So usually (not intentionally, just coincidentally) I update this on a Saturday, and by default now I feel bad for it being a Sunday (good job guys, you guilted me without even trying) so allow me to explain: I woke up on Saturday at half nine, went to the library at 10, went straight to work from the library at 4, went straight to a party from work at 10 and then stayed at my best friend's house... so ya see? Anyway, none of you asked for that, but there ya go anyway.

Also, this chapter was re-written start to finish 4 times. It took me to a dark place in terms of will power.

daniuliaana: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! please oh help me god chloe CANNOT MUST NOT talk first omg don't you break my heart like that! im dead

Could I be done for manslaughter?

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Oh right… well yea, go ahead then?" Beca hadn't exactly been expecting Chloe to have much to say, but whatever, she could roll with it.

"Right… well…" (Shit, how was she actually supposed to say this?). "It's about how things will be once we get back to Barden."

"Oh right… well yea, that's actually what I want to talk about as well… I suppose." Beca let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, glad that they appeared to be one the one wave length.

Chloe had known it. She'd known Beca had copped on to how much of a crush Chloe had on her. It made her insides squirm with embarrassment to even contemplate the notion that Beca had known all along how much Chloe liked her, but played along with the charade anyway out of pity. She needed to put that right. She needed to put it right and save what little face she had left.

"Upstairs!" The words stumbled from Chloe's lips before she'd had time to process. "Uh… can we talk upstairs, like in private," she elaborated with a (uncharacteristically) shy smile.

"As the lady commands," Beca nodded, smiling as Chloe turned and led the way to the (all too familiar) brightness of Chloe's not so humble room. "Go on then?" Beca prompted, standing awkwardly at the side of Chloe's bed as Chloe stood across from her, leaning against the shut door.

"Well I just figured it was worth saying… with all the craziness that's gone on the last few days… nothing's changed… once we go back to Barden that is." Chloe enunciated each word carefully, making sure what she was saying sank in. "We're going back to being friends again… just… just yea… I thought I'd say that in case," she nodded, ignoring the feeling of her heart crashing down to her stomach.

"Friends…" Beca's mind found it impossible to get around and process the word. "Friends…" She was nodding her head, though more so in a sheer disbelief of what was being said to her than anything.

"Yea friends…" Chloe nodded, forcing herself to smile and look perky. "Just so we're cool," she added.

"No wait… are we though?" Beca's brain finally caught up (and began to fight back).

"Uh…" (How was she supposed to answer this one?)

"Like are we cool Chloe?" Beca pushed. "Because…" (Oh sweet Jesus it was now or never). "Because I got the feeling that there was something… uh… something more… uh… here?" (smooth as ever, like really, top job).

"What?" Chloe questioned dumbfounded.

"Well I just… I kind of had like… an idea… that like… um…" (help, help, help!)

"Beca!" Chloe cut in (usually the rambling was cute, but it was like watching The Kings Speech or something).

"I really like you!" Saying it was like purging, and Beca could instantly feel her entire world lighten. "I really like you and I hope you really like me too… like romantically." (Okay, adding that last part was really lame… now purging had turned to embarrassment).

"No you don't…" Chloe knew it was a dumb response, but nothing else made sense, it had to be a joke.

"Excuse me?" Apparently Beca considered it a dumb response too.

"No you don't…" (This conversation was getting places).

"Yes I do?" (What the fuck?).

"I heard you… at the rehearsal dinner… on the phone… no you don't?" Seriously, Chloe was not dropping this one (even if she did want what Beca said to be true).

"You heard me talking to Aubrey?" Beca queried, becoming more and more confused by the second.

"That was Aubrey?!" Chloe all but shouted.

"Well yea… I…" Beca was floundering for something (anything) to say that would reinstate order to this conversation.

"You were talking to my best friend about how you only saw me as a friend?" Chloe questioned, obviously hurt by the thought.

"What the… what the hell conversation did you hear?!" Beca's jaw dropped (seriously, was she being punk'd?). "I confessed my love for you in that conversation!"

"Love?" Chloe entire world took a time out when she heard the word (talk about the conversation taking a positive turn around).

"Liking…" Beca backtracked, her eyes going wide in her head. "I confessed my uh… my great liking for you!"

"You said love!" Chloe's finger pointed accusingly at Beca. "You… love! You said love!" She took a step closer, still waving her finger like a manic.

"You're going to poke my eye out," Beca replied, leaning her head back to avoid the rogue finger. "You… my eye! You're going to poke it out!" She mimicked Chloe's tone, all the time trying to simultaneously fight off a smile.

"I don't care!" Chloe laughed, literally unable to contain her excitement. "You love me… this is amazing."

"Wait… this from the girl that two minutes ago was saying she only saw me as a friend?" Beca couldn't help but ask, feeling right now like she was trying to hold a conversation with a schizophrenic.

"I uh… I was employing a tactic of self-preservation," Chloe explained meekly, her enthusiasm suddenly waning.

"And just think how much easier it'd have been if you were honest?" Beca smirked, a giddy feeling rising in her chest, closer and closer to the surface each second.

"And just told you that I think I love you too?" Chloe smiled, the sides of her mouth crinkling when she watched the way Beca's eyes lit up (though stoic as ever, she tried not to let it show on her face).

"Yea, something like that," Beca nodded, doing her upmost to play it cool.

"Well then… one hundred per cent honesty from now on, cool?" Chloe smiled, taking a step closer with that look in her eye.

"Cool…" (though it sounded more like "ool" because suddenly Beca's throat was very dry).

"Starting with the fact that I've had a crush on you since I first saw you," Chloe began. "And taking you here was my fantasied way of getting you to like me back…" she admitted somewhat timidly.

"Well it worked… so we're cool," Beca laughed.

"Good… I just figured I'd let you know anyway, now that we're being honest," she elaborated, taking the final step to close the gap between them.

Beca's hands went on instinct to Chloe's hips, and she felt herself pushed gently back onto the mattress as Chloe stepped in between her legs, the red heads own hands resting on Beca's shoulders. Each second their faces moved millimetres closer, their breaths tickling one another's lips as they savoured each moment.

"Wait!" Beca would look back on this moment, and that exact word, twenty years from now, and probably still kick herself. "If we're being honest there's something I want to say," she blurted out, her breath still hot against Chloe's cheek.

"This so isn't what I had in mind for honesty," Chloe groaned, pulling her face back so she could actually look the brunette in the eye without going cross eyed in the process. "Though by all means, continue."

"I uh… I know about your dad," Beca confessed meekly.

"Excuse me?" The harsh hollowness in Chloe's tone had not been something the DJ was expecting.

"I mean I uh… I found out, like I kind of pieced it together and um…" Chloe's voice instantly set all panic stations in Beca's brain to overload.

"You know about… everything?" Chloe suddenly felt weak, and moved away from between Beca's legs to sit next to her on the bed instead.

"I… yea… I guess I do," Beca nodded, turning to face the brunette (why did she suddenly feel like she'd messed something up… like big time?).

"Okay…" Chloe nodded, though she didn't look like she'd processed the information yet at all.

"Do you wanna… you wanna uh… talk about it?" Beca mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly, praying for an epiphany as to what to do next.

"No," Chloe answered immediately, a tight lipped smile on her face. "I'm actually pretty tired," she added then, standing abruptly.

"Oh…" Beca didn't know what else to say as she watched the red head walk away from her.

"Yea, I'm gonna go to bed I think…" Chloe clarified, pulling a pair of pyjamas out of the case she'd packed the night before and all but running into the bathroom.

"Yup…" Beca muttered to herself. "I fucked up."

She could hear Chloe moving around in the bathroom, but didn't say anything else. It was one of Beca's greatest flaws (and what she perceived to be her greatest defence mechanism), she never, ever, ever spoke to someone when she knew they were mad at her.

Like ever.

Instead she got ready for bed as quickly as humanly possible, and was feigning sleep by the time Chloe came back into the room.

She probably shouldn't have. In fact no, she definitely shouldn't have, but she did. She lay there feigning sleep as the red head lay down next to her (and by next to her she meant as far away as the small double bed would allow).

This argument could wait another day.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Turns out the argument couldn't wait after all.

She wasn't surprised to find and empty bed (Chloe was diabolical at packing, and had needed to round up a few stray socks and t-shirts). She was however a little more disheartened to find a Chloe free house.

"Oh honey," Dana cooed, when Beca finally stumbled into the kitchen wondering aloud where the red head had gone. "She had to leave. Some kind of emergency and she didn't want to wake you? She left this though," the older woman explained, passing a sealed envelope across the table for Beca to grab.

Beca was so deject at being handed the envelope she took a sneaky glance at the floor around her just to be sure her heart hadn't fallen out of her ass completely. She thanked Dana none the less though (manners above everything else and all that), before sulking out of the room.

The bottom step of the stairs was actually as far as she made it. She just kind of flopped down and stared for a while at the envelope, wondering if there was a way to make this not be happening (she soon realized here wasn't).

Eventually she tore the seal (let's face it, prolonging it's good for no one).

Beca,

I'm keeping this short (I know how short your attention span can be).

First off, I don't hate you. Let's just be clear on that one. I just woke up this morning and realized that I don't want to talk to you about what you know. Then I realized that I don't like the fact that you know what you know, like at all. I feel betrayed, and I feel like you double crossed me, and most importantly I feel like you're going to treat me differently now. Like I'm more fragile or something? Anyway, I just had an epiphany that you knowing what you know scared me and I know just leaving like this is childish, but I've got a lot of supressed feelings towards the issue, and the last thing I need is them to be dragged out. Sorry.

I roped Adam into leaving you home by the way, him, Alice and Grace are leaving today so I guess I'll see you at Bella's practice.

Chloe.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Beca was still shell shocked when they stopped an hour outside Tampa. The only thing she'd actually managed to figure out was that she'd just been dumped, before they'd even started dating (new record, woo!).

Oh, well she'd also figured out she needed to do something… she just wasn't sure what yet.

"You gonna tell me what really happened?" Adam questioned, watching Beca with one eye in the rear view mirror as the other stayed trained on his wife and daughter as they went to the ladies room.

Beca knew there was no point in lying to him (and even if there had been, she was fairly certain she was too miserable to lie to anyone right now).

"I messed it up," she confessed dejectedly. "I finally had something really good going, and I messed it up completely with her."

"I see." Was all Adam said at first his eyes still trained ahead as people around them filled their cars with gas.

"I know that's not all you have to say," Beca sighed. "And as much as I know I'm going to hate all the shit you're about to throw my way I know I deserve it for fucking things up the way I did… so go on, tell me how shit a human being I am and how little I deserve Chloe's affection..." (That's right Beca, release your anger on her older brother, that's a sure fire way to win her back over).

"Everything you said is completely accurate," Adam nodded. "Except you forgot to add that I'll kick your scrawny ass if you don't apologise for whatever it is you done and get her back."

"'Scuse me?" Beca had to do a mental double take to make sure what she'd just heard was accurate.

"I swear to god Beca I'll kick your ass," Adam repeated. "I've never seen her happier, so fix whatever I is you done wrong because if your wedding's not the next one I get invited to, I'll kick your ass, understand?"

"Yea, yea I do."