96itadakimasu96: He would agree.
Andiclauds: Okay, okay, okaaaaay.
Guest: Thank you!
Pixie1913: Being numb is nice, until it all comes crashing down at once.
G: Brian and Conrad would like to think they are perfect in the general sense of the term as well.
Bechloe-bible-49: I think this chapter is the closet thing to a breakdown for awhile.
SunDanceQT: Hopefully, there will be more of those moments to come.
Mwallace: Crushed might be an understatement.
Dysrhythmia
I am done with my graceless heart,
So, tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart.
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn;
It's always darkest before the dawn.
- Florence and the Machine
"How can I help you?" the lady at the front window asks.
"I'm looking for my…" Aubrey isn't sure what to say. Friend? Girlfriend? Fiancée? "I'm looking for the other person who was admitted here with me. Chloe Beale?"
"I'm sorry, but we're not releasing information about patients right now. If you want to know whether or not she's here, you'll have to contact her immediate family," the woman replies.
"I know she's here," Aubrey says, "I'm just trying to find what room she's in."
"I apologize, I cannot help you," she reiterates, "Is there someone you can contact?"
Aubrey could go back to her room – get Julia's phone, text her. But then she risks being told to get some more rest. She cannot wait any longer. 'Later' is now, and Aubrey needs to see her.
"There are other people waiting," the woman comments gently.
Aubrey looks behind her. The 'other' people are Beca, Brian, and Conrad – all standing there looking at her. Otherwise, the lobby is empty – except for the cops, of course. She can't put on a scene with police around. She takes a step away from the window, and she tries to think. Trying to think is like trying to see through smog.
"At least we know they're keeping her safe." Beca's hand finds Aubrey's back.
Maybe her boss knows which room Chloe is in… He is there to help Chloe too, after all, regardless of whether or not she's conscious.
"I happen to know a person who knows what room she's in," Beca tells her.
Yeah, the same person Aubrey knows. "She just keeps telling me to wait, Beca." Maybe if Aubrey asks her dad…
"I meant me," Beca says.
Aubrey looks up.
Of course.
Aubrey is so stupid.
Beca has been here for days – wide awake, unlike Aubrey. She has probably already seen her; been there for her, while Aubrey has been…somewhere else.
"Finish the bread, and then I'll take you," Beca offers.
"I shouldn't have to do something in order to see her." Aubrey jerks away from Beca's hand, almost knocking the bread off the cup to the floor.
"Then how else are we supposed to get you to eat?" Beca asks.
"It's not even your business," Aubrey tells her.
"It is my business," Beca argues, and suddenly they're talking over each other – arguing about whether or not Aubrey is Beca's business, until Beca blurts out, "Dude, do you want to die? Because that's what's going to happen. You're going to be dead just like every other person we know, and Chloe is going to have to wake up to that."
Aubrey looks upward and shakes her head.
"You think I'm exaggerating, but wait until your mom has two unconscious kids," Beca says, "Everyone has enough to worry about right now."
"I didn't ask anyone to worry about me," Aubrey informs her.
"That's not how that works," Beca replies.
Well…it should be. But, whatever, fine. Fine. So what if Aubrey feels sick. So what? She can't even figure out how to eat the damn piece of bread when she has nowhere to place her cup. She ends up lifting the entire cup to her mouth and eating it off the lid like some kind of barbarian – while the three of them, and probably everybody else in the lobby, watch. She takes a long drink of tea once the bread is gone, then holds her arm out to the side. "Happy?" Her stomach definitely isn't – but as long as everyone else is, right?
No one answers – or says anything at all. Not even Conrad. They all just look at her with concerned frowns – even though she has done exactly what was asked of her, and, therefore, all worry should be alleviated.
"Which room is she in?" Aubrey asks.
Beca starts walking toward the elevator.
"Just tell me," Aubrey demands, not budging. She is capable of going there alone.
Beca shakes her head and keeps moving. "You're not going anywhere alone."
Aubrey is forced to follow if she wants to see her – and she would do anything to see her. They file back onto the elevator, and Aubrey moves to the back corner, away from the three of them. She stands with her back against the side wall, understanding now why someone would want to face away from the doors – or, well, away from everyone else, anyway. She doesn't look away from them though. Instead, she watches Beca hit the button for the third floor, so she knows how to get to Chloe's room on her own from now on.
The moment the elevator starts moving, Conrad muses about why they haven't invested in an ice cream maker yet – filling the awkward silence. He starts asking about favorite ice creams, and Aubrey skips her turn to answer. Ice cream is just another thing she never wants to think about again. It was also probably the last thing she had more than just a few bites of – and then they found the ice cream boy dead. And she starts to wonder if there is anything that isn't going to remind her of that place.
The elevator doors open, and, despite being in the back, Aubrey is the first one out.
There is a cop on this floor too – sitting at the nurse's desk, drinking a cup of coffee.
Aubrey wishes she felt safer, but after the sheriff and the deputy were both killed, she doesn't trust anyone to protect her or Chloe. It's up to her to protect them both.
"It's room 313," Beca draws her out of her head. She doesn't move from where she's holding the elevator door open with her foot.
Aubrey realizes that Beca isn't coming with her past this point. Fine. She didn't want Beca to come with her to begin with. If Beca planned to stop in the elevator though, she could have just let Aubrey come up here alone. She's tosses her cup in a trashcan in the hall, as she turns her back to them, and reads the numbers beside the doors. The closer she gets to Chloe's room, the farther away it seems – the farther away everything seems.
She feels dizzy. She doesn't even see the officer stand up.
"Excuse me." He steps in front of her, blocking her way. "This floor is restricted to immediately family only. Who are you trying to visit?"
Does Aubrey look like a threat to the people in this hospital? What is she going to do – lift the IV pole and hit someone with it?
"She is immediate family," Julia says, "She's ours."
Aubrey looks to see her standing in the doorway, Chloe's dad standing there along with her. For a second, she's confused, confused about how they knew she was there – but Chloe's mom is holding her husband's phone, and when she looks back, Brian has his phone out too. She feels like she's the center of a conversation that she doesn't even want to be a part of at all – or maybe that she isn't part of at all, but wants to be.
The cop steps out of her way almost immediately. "My apologies, Miss."
Julia tugs the sleeve of her shirt over her hand, and wipes her face with it, composing herself.
Aubrey waits – for the inevitable 'what are you doing here?', the 'didn't I tell you to wait?', the fight not to be sent back to her room. She isn't going. She will stand here for hours if that's what it takes to see Chloe.
Instead, Chloe's mom extends a hand in her direction. "Come here."
Despite the urge to run into that room as fast as she can, Aubrey is stuck to the floor.
"Come on."
This is not reality.
Maybe it's Aubrey who hit her head.
Julia passes Noah's phone back to him, and beckons Aubrey forward with her fingers. "Aubrey, come," she commands more firmly.
Aubrey's legs move on their own accord, following instruction without Aubrey's permission. She stops when Julia takes her hand, mindful of the needle in it. She can't go in there. Chloe's mom is talking to her, but Aubrey can't hear her. She needs to go in there. She should have stayed in her room. She'd do anything to see Chloe. She should have never eaten that bread; she's going to throw up.
Noah steps out of the room, out of their way, and Chloe's mom leads Aubrey past him, inside.
Aubrey doesn't know what she was expecting to see.
There is no blood. No visible bruising. Nothing alarming.
Aside from the bandage on her head, Chloe just looks like she's asleep in bed - completely normal. She's breathing on her own, hooked up to a minimal amount of needles and wires. She looks even better off physically than Aubrey does – like she just needs one of them to shake her awake.
"Do you want some space?" Julia asks.
Aubrey barely registers her own nod.
"I'll be outside the door." Julia gives Aubrey a squeeze that she can't feel, then runs her hand once over Aubrey's hair. Then just like that, she's gone, leaving Aubrey and Chloe alone.
xxxxx
"Chloe, wake up."
Chloe groaned, rolling over in her bed. "It's the weekend."
"It's almost 8am."
"What?" Chloe squeaked, "Aubrey…"
"I know, you've been sleeping forever." Aubrey crawled over her, squeezing herself to sit crisscross between Chloe and the wall. "So, wake up."
"I've been sleeping for like five hours – if that."
"That's not my fault."
"You're the one waking me up," Chloe complained. She tugged on Aubrey's arm. "Go back to sleep with me."
Sleep?! This late?! "I was thinking we could go get brunch later."
"Good idea," Chloe mumbled, "Wake me up in four hours."
"That would make it lunch," Aubrey informed her, "And you're going to take forever to get ready."
"Not four hours." Chloe sighed and sat up – looking an absolute, adorable mess of bedhead and confusion. She picked up her pillow and put it back down again on Aubrey's lap, then curled up with her face buried in it. "How are you even awake right now?"
Aubrey smirked and bounced herself on the bed. "Because I went to bed at a normal human time."
"Well, you should try waking up at one too." Chloe's hand shot out like there was something she could grab onto to make Aubrey stop. "Aubrey."
Fine. Aubrey sat respectably still, her back straight against the wall, and rested her hand on Chloe's head.
"Play with my hair if you're bored," Chloe mumbled.
"I am not bored." Aubrey had roughly a hundred things she could be doing to occupy herself. She just couldn't think of any at the moment.
"Play with it anyway." Chloe wrapped her blanket around herself, and made herself more comfortable.
Aubrey sighed in frustration, and ran her fingers through Chloe's hair. God, she loved Chloe's hair. "No," she said, and stopped when she felt Chloe relax into her, "You're going to fall back to sleep."
"And you're going down with me," Chloe mumbled.
"I'm sorry?"
Chloe sat up and wrapped her entire body around Aubrey – not unwrapping herself even after Aubrey fell over sideways, only tightening her grip as Aubrey squirmed to escape.
"Chloe!"
"Shhh."
"Did you just shush me?"
"Mhm."
"You're wrinkling my clothes."
Chloe opened one eye. "Then take them off."
Tempting. "Will you wake up?" Aubrey asked, reaching down to unbutton her jeans.
"For, like, five minutes," Chloe answered.
Five minutes? Aubrey zippered her pants back up.
"I'm kidding. I'm up." Chloe rolled over, trapping Aubrey beneath her. "I'm awake."
Aubrey slid her zipper back down again in slow motion.
"But only long enough to make you tired."
"Good luck."
Chloe pressed their lips together in a slow, tantalizing kiss that made Aubrey immediately crave more the moment she pulled away. "Challenge accepted."
xxxxx
The door closes, and Aubrey is torn – torn between crawling right into bed with her and sinking into a corner on the far side of the room. So, she doesn't move at all from the spot Chloe's mom leaves her in. She just stands there, staring at Chloe unconscious – not knowing what to do, refusing to believe there is nothing she can do. Tears well up in her eyes, and she's there trying to bottle it all up the moment it starts. Whatever 'it' is – because so many of her feelings are meshed together, that she can't pinpoint any of them anymore. They all deserve to be stuffed down. Until she's fine. So, that's what she does. She tries to stuff them down.
But Aubrey's head is swimming – and everything she's trying to push down is on the verge of boiling over. There's too much water in the pot. She can't keep the lid on it.
But she has to.
She can't just stand around while Chloe needs her.
Move, Aubrey. Stop being such a coward. Move. Fucking move.
She makes the choice to pull over a chair long before she can actually do it. She can't get her feet to work – or any other part of her body either, for that matter. She has to convince herself to go get it. Like convincing herself to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom or get a glass of water. Dazing in and out for an extended period of time before finally kicking herself into gear. She keeps saying 'just do it' over and over inside her head, like she's auditioning herself to be a freakin' Nike campaign manager. Finally, she can't listen to her own thoughts anymore, and she has to move just to shut herself up.
And even then, she doesn't even sit on it.
She just holds onto the back of it, and watches the steady rise and fall of Chloe's chest. Chloe is breathing; that's good. It could be worse. So much worse. Chloe could be dead… There is still hope. Chloe would want her to hold onto that. There is still hope
She wonders if she should say something – if Chloe can hear her. Wondering if maybe this is one of those situations where the person in a coma hears the person they love, and they wake up. If Aubrey even is that person. Maybe she should get David Guetta in here. But if Beca was in here and that didn't even wake her up…
Aubrey traces the tips of her fingers along the back of the chair until she decides to sit down. She slowly slides into the seat, nearly collapsing halfway down. Any movement after that is a struggle, but she manages; she manages, because she needs to be closer to Chloe, and Chloe needs her.
Aubrey leans forward and touches Chloe's hair. If this were a movie, she would wake up. She would wake up the moment Aubrey touches her, and give Aubrey some romantic ending where they get married and have kids and live happily ever after. But this is real life, and real life has never treated Aubrey so kind. She trails her fingers down Chloe's shoulder, then her arm, until she reaches Chloe's hand.
"Chloe," Aubrey can barely get her name out. What if she can hear her, but she can't wake up? What if she knows she can't wake up, like how Aubrey feels sometimes when she gets caught between sleeping and waking up, and she's scared? She has heard of people having a sense of awareness while stuck in comas before. She rubs Chloe's palm with her thumb, hoping if that is the case, she knows Aubrey is here. That, no matter what, Aubrey is here, and she isn't leaving. No matter what.
She folds forward in exhaustion, resting her forehead on the bed, and stares at the white sheets. They both hate white sheets. For Aubrey, it's because they get dirty too easily. For Chloe, it's because they lack color. At home, Aubrey's sheets are black, and Chloe's are a deep purple. She wonders what color they would be if they shared a bed – if they would compromise on one color, or alternate between loads of laundry.
All of this, and Aubrey is thinking about bedsheets.
She doesn't know what else to think about.
Aubrey sniffles and lifts her head just enough to wipe her face. We're going home, she tells Chloe inside her own head, lowering her face back down again, into the crook of her arm, We can sleep in our own beds. She knows Chloe wants to sleep in hers, but she would give almost anything to be in Chloe's room right now – to be wrapped up in her arms, counting the stars on the ceiling until she falls asleep. She gently squeezes Chloe's hand, setting herself up for devastation, thinking that Chloe might squeeze hers back.
Wake up. Wake up. Please, wake up.
Aubrey needs to be closer to her - to feel something from her. She maneuvers herself up onto her knees on the chair, releasing Chloe's hand to lean forward on her, burying her face against Chloe's chest, clinging to her shoulder. Wake up. Everything feels so heavy – even her body itself feels heavier than it ever has, even though she knows she's lost a significant amount of weight in the past week.
She doesn't know what to do.
Aubrey can be a better fiancée than she was a friend or girlfriend if Chloe wakes up; she knows she can be. She can stop complaining about the towels on the bathroom floor. She can put aside her distaste for Beca, and all of her jealousy. She can bring in the cat. Whatever she needs to do; she can do it. Whatever it is, she'll do it. She'll do it. She'll do it. She'll do it. She'll fix it. All of it. Everything she's ever done wrong. She'll apologize. She'll make it better. She will. She promises. Chloe can take her word for it. She swears on everybody's graves.
Aubrey will even switch places with her – because Chloe doesn't deserve this. She deserves to be awake, with her mom and her dad. Her parents don't deserve this kind of pain.
Wake up.
Wake up.
The words play in a never ending loop inside her head, over and over, becoming stronger as she gives way to the tears burning her eyes. She's too tired to stop them. She's too tired. There is too much fear squeezing the life out of her lungs and heart to keep trying to pretend she is perfectly fine in this room, on top of Chloe, internally begging her to come back now – right now. "Right now," she mouths into Chloe's hospital gown. Right now. Right now. She clings tighter, cycling through every stage of grief, all at the same time.
Denial. This is not real. None of it.
Anger. How can Chloe leave her alone in this?
Guilt. It's not fair. It's not fair that it's Chloe on this bed, and not her. Chloe, always optimistic, always kind, always good, is unconscious – and, Aubrey, who should have forced them to go home when she had the chance, is the one awake. Aubrey deserves to live with her mistake, but Chloe doesn't.
Bartering. Aubrey will switch places with her. She will. She'll do anything.
Depression… The magnitude of it all is too much. It's too much. She curls herself up until most of her is on top of Chloe and the bed, only half of her legs left resting on the chair. She isn't allowed to be overwhelmed like this. She isn't allowed. Her entire body shaking like a magnitude 10 earthquake, she tries fight how drained she is. Tries to rope herself back in. Tries to stop bawling like a baby. Tries to shut herself down. Tries to stop thinking about how much she needs Chloe, and think instead about how much Chloe needs her to get it together. Get it together, Aubrey.
She's so tired of holding herself together. After everything. After trying to get them out of there alive. And, failing – just like she always does, just like she's doing right now. Failing The Bellas. Her father. Herself. Chloe's mom and dad. Chloe.
Wake up.
Right now.
Right now.
Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now.
Aubrey wants to scream. To cover her ears. To drown out her own voice inside of her head.
Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right now.
Chloe needs her, and this is what Aubrey is doing - having a meltdown, crying.
Get it together, Aubrey.
Right now. Right now. Right now.
STOP!
Aubrey sobs one more time, then pulls herself together with the speed of light. She can fail her parents. She can fail herself. She can fail The Bellas. But she cannot fail Chloe. She cannot fail Chloe's mom and dad. She cannot fail anyone with the last name of Beale.
Beca's right that everyone has enough to worry about. She can't allow Chloe to be her Achilles Heel when she needs to be strong for her. The holes Chloe chiseled through every brick-and-mortar wall that Aubrey worked so hard to build from the ground up over the course of her entire life are a liability now more than ever. So, she rebuilds each wall, every single one, even the ones Chloe never managed to make even a dent in - only, this time, she builds them with stone. This time, no one is getting through. If Beca can look so completely unbothered, so can Aubrey.
She clamps her eyes shut to stop the tears, clenches her jaw to keep it from trembling, tenses every aching muscle in her body to prevent them from shaking, until it's only her stomach rolling, until it's only her chest caving in, until her exhaustion, no, not just her exhaustion - until every weakness is locked on the inside with no escape. She reels herself in tight, winds herself up until she only feels like she's going to snap, until she's only teetering on the very edge of panic. Until it's all hidden safely out of sight, and she can sit calmly back down on her chair, resume holding Chloe's hand, and the only person who can see how much everything hurts is her.
She lifts Chloe's fingers to her lips and kisses them gently - and gives the delicate parts of herself that Chloe managed to extricate from her back to her. She can have those pieces of Aubrey that she wanted so much, and keep them in the back of her mind where only she knows they exist. Without them, Aubrey is impenetrable fortress.
The only person who Aubrey is letting down, the only person who will ever know how close Aubrey is to coming apart at the very seams, is Aubrey.
