Chloe woke up at her usual time, around 7, and padded out to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. She turned the Keurig on with a tired yawn and listened as the machine hummed to life. It whirred as it began to heat and she plucked a cup off of the mug tree before setting it down under the spout.
"Good morning." The redhead jumped as Jaiden slid onto one of the stools at the counter and smirked at her reaction. Chloe took in her appearance, seeing that the younger girl was actually conscious at such an early hour, and nodded in acknowledgment. Jaiden's smirk widened a bit as she realized that the older girl definitely was still mad about the night before. She stood back up off of the stool and rounded the island just as Chloe's coffee finished brewing. Jaiden grabbed the mug before the redhead could get to it and handed it to her with an arched eyebrow.
"Thank you." Chloe said stiffly. She took the coffee and abruptly left the kitchen. Jaiden watched her go into the living room and sit on the couch, obviously avoiding her. The teenager took her time brewing her own cup of coffee before following Chloe's footsteps and sitting down on the couch beside her.
"So how long are you going to be pissed about last night?" Jaiden asked as she reclined onto the back cushions and sipped at her coffee. Chloe shot her an unamused glance and then fixed her eyes straight ahead in a blatant attempt to ignore her. Jaiden tilted her head to the side and scoffed. "Come on Chloe, you love me. You can't stay mad forever."
"Oh, I love you? Where'd you get that assumption?" Chloe challenged.
"Well, you wouldn't be up my ass about everything if you didn't." Jaiden fired back. She poked at the older girl, ignoring her headache in an attempt to instigate her. Chloe huffed in annoyance and went back to ignoring her, only to find Jaiden sitting as close as she could. "You know, I never actually thanked you." Jaiden pointed out. When she didn't get a response, she continued; "If you hadn't kept pushing the way you did, Beca and I probably still wouldn't be speaking. I mean, you know us. You know we're both too stubborn to have made any attempts by ourselves. Beca would have continued to leave me alone and hope that time would help, and I would have kept pretending she didn't exist."
Chloe had turned to look at her in the middle of her speech and her irritated demeanor softened significantly. Jaiden replaced her smirk with a small, but genuine smile and she knew that she had patched things up for both herself and Beca.
"You're welcome." Chloe responded finally. She could tell there was something else Jaiden wanted to say and she rolled her eyes. "What do you want?"
"Beca told me that you're really good with make-up and I'm supposed to meet Stacie at 9 for coffee." Jaiden grinned hopefully and gestured towards the black and purple mark across her eye. Chloe nodded in understanding and set her mug down on the coffee table in front of them. "I'll be right back." She told her before hurrying into her and Beca's bedroom. The redhead returned less than a minute later with a small basket of make-up. She sat back down on the couch and turned sideways, prompting Jaiden to do the same.
"Thanks for this." Jaiden crossed her legs in front of her and watched as the redhead dabbed a bit of concealer onto a small brush. The second Chloe grazed her face with it, Jaiden flinched back with a gasp of pain.
"Oh, don't be such a baby." Chloe rolled her eyes and gently took a hold of the younger girl's chin; keeping her face still. Jaiden gritted her teeth as the redhead applied a thick layer of make-up over the bruise, keeping her reactions to a minimum. She relaxed as Chloe released her hold and set her brush down. The 18 year old watched as her sister's girlfriend selected a small container of similarly colored powder and dabbed it onto a pad. She patted it as lightly as she could over the layer of foundation, ignoring Jaiden's subtle winces, and then finally leaned back from her work.
"Not too bad." She grinned, reaching into the basket in order to pull out a small compact mirror. Chloe opened it and held it up so that Jaiden could inspect her face and her eyebrows rose in surprise. She was more than impressed at how well the redhead had done, though the injury wasn't completely masked. The eye was still practically swollen shut, but the discoloration wasn't nearly as distracting and she figured it would do enough to go out in public.
"What should I tell Stacie?" Jaiden asked, her nerves evident in her voice. Before Chloe could answer, the sound of a door opening interrupted them and they both turned to see Beca shuffling out of the bedroom. The brunette yawned miserably and shot the two of them an acknowledging glance before stumbling towards the coffee machine.
"If you two are getting serious, why don't you just tell her the truth?" Chloe suggested.
"Woah, I wouldn't say we're getting serious," Jaiden backpedaled immediately. The redhead stared at her skeptically and scoffed.
"Please, you're taking Stacie Conrad on dates. That's about as serious as it gets."
"True." Beca spoke up groggily from the kitchen and the two girls on the couch turned to see her walking towards them. Yawning again, Beca took a seat beside her sister and inspected Chloe's handiwork. "Looks good," She approved.
"So I should just say; 'Hey, yesterday my homophobic stepfather punched me in the face because I got him sent to prison'? Does that sound good?" Jaiden's voice was dripping with sarcasm and Beca frowned.
"Okay, first of all, you did not get him sent to prison. He got himself sent to prison. Second of all, there's probably a less blunt way to put that." The older Mitchell chastised her seriously and Jaiden rolled her eyes.
"Whatever. Maybe she just won't ask." She sighed hopefully. With that, she took her empty coffee mug off of the table and stood up. "I'm going to go get dressed." She announced. Both Beca and Chloe watched her retreat to her room before turning their attention towards each other.
"Are you still mad?" Beca asked nervously. Her girlfriend sighed, but shook her head and closed the distance between the two of them on the couch. The redhead rested her head against her girlfriend's chest and wrapped her arms around her affectionately.
"No. Your sister already sucked up for you." Chloe informed her. Beca chuckled despite her hangover and ran her fingers through the redhead's hair, knowing Chloe loved it when she did that. The two sat like that for a while, content to just spend the morning in each other's company, before Beca finally spoke again.
"Did she seem like, you know, she was handing yesterday well?" Chloe glanced up at the younger woman and nodded after a few seconds of thought.
"Actually, yeah. How're you handling it?" Beca scowled as the conversation was directed towards herself.
"I'm fine. I mean, I'm mad at myself for not doing a better job at protecting her." The brunette admitted begrudgingly. Chloe always had a knack for getting her to talk about things she would have otherwise tried her best to hide and at this point in their relationship, Beca had learned not to even bother trying.
"It was just a bad situation. You couldn't have known Ted was going to come home then, and Jaiden did get out of the car." Chloe pointed out.
"That was so stupid."
"She got out because she wanted to warn you." Chloe defended the younger girl and turned her head so that she could look up at Beca. The younger girl had her jaw clenched and Chloe could tell she wasn't happy about the fact. "Don't be mad about that. She didn't want to see you get hurt."
"Yeah, but she got hurt instead." Beca argued back.
"Because she loves you, Beca. And you love her, and that's why you went back there to get her things. She knows that." Chloe assured her firmly. Beca fell silent again and her fingers started moving through Chloe's hair once more. The redhead nestled into her girlfriend, knowing that she had provided at least some sort of comfort, and rested comfortably against her as Beca slowly continued to wake up.
Jaiden slipped into a hoodie and a pair of jeans, wanting to be able to keep her hood up, and slipped out of her bedroom at about 8:35. She found her sister and Chloe curled up comfortably on the couch and slipped past them unnoticed. Jaiden managed to get out of the apartment unnoticed and she pulled her hood up over her head after she was out in the hallway. The freshman made her way towards the campus Starbucks at a leisurely pace, keeping her head down and her hands shoved in her front pocket. The apartment was only a short walk from Barden and she knew she would get there a bit early. Her stomach had twisted into a bundle of nerves and she grew increasingly anxious about what she was going to tell Stacie. After ignoring the older girl for nearly a week, Jaiden knew it was only going to look worse when she showed up with a barely masked black eye.
"Jaiden?" The 18 year old grimaced the second she stepped into the Starbucks and heard her name. She forced her eyes up from the floor and met Stacie face to face. Immediately, she watched an air of concern cross the brunette's expression and bit her bottom lip.
"I already got you your usual. I kind of texted Chloe and asked her what your order normally is." The brunette admitted sheepishly. There was a hint of tension between the two girls and it took most of Jaiden's self-control not to book it out of the coffee shop.
"Thanks." She said finally, accepting the insulated cup from the taller girl. They moved to sit down and Jaiden braced herself for the questions that would come.
"Jaiden…what's been going on with you? And what happened to you?" The older girl asked worriedly. Jaiden took a deep breath and looked down at the cup in her hands. Silence rested between them for a few seconds before Jaiden finally replied.
"Things didn't go so well when I went home." She said quietly.
"You mean someone in your family…?" Stacie's voice trailed off into an unfinished question and Jaiden nodded in admittance. The silence returned again and after a few seconds, Jaiden stood up.
"This was never a good idea. Sorry for the waste of time and thanks for the coffee." She muttered quickly before heading towards the door. Stacie stood up, abandoning their two cups on the table, and hurried after her. She hadn't known what to say to what Jaiden had told her, but it wasn't at all in a way where she was changing her mind about being involved with the younger girl. She had simply been at a loss for words.
"Please don't go. I just…I didn't know what to say." Jaiden felt Stacie's hand on her arm and fought the instinct to pull away. Instead, she stopped in the grass outside of the Starbucks and allowed Stacie to turn her around so that they were facing each other again. The taller brunette cautiously raised a hand and rested it on the left side of Jaiden's face, drawing back only slightly when she flinched.
"I'm sorry. Running's just kind of, you know, a Mitchell thing." She explained sheepishly.
"Well, I guess you're in luck, because chasing is just kind of a Conrad thing." The older girl replied. The corners of her mouth twitched at a smile and she watched Jaiden's face redden a bit in response. "Let's go somewhere that you don't have to talk." Stacie suggested hopefully. Jaiden nodded, though a bit reluctant, and allowed herself to be led onto the sidewalk. The older of the two locked their fingers together and pulled Jaiden along towards her dorm building.
"Are you trying to have sex with me at 9 AM on a Sunday?" Jaiden asked as they made their way up to Stacie's floor.
"The thought crossed my mind, but I figured you'd still be trying to keep up your chivalrous act. So we're just going to watch movies. You don't have to talk, but I still get to be around you." Stacie explained. Jaiden glanced at her out of the corner of her eye as they exited the stairwell and pulled her hood down away from her face finally. Stacie unlocked her door and then pulled the younger girl inside, flicking on the light switch as she did. Jaiden watched as she grabbed a DVD from a stack on her dresser and then flopped down onto her bed. She patted the spot beside her and Jaiden sat down next to her, leaning against the older girl lightly. Stacie pulled her laptop off of the bedside table and popped the DVD in before setting it onto Jaiden's lap abruptly and standing up. The brunette hit the lights quickly and then laid back down beside the younger girl comfortably.
"You good?" Stacie asked as she pressed play and relaxed against Jaiden. The freshman nodded and finally rested against the older girl entirely, secretly glad that Stacie had pursued her. That was something she hadn't been used to upon coming to Barden; being pursued. But then came Chloe, and Beca, and Stacie, and briefly; her father. Some of it was unwelcome and initially unwanted, but Stacie's wasn't.
Sorry for the bit of a wait on this one. I'm debating between just focusing on relationships or bringing Ted back into the picture in the rest of the plot, so let me know if you have a particular opinion. Thanks!