They sat in silence, Beca by the desk and Aubrey in her bed, twirling their respective bottles of water, not looking at each other.

Aubrey had dark circles under her eyes. Beca hadn't noticed before. But now that they were in well-lit surroundings, Aubrey looked impeccable, yet exhausted.

"So, uh, how did your interview go?"

Aubrey perked up at the sound of her voice, and replied stiffly, "It went fine, thank you."

An awkward hush fell over them again. Beca often had a hard time dealing with silence, especially now –hearing nothing but cicadas out in the quad and the occasional car passing by the dorm blocks in the wee hours of the morning wasn't exactly helping her come down nicely from her drug-induced high.

She crossed the room, opened one of her packed suitcases, and pulled out her portable Crosley turntable. "Mind if I play music?"

"No."

Beca shuffled through the pile of vinyl records in the same suitcase. Aubrey watched with interest as the brunette placed the turntable on the desk, gently fitted one record on it, and lowered the needle. Beca hummed with satisfaction at the familiar soft crackle, before slow, haunting plucks of bass guitar filled the room.

"I've never pegged you as a vinyl collector," Aubrey observed as Beca settled back on her swivel chair.

"I started learning how to DJ on turntables, so it was kind of necessary," Beca explained. "Then I gradually crossed over to a DJ controller setup, but I couldn't let the records go. I've already spent so much time and effort painstakingly collecting them. Might as well enjoy them separately."

Aubrey nodded. "What is this song?"

Beca recalled her asking the same question roughly a month ago. "Hey by Pixies. You like it?"

"Yes. It's as good as the one you played last time."

The thought that they were both remembering that almost-rainy Friday night brought a smile to Beca's face. "Thanks."

Aubrey smiled back. And it wasn't the usual one she donned for the sake of appearances, the one that was obviously insincere and half-frustrated – her smile tonight was a little wistful, but genuine. The hush that followed now felt comfortable, even easy.

"By the way, I never got to thank you," Aubrey said softly. "For staying with me that night."

"Don't mention it," Beca tried to brush off, slightly worried that Aubrey would remember more: the outright rejection of her father, the wave of grief that followed, crying herself to sleep.

"No, I should. What you did..." Aubrey took a deep breath, her green eyes meeting Beca's, "It meant a lot to me at that time. Thank you."

Beca nodded. "You're welcome."

"Also, thanks for asking about me."

"Dammit, Chloe," Beca cursed out loud. "Sorry. I told Chloe not to tell you."

"Go easy on her. She didn't tell me, I figured it out."

Beca sighed. "Yeah. I guess that wasn't hard for you at all."

Aubrey turned red, but she covered it up with an eye roll. "You've given me five different compliments in the span of an hour, Beca. I'm not even taking you seriously."

"We're five to one then. I'm not hearing any more compliments from you, Aubrey, so you'd better catch up. I thought you liked winning?"

"I don't remember handing you any compliments."

"Well, you told me I was hot. You can't ever take that away from me."

Aubrey scoffed. "You're not exactly my type, but fine. I'll let you have that one."

"Don't worry about it. No one would ever believe we've had a normal, friendly conversation anyway."

Aubrey's mouth tightened into a thin line, and just like that, she was on edge again. "I'm that difficult to deal with," she said, her tone accusatory.

"No!" Beca almost exclaimed, slightly dazed at the speed by which the conversation turned. "Well – yes, sometimes, but –"

"But what?"

"– but when you're not a walking, raging ball of stress, you're –" Beca cut off, scrambling for words that were less straightforward, because the current ones in her head sounded like she cared. "You're, well, okay," she finished lamely.

Aubrey's eyebrow couldn't possibly go any higher. "Are you being patronizing?"

"Jesus Christ, Aubrey, no." Beca cradled her head in her hands, trying not to lose her temper with the blonde. If they continued like this she would surely get a headache. "Okay, I mean when you're not being neurotic, I can actually stand being around you. That non-patronizing enough?"

The blonde stared at Beca for a long time, and then her shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly.

"Fair enough," she answered, biting her lip and looking away towards the window, and now all Beca felt was terrible.

"Sorry," she finally said, figuring that at least she had to apologize for being too harsh. "That was a little too, um, honest."

Aubrey didn't say anything, only stared back at her.

"If it helps, I've been told I have the emotional range of a hyena."

"That wouldn't be fair to hyenas," Aubrey snorted. "I'm sorry. I like making a big deal out of things."

"No worries," Beca replied easily, slightly surprised that the blonde was able to admit her mistake without hesitation, and just glad that the entire thing didn't escalate into their usual shouting match.

"If it helps, I've been told I need to relax."

"Yeah, but that's easier said than done." Beca rolled her chair closer to the bed, set her feet right next to Aubrey, and almost laughed at the blonde's scandalized expression. "Are you doing anything about it?"

Aubrey swallowed visibly, but she didn't back away. They were now barely an arm's length from each other. "What do you think?"

"Nothing works."

"Exactly." Aubrey's hands were fidgeting with her water bottle, but she kept her gaze level with Beca's. "Deep breaths, meditation, autogenic training, all that relaxation bullcrap? They're futile."

"What about anti-anxiety pills?"

"I have them, but I use them as rarely as possible. They ruin my concentration. And in the worst-case scenario, they don't work."

"That doesn't sound like a worst-case scenario."

"Not until you take three pills right before Pukesgate, and discover you could projectile-vomit."

It was Aubrey's matter-of-fact way of speaking that got to Beca, more than the brutal honesty. If Beca ever learned that she had a spectacularly-embarrassing video with over two hundred thousand views, she'd probably leave the country and live on some backwater jungle for a year. But not only did Aubrey take the blow with dignity, she even returned to lead the Bellas and redeem herself from the humiliation.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Aubrey only shrugged. "No more than I am."

Beca wouldn't ever pride herself on her eloquence – it barely took one phrase from her sometimes for Aubrey to take offense – but she felt like she had to at least say something to make the blonde feel better. But it was almost one in the morning, they were seated a little too close, she was plastered as hell, coming down from ecstasy was starting to make her awfully dizzy, and the only ideas that came to her mind weren't exactly wholesome.

Her face probably showed some of her apprehension, because Aubrey prompted, "Spit it out, Beca."

"Oh, no," Beca chuckled. "You're not gonna like this."

"And now you've made it all the more intriguing. Tell me."

"Wow, you really have a habit of commanding people, huh?"

"I wouldn't be called El Capitan if I didn't."

"Wait, you know we call you El Capitan?"

Aubrey rolled her eyes again. "I know everything. What escapes me is why you aca-girls do not call me La Capitana instead."

"Well..." Fat Amy had invented the nickname, and when Chloe (who refused to use it) asked the same question, the Aussie's answer made a lot of sense. "It's because you have balls."

To her relief, Aubrey wasn't offended; on the contrary, she seemed bemused. "I guess I should be flattered."

"You should," Beca smirked. "We call you that with all due respect. Enjoy it."

"I will. But I haven't forgotten what we were talking about before all this, Beca. Say it."

"Your funeral." Beca kicked off the bed and rolled the office chair back to the desk, just in case Aubrey decided to slap her for the things she said next. "I was thinking of another relaxation aid. It might be too unorthodox for you, though."

"What?" Aubrey asked warily.

In response, Beca started rummaging in one of the desk drawers, removing a couple of blocks of wood from it and reaching inside. She finally emerged triumphantly with a small, unremarkable green tin box of Altoids, holding it up for Aubrey to see. "This."

Aubrey looked at her like she was crazy. "Breath mints?"

"No, not that." Beca pried the box open, and took out a small Ziploc packet filled with what seemed like fuzzy green clumps of cotton. "This."

"Oh my god." Aubrey laughed disbelievingly and stood up to get a closer look. "You have got to be kidding me."

"From the look on your face, I'm assuming you've never tried this before." Beca tossed her the packet, sure that Aubrey would want to scrutinize it, and took out the remaining contents of the box: flavored paper, a Rizla booklet, a grinder, an expired plastic library card.

Aubrey did scrutinize it, opening the packet and taking out a bud. She held it up to the light interestedly. "Honestly, I have never even seen this up close before."

"If you're up for it, you can try it," Beca offered, in the most casual way she could manage – Aubrey, paranoid as she was, might think Beca was trying to date-rape her or something if she sounded even the least bit eager. "No pressure, though. I just really need to smoke right now." It was true; in the previous two times she had to deal with comedown blues, a joint kept her from sinking into the horrible post-effects of paranoia and sleeplessness.

Aubrey handed the packet back, and instead of the refusal Beca expected, the blonde was chewing on her bottom lip, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"It's...illegal."

Beca could almost see the cogs turning on Aubrey's head; she merely leaned back on her chair and waited.

"But I'd be lying if I said I've never been curious."

"You can watch me roll one while you decide. At least you'd learn something from me."

"Drugs?" But Aubrey was laughing as she positioned herself on the other side of the desk, which Beca took as a good sign.

And Aubrey did watch, lips pursed and eyes intense, while Beca ground, rolled and sprinkled. When she set down the library card she used for cinching the paper, Aubrey looked it over.

"I didn't know you lived in California."

Beca finished licking the gum edge of the paper before replying. "Yeah. At Fullerton."

"You're a California native?"

Beca shook her head. "My mom's from Portland."

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you end up at Fullerton?"

Beca pondered how best to answer the question. "It's a long story," she finally concluded, twisting the end of the joint closed.

Aubrey made a show of looking at her watch. "I've got all night."

"Well, if you really have to know, the short version is this: two years ago I visited my then-girlfriend, who was studying at Cal State Fullerton. I enjoyed the place so much, I never left."

"Oh, please. I'm sure it wasn't just the place you enjoyed."

"Nah, seriously. She didn't know I was coming, and when I arrived at her dorm I caught her getting it on with her Psych professor."

"...wow."

"Exactly." Beca handed Aubrey the finished product, a thin, tight conical joint. "There you go."

Aubrey turned it over with slender fingers. "So what did you do?"

"Well, the professor's hot – a real cougar. And she's British. So I joined in."

"What?!"

Beca laughed. "Kidding. I went to a bar, got drunk, walked around. Then I got tired and checked into the first cheap hotel I saw."

"That's reckless."

"It was, because it turned out that the hotel mostly catered to drag queens. It took me a long while to figure out why they kept giving me the stinkeye."

"Did you join –" Aubrey started to ask, her green eyes glinting mischievously.

"Nope. They pegged me for a ridiculously pretty drag queen," Beca chortled, taking back the joint and rising to sit on the windowsill. She lit up with a Bic lighter and puffed. The smoke scratched through her raw throat with a vengeance; she ended up coughing uncontrollably.

Aubrey tossed her water bottle in the brunette's lap. "And that is why kids shouldn't do drugs."

Beca took a swig, soothing her airway enough to manage a laugh. "You're totally savoring that moment of schadenfreude, huh?"

"Oh, wow, do you really know what schadenfreude means?"

"Shut up, Posen. You don't have a patent on fancy German words."

Beca's second puff went down with no further incident, now only dimly aware that the blonde was watching her. She had not smoked in a year. The warmth washed over her, and she could actually feel the tightness in her head and chest disappearing. This was the perfect end to her short, bittersweet collegiate experience.

She didn't realize Aubrey had crept up next to her until the blonde noiselessly took the joint from her fingers. Beca started, but let go. She couldn't help but look with detached curiosity as Aubrey took a drag, paused, and tilted her chin up gracefully to blow out smoke, letting it drift out the open window.

"So why'd you change your mind?"

"I didn't change it, I was making it up." Aubrey took another drag and handed it back. "It's not as bad as the debate teams say."

"They pick that debate topic all the time, eh?"

"God, yes. So much that I know all the science behind weed even when I've never tried it."

They settled into the same companionable silence earlier, hands barely brushing as they passed the joint back and forth. Beca's skin was tingling – her first indication of being high. Time ground to a slow march. Everything was clear: the white walls, the synth beats coming from the turntable, her mere two-foot distance from Aubrey. She unconsciously started humming along to the music. Oh, you've got green eyes. Oh, you've got blue eyes. Oh, you've got grey eyes. She glanced at Aubrey, and at the same moment, the song title hit her.

The blonde looked back at her, an unusually-relaxed smile gracing her features. "You have a goofy grin in your face right now."

"I just realized that song is called Temptation."

Aubrey laughed, a pleasant staccato sound. "So what's tempting you?"

Those errant strands of hair covering your eyes, Beca thought. That smooth dip where your neck meets your shoulder. Somehow the clarity of her senses extended to the faint scent of lavender on Aubrey's skin.

Beca was, fortunately, spared from answering when Aubrey abruptly set a hand to her knee. The touch was innocent, but it sent goosebumps up and down her leg.

"Beca," she gasped, her green eyes wide as a soft giggle escaped her lips. "That song sounds fucking amazing."

She had officially gotten Aubrey Posen stoned.


The joint finished, they were back where they started: Beca on the wheeled office chair, Aubrey on the bed. Only this time Aubrey wasn't sitting stiffly at the edge. She was luxuriously stretched out on top of the covers, heels abandoned on the floor, back leaning on the headboard and eyes closed. The only indication she wasn't asleep was her fingers lightly tapping on her knee in time to the music.

Beca thought it was the first time she saw the blonde so calm. It would probably be the last time as well.

"I've never thought music sounds this wonderful," Aubrey mused. "I could hear everything."

"That's what it does. It heightens the senses."

Aubrey nodded. "And this song is so contemplative. It's probably the first time I took lyrics so seriously."

Beca smiled. She could hear everything too, and Evening Sun had always been, in her opinion, the most sincere song Julian Casablancas had ever written. "It gets better. Wait for the bridge."

"What is this song?"

"Evening Sun. It's by The Strokes."

"I'll have to write that down. I'm so wrecked I could hardly recall what we were talking about five minutes ago."

Beca snorted, but she took out the tiny stub of a pencil she always kept in her pocket. She found a cab receipt in her shirt pocket and jotted down The Strokes – Evening Sun.

"You keep a pencil on you all the time?"

"You can't judge me. Chloe said you always have a pen on you."

"I wasn't judging! I suppose she told you about that guy from our freshman year?"

"The guy who stalked both of you in a party, then you stabbed with a pen when he tried to pull Chloe outside? Yeah, that was badass," Beca grinned, handing Aubrey the scrap of paper. "Okay. This is the bridge part."

Aubrey listened, biting her lip in concentration. When the song had reached its last chorus, she said, "I don't understand."

"Which part?"

"The one after 'go your separate way now, someday you'll come back and I'll be dreaming I was sunburned'," Aubrey half-sang, quite accurately.

Beca gaped at her. "Are you for real?"

"I pick up melody and lyrics quickly, get over it."

"Alright, jeez. So the next lyric is 'I don't wanna make your heart and break your heart in two halves, keep one half and give one half to me'."

"It's quite contradictory."

"It's meant to be that way," Beca explained. "I'd like to think the singer wants to stay away from the girl he's talking about, but he couldn't resist her either. He wants to forget, but he wants to remember. He's letting her go, but more than anything, he longs to have her back."

"That's profound," Aubrey murmured, her green eyes flicking towards Beca. "'Break your heart in two halves, keep one half and give one half to me.'" She beamed to herself.

"What are you so happy about?"

"Nothing," Aubrey said, and her smile was suddenly affectionate. "I was just reminded of something."


"So this is what your weekends are like? Lying in bed stoned while listening to records?"

"No, I make mixes and get dragged to parties. I have a life, you know." Beca stretched to fit her legs on the bed, perpendicular to Aubrey's. "Besides, I haven't done this in a year."

"Beca," Aubrey said suddenly. "What do you think of Chloe?"

"Oh no," Beca quipped, but she was laughing.

"Shut up. You know I'm going to ask eventually," Aubrey said, equally amused. By now their standards of fun had dramatically lowered to juvenile levels; Aubrey had previously been giggling at Beca's bad puns she normally would have sneered at. "I'm not going to tell her – what use would it be now? I just want to know."

Beca paused. She had been asked the same thing, over and over, by everyone else – Stacie, Cynthia Rose, Fat Amy, even Jesse. She had mulled it over several times too, usually right after when Chloe hung out with her at the radio station or at the dorm. Chloe was undeniably attractive, intelligent, kind, with an honest charm that disarmed everyone into liking her almost immediately. She was also exceptionally affectionate with Beca – so much that she often covertly arranged to never have both of them and Tom in the same room as much as possible. Beca perfectly knew that once she reciprocated, they could be so much more.

And it was exactly why she held herself back from the beginning. She steeled herself to be Chloe's friend in the strictest sense of the word. Chloe's presence often clouded her judgment, and more than anything, Beca wanted to lose control, to simply know what would happen if she took it one step too far. But her rational side always won over, and she never did. She couldn't do anything but grit her teeth whenever the redhead squeezed her hand, touched her cheek, kissed almost at the sensitive spot on her nape. Sometimes she'd bite down so hard the inside of her cheek bled.

She liked Chloe enough, but to lead her on was unfair. Beca respected that Chloe was dating Tom, no matter how shallow their relationship seemed to be at times. And Beca never intended to stay. Being in a relationship with Chloe would only serve to make things more difficult – it was hard enough now as it is.

"I guess we have chemistry." Beca recalled saying the same thing to Stacie about Aubrey. "But I have it with everybody."

Aubrey snickered. "And?"

"And there's nothing more to it. I know everyone wants to hear that I like her and all that sappy bullshit, but she's just a friend."

"Fine. Then what do you think of Tom?"

Beca couldn't help but roll her eyes. Aubrey caught it and laughed.

"Dammit, Posen. I kind of walked into that trap, huh?"

"Yes, but I see where you're coming from." Aubrey nudged Beca's leg with her foot. "I have my reservations about Tom."

"Oh please. Tom is a tool," Beca declared, more savagely than she'd intended; Aubrey laughed harder, a mirthful, carefree, resonant sound from the chest that Beca realized she liked. "There, I said it."

"You have been dying to tell someone about this, haven't you?"

Beca shrugged. While she held Chloe in the utmost respect, the opposite could be said of Tom. He was occasionally sensible whenever he managed to tear himself away from his soccer teammates, but Beca found him too incompatible with Chloe. Tom was vain, apathetic, and inexplicably selfish; he didn't care to understand the details of Chloe's life, her hopes and dreams, as long as Chloe was involved with his. His only saving grace was his charm. He treated Chloe like a queen whenever they were together, proudly showed her off to everyone, played the sweet all-American boyfriend stereotype of 80's romantic comedies. And Chloe, despite the constant heartaches Tom gave her, loved all of it.

"I couldn't tell anyone, they'd just say I'm jealous."

"Well, are you?"

"No." She'd long discerned that her dislike of Tom stemmed from her own concern for Chloe as a friend.

"But you do know Chloe likes you, right?" Aubrey's tone was serious.

"Yeah, don't worry. I'm not that thick."

"Hardly. I guess my question after all this is – why didn't you pursue her? You can't deny you like her too. Not to me."

Beca sighed. "Because the only thing I was ever sure of when I arrived in Barden was leaving. We were doomed from the very start."


"Have you ever wondered about people?"

Beca wasn't sure how they got to this point. But after a second joint, a third vinyl record, and a bunch of random conversations later, she was on the bed beside Aubrey – elbows not quite touching, but still so close she could feel the heat radiating from the blonde's skin.

The room was dark save for the dim orange glow of the night light at Beca's study table. Aubrey was dutifully studying shadows on the ceiling. She had a lazy smile on her lips, a remnant of the hilarious banter they were having a moment earlier. But they have arrived at a point where the high was making them introspective – the time for being insanely amused at the smallest things had passed.

"What about them?"

"Don't you ever wonder what life would have been if you lived a life that's so simple?" Aubrey continued, not looking at Beca. "If you became a mail-order bride, became a hermit on top of the Swiss Alps, farmed in Nebraska for a living, or just lived a life so uncomplicated and small?"

"Countless times."

"I do too. I envy those people. They live everyday with no pressure to be greater than they actually are. They live insignificantly and die happy."

Beca twisted her body to face Aubrey. "But you can never be like them. It's the price of intelligence – you'll never be able to fight off the instinct to overreach, because you can. And you'll never be content if you keep suppressing that instinct."

Aubrey's smile was wry. "I guess not." She closed her eyes, and between the evocatively descending bass lines of Glory Box playing on the turntable, they both heard the low rumble of thunder. The summer breeze drifted in through the open window and stirred the room just enough to spread a hint of lavender. I should close the window, Beca thought. It was going to rain. But nothing could detach her from the three-inch thread linking her to Aubrey; if she moved to break it she'd never have the courage to be bound again.

"I never knew you enough," she finally breathed out, after what felt like an eternity of vacillating.

Aubrey turned to her, green eyes gleaming in the dark. Her voice was just as muted when she said, "The same goes for you."

"What took us so long?"

Aubrey actually considered for a moment. "You held everyone at arm's length."

"The same goes for you," Beca mimicked, earning an eye roll from the blonde. "Is it too late for us?"

"Possibly." Aubrey sounded strangely reproachful.

"I don't need to know everything. Just...tell me one thing no one else knows."

Aubrey shifted to put her arms around herself, reacting to the cold drift blowing in. Then she said, "You asked me about my interview earlier."

Beca nodded and waited.

"Honestly, I don't think it went very well." Her voice sounded small.

Beca still didn't speak, only furrowed her brows to show she heard.

"They weren't impressed," Aubrey continued, her expression a little lost. "I – I rambled too much. I said too many personal details. They probably thought I was playing them emotionally."

"Aubrey," Beca began, gently. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"I don't even care for that internship. It's just...my father got me that interview before graduation. He wasn't happy when he learned I was planning go on holiday with Chloe during the summer. I was harshly rebuked for even bringing up the word 'holiday'. And the worst thing is that even when I've already cut him off, I still believe him."

Beca tentatively reached out to touch the agitated blonde's arm. "Here's what I know: being accepted into Harvard Law is impressive enough. Your dad sounds like a man who constantly demands for the moon when he's got the sun right in front of him."

"He is. But I cannot deny that the plan he had laid out for me even before I was born makes perfect pragmatic sense. I am just doing what is right for me."

"Yeah, but I'd rather be happy than be right. And you deserve to be, too."

"I didn't follow his plan because I wanted to be happy," Aubrey said bitterly. "And that's another thing only you would ever know."

Beca exhaled. The weight of Aubrey's sadness felt like a blow to her chest. There it was again – the unexplainable magnetism that drew her to the blonde's presence. The realization that she was just a girl, an insanely striking one, a somewhat-frustrating one, yet one who, given the right circumstances, revealed vulnerability and loneliness and weaknesses and depths very few others had probably seen. Beca had an irresistible urge to know the rest: to know what would really made Aubrey happy, what displeased her, what doesn't make her sleep at two in the morning, what made her tick.

"I'm sorry about that. I probably shouldn't have asked."

Aubrey acknowledged her with a slight shrug.

"I don't know if this would be any comfort to you, Aubrey, but..."

Beca's hand was still on the blonde's elbow, smooth and cool under her palm, and she could swear the other was vibrating with anticipation – for what exactly, she'd probably never know. But Beca wasn't the type to ever do things half-assed. She had to finish her statement, and she gathered all the courage she could muster at 3 a.m. to say it.

"You are the only person who made me wish I could stay."

Aubrey looked up to meet her eyes; hers were burning with a clear question. "I was never important to you."

"You are now. I would have –" Beca's voice caught; she was too nervous for this, and she could barely figure out why. She swallowed. "I would have taken the time to make you happy."

Aubrey's eyes were suddenly soft. She slowly put one hand to graze up Beca's cheek, the light touch so intense against her skin it blurred her vision.

"Beca, you made me happy just now."

And she kissed her.


Aubrey had a temper and even her lips showed it. Her unexpected passion seized Beca with stunning viciousness; already lying in bed, her knees still buckled and turned to jelly. Her head was swimming. She lost all concept of words, of sounds, of shapes, of time. Aubrey could kiss. And she did so with a hot, greedy, exquisite ferocity that bruised Beca's lips and tore down her defenses. But she loved that it hurt, she wanted all of it.

Someone could have broken in and hammered all the walls to dust but the rushing roar on her ears as Aubrey's tongue swept against hers would still be louder every time. Their breaths mingling, her hands finally delighting in the luxurious blonde hair while Aubrey cradled her jaw in utmost possessiveness, Beca, for the briefest moment, succumbed to the powerful commanding madness that is Aubrey Posen.


When they broke apart, chests heaving as they stared at each other, the silence was tense. The very thing Beca narrowly escaped with Chloe had happened to her and Aubrey in a span of twenty seconds: she lost control. She was still on the verge of losing it again, with Aubrey so easily within reach.

They exchanged no words. Aubrey turned her back to Beca, but took her hand and pulled to enclose herself into the smaller girl's arm. Beca understood and moved closer to press herself against the blonde's back. What Aubrey was thinking, she willed herself not to know any longer. She closed her eyes and, lulled by the intimate comfort of Aubrey's body, fell asleep faster than she would have liked.


I took your 'breath mints'. They won't make it past airport security anyway.

Until we meet again,

Aubrey.

Beca read the note, a half-hearted chuckle escaping her lips. She had awoken to find Aubrey gone. True to form, the blonde fixed the sheets on her side of the bed, and Beca had pressed her face against them to gather the last wisps of lavender with an almost-pathetic longing.

Her flight to LA was that afternoon. She ran through the messages on her phone, replying to people checking up on her, before giving up and closing her eyes. The Bellas are sending her off at the airport later. There she could tell Stacie and Chloe everything they needed to hear – the affirmations of friendship, an apology to Chloe for kissing her last night, and a promise to keep in touch. And this time tomorrow, she would be on LA, with everything she had ever known radically changed and rearranged again.


Aubrey did not appear at the airport. Chloe explained contritely that she had the flu when she came home from Cambridge and, try as she might, really couldn't make it.

None of them seemed to know where Aubrey had really been last night. Beca felt a pang not seeing her there, but she wouldn't have known what to do or say to her anyway. So she merely grinned and steeled herself through the Bellas saying goodbye and wishing her luck.

Stacie and Chloe sat on either side of her as they waited for the call to board. Both were uncharacteristically quiet; Chloe's eyes were red.

"Guys." She tried to loop an arm around both their shoulders and gave up, since they were way taller. "Talk. Don't do this to me."

Stacie smiled desolately. "Sorry about Aubrey, mate."

Beca briefly considered telling them about last night, but decided not to. "It's cool. We never knew each other enough anyway."

Stacie cleared her throat and said loudly, "Chloe has something to ask you."

Chloe shook her head, and her smile was even bleaker than Stacie's. "It's nothing important."

"It is important," Stacie spoke over her. "Ask her now, Chlo. We might never see her again."

"Wow, you're talking about me like I'm not here anymore –"

"Beca, did our kiss last night mean anything to you?"

Chloe's eyes were suddenly hopeful, and Beca couldn't bring herself to crush the redhead for the first and last time before she left. But if this would be the first and last time she would have to refuse Chloe to save her from being led on, then it had to be done.

"No. Don't get me wrong, Chloe, you mean the world to me." She took Chloe's hand on her own, to distract herself from the sight of Chloe's trembling lower lip. "But I mean that as a friend. I know we could've dated and all, but you'd have been more torn up when I left. I wanted to spare you from all that mess."

Chloe looked like she was trying not to cry. "I wanted that mess, Beca. I still do."

It was Beca's turn to shake her head. "I love you, Chlo. But not in the way you want to hear." She took the sobbing redhead into her arms, and only let go when the PA system announced her flight.

Stacie reached out for one last hug, her face straight, not even trying to inappropriately grab Beca's ass for once. "We'll miss you. Never forget, okay?"

Beca nodded, a hard lump in her throat. She took her backpack and her boarding pass, and moved on.


Songs used in this chapter:

The Pixies - Hey
New Order - Temptation
The Strokes - Evening Sun
Portishead - Glory Box

If you haven't heard some or most of them, check it out. I promise you wouldn't be disappointed. Thanks for reading!