[Beca]
It was like my nightmare had come to life. I lay helpless, unable to move, only able to watch on as she burst in the door and fell to her knees, screaming. Kimmy Jin stood behind her, wide eyed and stuttering, already calling an ambulance. My new anchor was the weight of the tiredness that had suddenly seeped into my bones, the weight of the guilt of what I had just done. If I could have found the words, I would have told her that I was sorry, and that I loved her, but I couldn't carry on. She tried desperately to cover my wounds, sobbing into my side as she knelt beside me, pressing frantic kisses into my cheek, begging me to hold on. It was such a blur. Somewhere along the way my dad turned up, and started shouting and barging around, but the paramedics eventually asked him and the other onlookers to leave, and Chloe remained, clutching my hands as I was patched up and quickly transferred into the back of an ambulance. This was all too familiar. I wanted to fight, to refuse treatment, but I couldn't move or speak for the fatigue, and had to watch on as they hooked me up to countless drips and machines, and once in the hospital, pump me full of blood and saline and stitch me back up again and eventually leave me to rest. She never left my side through it all, curled up in the hard plastic chair beside my bed, her knees tucked up to her chest as she looked at me with hollow eyes. When I could finally speak and move enough to sit up, she dropped to her knees by my bed and held my hand, waiting for me to say something. Anything.
"I'm... I'm sorry Chloe." I croaked, my throat sore from the tubes that had kept me breathing a while earlier when my lungs gave out. She rubbed her thumb across my knuckles, looking me dead in the eyes.
"I'm here for you Beca. It's going to be okay, I'm not going anywhere." I nodded.
"I love you Chloe, I just felt like everything had gotten to be too much, like it had to be my time. I didn't know how to block out the sadness when you weren't there. I didn't know how to feel okay." She kissed my hand now, and I knew then that I was actually happy to still be alive.
The doctor returned and started to discuss me getting therapy, to which I reluctantly agreed. I'd already talked to a therapist about 20 minutes prior to this doctor, and had told her of my past and how Chloe was helping me already.
"It would seem," he mused, scanning over the notes that she had left. "That you already have recovered a good deal on your own, or I suppose not on your own." He smiled at Chloe, who gripped my hand tighter. "Therefore, it should only take a couple of sessions to really get you back on track, and learning how to cope with your openness issues." I nodded, relieved that I wasn't being slung into a mental institute.
x
I returned to Barden 3 days later. During my time in the hospital I was visited by my dad, the Bellas and even Jesse, and Chloe never left. Aubrey brought her a bag of clothes and wash things and so she never left my side.
The Bellas were all very encouraging, Fat Amy making the best of things as usual.
"You'll be outta here in no time short-stack, and then we can hit up all the best clubs together and you can get me pity sex!" we all laughed, and when they left I was still smiling. Aubrey herself had lingered to apologise profusely for her behavior, and with a promise to listen to a CD of my mixes that Chloe had given her. Jesse was sheepish as ever, and brought me a couple of DVDs to watch.
"I know you don't really like movies, but I'm guessing you might get bored and these are really great movies. They've helped me deal with things before." He left with a small smile, and Chloe and I watched them that night, curled up together in my hospital bed. We watched 'The Breakfast Club' first, which I actually enjoyed, and then I fell asleep during 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', much to Chloe's amusement. Upon my return, Kimmy Jin actually hugged me.
"Beca... I'm really sorry for ever being mean to you. I never knew things were that bad..." I hugged her back, and thanked her. Chloe stayed with me every night, and my nightmares soon vanished altogether.
Maybe sometimes things just have to get worse to get better.
On my third day in hospital, Chloe got a text from Aubrey to say that the talented 'freshman' lead vocalist of The Footnotes had been discovered to be a high school student, and they had promptly been disqualified from the competition. On top of that incredible news of a second chance. Aubrey loved the mixes, and as much as it pained her to admit it, she had been wrong to turn down my ideas. At the next Bellas rehearsal, to much cheering and whooping, she handed me the pitch pipe, and I lead the girls in a totally improvised, totally amazing mash up based around the song, 'Just the way you are' by Bruno Mars. Chloe, to whom I gave the lead vocal, didn't take her eyes off me the whole time as she sang, and I couldn't hold back my grin as we all finished effortlessly, clapping and squealing at what we had just achieved.
"We're sure to win this thing now!" cried Cynthia-rose.
"Yeah, if we all work really hard we can do it for sure." I smiled, and the others laughed.
"You sound like me, don't let the pitch pipe go to your head!" giggled Aubrey, and Fat Amy gasped.
"It's the source of her evil powers! Run whilst you still can DJ!" she yelled mockingly.
"I think I have something else that can help us out," said Lily, and everyone stared at her, shocked to hear her talking at normal aubdible volume for once. She told us about how she'd secretly been taking beatboxing lessons from Donald, one of the Trebles, and despite Aubrey's protests it turned out that she was amazing at it, which gave a whole new scope to our abilities.
"Well, I'll get to work on an arrangement tonight, and we can start on it tomorrow!" I stated, and the others nodded happily. As we all dispersed back to our dorms for the evening, Chloe linked arms with me, careful to avoid the section of my wrists still covered with white bandages.
"Well done, Beca. You're amazing, you know that?" She stopped, and turned to face me.
"Um..." I giggled as she kissed me gently, running her hands through my tangled hair now.
"Yep, you are, and you'd better believe it." She smiled into my mouth, and we jogged back to my dorm. Once there, we collapsed on the bed and I snuggled back into her arms.
"I really love you, Chloe. You're incredible. I don't know what I'd do without you." She poked me in the ribs.
"You'd be just as amazing silly, but thank you." She sighed, and tightened her embrace.
x
[Chloe]
The ICCA finals came around faster than I had time to realise. Everything seemed to move in a blur, and turned out better than I could have imagined. Beca improved drastically after her time in hospital, and she even found that speaking to the therapist a few times did make a difference. But she told me later in a quiet voice like the light breeze on water that she knew that the only reason that she was getting better was me, and that now that she had finally truly hit the bottom, she knew how to get back up. And so we stayed together pretty much all day every day, and her nightmares vanished completely.
She created a totally stunning mix for the finals. It included 'Price Tag' and 'Don't you forget about me', the song from the end of The Breakfast Club, amongst snippets of other songs. She also did something new in deciding to showcase each person's individual style and talents. Lily's beatboxing was given free range, and Cynthia-rose got to do a rap. Fat Amy even had her own quirky solo. Aubrey, now with less to focus on, went crazy with the choriography. With me and Stacie assisting her, she came up with a more fun, interesting routine that required more physical exertion than ever, but for once nobody complained to this effect. And so, on the day of finals we huddled in the wings of the stage excitedly, and watched on as The Trebles made another great performance.
"Okay guys, let's just smash this." grinned Fat Amy as we heard ourselves being announced, to the cheers of the huge audience. We heard excited whispers as we strode out confidently in our new attire - gone were the air-hostess style uniforms, and in their place we wore our own variations of a general style, mostly jeans and a blue shirt with a jacket of sorts, and our scarves were each worn differently. I wore mine around my neck still, and Beca had hers around her wrist, covering one of the large scars that still stood out as new and sore. I smiled across at her as she blew the pitch pipe and counted us in.
It was exhilarating to say the least. We started off slowly, bursting suddenly into the full, fast-paced chorus of 'Price Tag' and from there on in everything melded so effortlessly that the crowd never stopped cheering. As Beca sang the words to her solo in 'Don't you forget about me', she locked eyes with me, and I saw the sparkle of life within them that had been steadily growing ever since her nightmares had stopped plaguing her a couple of weeks back. She was starting to live. She had defeated the low and was alive and I had never felt so proud of anyone. We received a standing ovation as we finished the song, and to no surprise we won by a landslide. My face was aching with smiling so hard, and from the audience I could see Beca's dad, equally happy.
Sometimes, things have to get worse before they can get better, because it is only because of what happens in these times that we can finally see the way forward. And now that I had felt total emptiness it only served to make me appreciate how good I felt right now all the more. Beca threw herself into my arms as we skipped off stage, and pulled me into a passionate kiss, causing the other Bellas to 'ooh' and 'ahh'. This was it. This was how things were meant to be. We'd fixed it.
EPILOGUE
[Beca]
Ten years passed by somehow as achingly slowly as the time in your least favourite lesson but simultaneously faster than I could have imagined possible. As I pulled up into the driveway of my small house in downtown LA, I could've sworn that we had only won the finals just yesterday, the feelings were still so fresh and vibrant. I unlocked the front door and stepped inside, kicking off my shoes into a large, haphazard pile and groaning as my feet relaxed onto the soft, carpeted floors. I head noises from the kitchen, and walked in to see her there doing something with a load of saucepans.
"Honey, what are you trying to do?" I laughed, moving to help her as she tried to slot a particularly heavy pan back into the cupboard.
"I just wanted this little one here, but it was right at the back! I bet you put that there." She sighed, a smile in her voice, and turned to rest her hands on my shoulders.
"Good day at work?" I nodded, letting my eyes brush over her sleepy eyes and slightly messy hair.
"Mmhmm, I had that new client back in again, he was happy with the ideas that I had so we're going ahead with this new project. It should be good for us in terms of income." She beamed, and kissed my nose affectionately, before turning back to the task of sorting the pans.
"That's wonderful." I grabbed her waist, spinning her back round.
"Hey, I'm not done with you yet." She raised and eyebrow and put aside the saucepan that she had been clutching.
"Oh really?" a flick of her head sent her curls flying, her hair still as red as the day I first met her. I pushed her back against the counter, my lips brushing against hers teasingly.
"This reminds me of our honeymoon..." I whispered, watching her eyes light up at the mention of the occasion.
"Well I certainly wouldn't mind replicating that night..." I glanced at my watch, which showed it to be 11:30pm.
"Well we've got all night babe. I don't have to be in at work until the afternoon tomorrow so we can lie in..." She grinned, and lifted me up to carry me into the next room. I groaned, helpless in her arms.
"You'd think I'd have grown just a smidge in 10 years." I sighed as she laid me out on the bed. She smiled adoringly.
"Well I think you're amazing, just the way you are." she sang, and I groaned.
"And you're still as cheesy as ever, but I love you anyway." I retorted, squealing as she landed on top of me.
"Sshh now. Oh, and remember, Aubrey and her kids are coming round this weekend for dinner, and I promised the other girls that we'd have a meetup soon as well. Try not to forget and sleep through it at work again?" I laughed and promised, remembering the last time Chloe's parents had come round, just after our wedding, and I had fallen asleep whilst mixing at work. All in all, everything had slotted firmly together. Chloe and I were happily married, and still in touch with all of the Bellas, particularly Aubrey, who lived only half an hour away now. I actually managed to make it as a DJ. After hearing my mixes, Luke had started to play everything I churned out, and sent loads of samples off to his friends in the business. That meant that after leaving Barden early at the same time that Chloe graduated and moving to LA, I already had jobs lined up, and now I worked full-time as a DJ for a main station, creating mixes for private clients and even doing some producing here and there. Chloe was still using her English Lit. for writing, and her novels were well on their way to being successful. Sometimes I just wish that I'd not focused on the sad parts of that haunting song that used to be the soundtrack to my nightmares, and actually listened to the real message;
And take that head of yours and stick it through the clouds
You've been buried underneath our world
With all your selfish doubt
By the time you turn the clocks all back
You'll be covered in all the leaves
It's a shame you didn't look around
Oh, all the things you'd see
Defeat the low
AN: See, it was worth the cliffhanger! Thank you to everyone who has been following this story and leaving such positive feedback, it's been so amazing to see people really enjoying this story and inspiring to say the least. I feel weird now that this has ended, but I'm still taking prompts for new fics so yeah feel free to leave me one :) until the next fic ~