh, yeah…" Beca said pushing her still full plate away, her appetite suddenly gone. Amy pushed it back towards her.

"No use not eating. You'll never get through it on an empty stomach. Besides, you've got hours yet." She reminded her. Beca got the distinct feeling she was being mothered. She sighed and carried on trying to eat in fear of disobeying 'mum' Amy.

As soon as she finished she scurried back to her room and the safety of having solely Jesse's comfort, doing her best to avoid others and consequently their questions. When she got back to the room he was still asleep. For a moment she considered leaving him asleep and crawling back into bed to join him but eventually she succumbed to the reality that she had to wake him up because they had to be off in a few hours. Well, an hour less now. She moved over to Jesse and gently roused him from his sleep.

"Time to get up." She whispered as he blearily opened his eyes. She knew she was being uncharacteristically soft with him this morning. But it was going to be a big day and she really needed him to be on her side, she didn't think she'd ever been this grateful for him before.

"Beca?" He seemed a little confused as he woke up. Perhaps confused because, for one she was up dressed and wide awake, and two because of how soft she was being.

"Yeah, it's me Dork. You have to get up if you want breakfast before we go." Her voice remaining quiet and gentle. What he did next though surprised her as he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her on top of him from her position sitting beside him on the bed and held her to him in a hug.

"No." Was his quick and sleepy response.

"Jesse, let me go and get up!" She squeaked a little; her voice losing some of its gentle tone from before. "We'll be late." She mumbled as he tucked her head against his chest. She could fast feel her will to move fading. Fortunately a knock on the door followed by the way too cheery voice of Chloe promptly disturbed them.

"Beca, Jesse, You up?" She yelled through the door. "Time to go, You have half an hour for breakfast before the bus leaves!"

Beca groaned, as did Jesse. She wrestled herself out of Jesse's embrace and managed to pull him out of bed.

"We're up!" She shouted back.

"Okay, see you downstairs!" She singsonged before her footsteps were heard moving off down the hall.

"How did she know this was our room?" Jesse asked bemused. Beca sighed.

"I have no idea." She said shaking her head. "Alright, since you're up…"

Half an hour later everyone was getting onto the bus, a lot of them looking rather hung over. Beca noted there was a lot less fighting, as she took the window seat and Jesse took the aisle seat beside her, though she wasn't sure whether that was just to do with the hangovers or not. She settled into her seat for the journey, her last few hours of peace before she had to tell the whole story.

In L.A.

Beca had got off the plane in L.A. and decided not to look back. This would be her life now, she knew she may never get over Jesse but maybe that didn't matter, maybe she could live okay without him. She had managed to find a small apartment and it didn't take long for her to sort out the rent arrangements which meant she was only in a hotel for a few weeks. Well, hotel might have been a push considering what she could afford. She soon set to applying to all the jobs she could find that were remotely related to music and worked in a diner to pay her bills until she finally got one of the jobs. She had been lucky in that one really, she had walked past a diner that had a help wanted sign. She hadn't wanted to work there but given her financial situation she didn't have much choice.

She hadn't told really anyone where she was going beyond L.A. Not even her dad knew where she was staying, she had called him briefly when she landed and explained that she was having a fresh start and that she wanted to be alone there for a while. She had told her dad that when she got settled in and a decent place to live she'd invite him and Sheila, the last name said with gritted teeth, down to visit for a weekend. She hadn't contacted anyone else. In fact in wasn't too long before she changed her number, this time only giving it to her dad. She figured he'd pass it along to her mum though she never did get a call.

She'd been in L.A. for a couple of months before she got her first music related job, she may have lied to the others when she told them she already had the job, it didn't pay great and while the hours were fairly long it was still somewhat part time and it allowed her to keep her job at the diner, not that she wanted to but the rent on her tiny apartment didn't really permit much else. She'd been there about a year when she got her break, in a fashion at least. She finally got a decent enough promotion that she could quit her job at the diner, she had hated that job and being a waitress just wasn't her forte and if it hadn't been for the fact that the other waitress kept leaving either to give up and go home or to get their big breaks or just to be more practical and get a 'real' job that wasn't quite so unlikely then Beca would probably have been fired long ago but the help wanted sign never left the window and by the end Beca was the longest working waitress there and the most experienced, if not with the best attitude. The day she went quit had been the happiest day of her L.A. life so far. From that point her career took off though it was about another 3-4 years before she really made it and became an important, valued employee in the company she was working for.

Her personal life however did not improve in the same way. At first everything seemed okay, she was too busy to really think about it much. She worked long hard hours at the diner and came home to fall into bed in her tiny apartment. When she got the second job it only got worse. She didn't notice until it came round to her birthday. It was then that all her memories came flooding back and she felt alone, truly alone, for the first time since she arrived in a way that she couldn't push out. She went to a bar and got as drunk as possible. It was the hangover that she remembered most about that night. She woke up the next morning alone, and by some miracle in her own bed, with a massive hangover and no recollection of the previous night after knocking back a load of shots. The next time the loneliness came back was an anniversary, hers and Jesse's. Again she went to the bar, the alcohol wasn't enough though, she needed to forget him so she wouldn't miss him quite so much. She picked up a guy, to drown herself in perhaps. This time she woke up in her tiny apartment with a hangover, in her own bed, with a random guy. She kicked him out and got ready for work. She did this every year from that point, every birthday, every Christmas, every anniversary for everything. The only thing that changed was the hangover, that lessened as she built up the tolerance, and the memories, they stopped fading quite so much as the years passed.

Perhaps her worst night was the one she remembered perfectly, the night she had spilled it all. She wasn't sure what made it different. He had been a nice guy, well as nice as a guy willing to sleep with you the night he meets you can be, she had felt a little guilty doing it to him, knowing she'd kick him out as though he was nothing more than a piece of trash in the morning but in her drunken haze she needed what she needed and he could give it. It was the next morning she showed himself to be different from the rest, maybe he saw what the others didn't, maybe he really was a nice guy. She had been prepared at first. She tried to kick him out, he refused, she told him there was someone else and he didn't flinch, he didn't move, he stayed, sat on her bed, looked her in the eye and said,

"I know." She was frozen. He didn't move, he just kept asking about it, insisting that she needed to talk to someone and it may as well be him. She let him in for about an hour while she told him before she kicked him out her life for good. She'd already got a reputation for picking up guys by this point.

They'd been on the road for about an hour when Jesse decided it was time they finish their talk.

"I know why you left that night after graduation, but why didn't you ever ring me, or come find me?" He asked, as though it had suddenly occurred to him that he wasn't the only one that didn't do the chasing.

"You didn't either-"

"I called you, after I'd calmed down a bit..."

" But I'd changed my number…" She finished for him. "I thought I needed a fresh start, I cut out everyone. The only person I gave my number to was my dad, and I never even rang him after I passed it along. Not till last week. And I never tried because I'd convinced myself you'd moved on, even after I realised I couldn't. You have no idea how many times I looked at your number. In the end I stopped letting myself think about getting back with you. Until I got the letter at least. That's when I realised I had a chance to fix things."

"Yeah, I guess I thought something similar." He nodded as they went back to their silence.

As the neared Barden Beca knew it was time to talk. She stood up and called for quiet.

"When we arrive back everyone has half an hour to get themselves sorted and get to the neutral lounge where I'll tell the whole story about how the war started." Beca announced before quickly sitting back down, her confidence gone.

"You'll be okay." Jesse whispered in her ear and squeezed her arm. She gave him a weak smile.

Once Beca and Jesse had finished their story there was a mixed response. There was outrage from some, understanding form others and many were just thoroughly confused. The older ones were upset that she had caused such heartbreak for them and she knew some of her friends from later years at college she had probably lost for good. Most of the oldest set of her college friends were very hurt but she knew she could repair those relationships, even if they could never be quite the same again after her betrayal. Most of the ones that had graduated after Beca's years at Barden were angry at her but ultimately felt very little about the revelation, it would, after all, make very little difference to their lives. They had always hated the opposing team and that was hardly going to change just because someone told them it was a mistake. The current teams were the ones Beca hoped would learn something. They had all left to start packing up though they were soon all summoned back to the neutral lounge. The Current Bella and Trebles had had a meeting.

In L.A.

Beca was still living in the same tiny apartment but she hardly spent any time in it so it hardly made a difference. She did have the money to change it now, she just didn't want to. She picked up her mail on the way out; she'd open it when she got to the studio as she always did. There was one item however in the mail that stood out and made her pause. It had the Barden emblem stamped on the envelope. She quickly shoved it in her bag and did her best to forget about it as she drove to work, a car being one of the things she'd bought instead of a new apartment, she was unsuccessful. She got to work and immediately sat down at her desk and started to do the paper work she had been putting off for a week. Janet immediately knew something was wrong. The first thing Beca always did was open her mail, then get her coffee, then start working with music, she never did paper work, not until the deadline was in an hour and the boss was stood over her harassing her to get it done.

"What's wrong?" Janet asked after Beca had sat staring at the paper work but hadn't typed anything in for 20 minutes.

"Nothing." She muttered.

"Okay, I'm taking a guess it's the mail since the last time you acted like this was when your dad sent you a letter to attempt to get in contact with you."

"It was nothing important, if it was I'd have rang him back." Beca immediately defended.

"Okay, what'd he say this time?"

"It's not from him," she paused to see if she could recall hearing anything about him retiring, "at least I don't think it is. And I haven't opened it." At this Janet grabbed her back and ferreted through it until she found Beca's unopened mail. And leafed through it till she found the Barden envelope, as Beca protested and tried to grab it all off her. Without permission Janet opened the letter and began reading aloud.

"Dear Miss Mitchell, You are invited to attend the Bella-Treble 10 year anniversary. I didn't know they were only 10 years old." She commented as she read. "It has been 10 years since the removal of the oath that the Bellas have enforced against the Trebles and a weeklong celebration has been planned for all those that were part of the group in the last 10 years. We look forward to hearing from you. Contact details are below. Wow, that sounds fun. So, you're going." It was supposed to sound like a question but there was no mistaking that it was a statement.

"I don't even know when it is, and besides I can't-"

"It's in a month, you've never taken a holiday since you started here and the boss is worried he'll get in trouble for notgiving you a holiday. So you'll get it off. And you're Beca Mitchell, you can do anything, I've seen you mix remember."

"I don't wa-"

"Don't make me organise it for you." Janet warned, she wasn't one to mess with, that's why Beca came to see her as her only friend in L.A.

"You don't know why I left, I can't go back." Beca finally managed to finish a sentence.

"Then maybe it's time you face it and fix it." She said gently but forcefully. Janet was about 10 years older than Beca, though most of the time she didn't seem it, but as much as Beca hated it sometimes she did seem wiser about these things.

"I'll think about it." Beca conceded.

"Alright, I'll go tell the boss the good news, Beca's taking a holiday!"

"I never said…" Beca started but Janet was already gone. Beca sighed and rested her head on her desk.

Before Beca knew it, and she wasn't even sure how it came to happen, she was sorted to go the next morning to Barden for the anniversary week, that wasn't actually on the anniversary since the university couldn't actually host this during term time. She had rang her dad and sorted out to see him and stay with him. He had nearly passed out when he picked up the phone to hear his daughter's voice for the first time in 7 years, she had to wait about 5 minutes for him to respond. Her boss had also given her two weeks off instead of just the one and with much prodding from Janet she had booked the plane tickets, the return being two weeks later. She had also managed to resolve to be the new better Beca that didn't run from things, apart from her past, and so she was going to face it all and fix it all. tonight however she was nervous, she could be meeting him tomorrow and she couldn't handle it. So she did what she always did in this situation. That was how she was sat at the bar, an empty glass in her hand.

"So, can I buy you a drink?" A guy said as he took a seat next to her at the bar. She looked at him then the empty glass.

"Definitely."

Beca was alone this time as she walked into the lounge, she wondered what they had been called in for.

"Alright, you've been called her because we have an announcement to make." Jennifer, the current head Bella if Beca recalled correctly, told them about the noise of the whispering of everyone.

"We have decided to end the war," Liam, the lead Treble, announced.

Okay, I hope you enjoyed it, only one chapter left, hopefully it won't take as long to get out. I'm on holiday in a fortnight and that's when I do most of my writing, I'm on the boat now, hence the time to write and I will be for the holiday, so, on to the Guest reviews.

To Guest, I'm not sure whether you're the same one that reviewed to chapter 5 as well or not nut anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't write it then. When I read your review I immediately wanted to but I was in intensive revision time then and while I hated it, it seems to have paid off. Thank you so much for your review, it's reviews like that that make writing this story so fulfilling. Not to mention they inspire me to write, even if I can't let myself, or my boyfriend won't anyway. So, thank you so much and here's hoping you liked this chapter and won't have to wait as long for the next.

So, see you in the next chapter, and last (eek) chapter, I hope you enjoyed it and let me know what you think. (*Smiles*)