"So you're coming home?" Beca asked as she moved around her apartment. It felt kinda empty without Chloe and Amy around but hopefully that would change soon.

"Yeah," Chloe sighed on the other end of the phone.

"Are you sure everything's okay?" Beca asked. "We all thought you and Chicago would go all the way."

"So did I," Chloe was silent for a moment. "He was great but there was just something missing. Umm, Beca there's something I want to talk to you about but I don't really want to say it over the phone."

"Okay…" Her curiosity peaked but Beca knew she wouldn't get anything out of her friend. "Your flight gets in tomorrow right?"

"Yup." Chloe seemed to appreciate the change in topic. "Are you sure you're free to pick me up?"

"Wouldn't miss it." Beca smiled at the thought of seeing her friend again.

"Can you do it?"

"There's no guarantee that it would work, Beca. The time continuum is a fragile thing, you'd be risking everything you've worked for."

"I just need five months."

"I miss her too but–"

"Just five months."

Lilly moved about her complicated machinery, tightening screws and adjusting electrodes as she made the final preparations. "You understand that there's no coming back from this. Time travel only works one way and you'll be on your own. You can't tell anyone about the future, even the past version of me can't be told anything."

"I get it." Beca laid down in the capsule that would be her vessel into the past. "Is the machine almost ready?"

"Just a few more minutes." Lilly fiddled with some wire and everything started to light up. The entire thing looked like something out of Star Trek. There was a central tube that the passenger would lie down in, with massive electrical cables leading to oversized generators. Beca wasn't sure how Lilly had managed to collect all of this but right now she didn't care.

Four months ago Beca and the rest of the Bellas had all watched the news feed of the storm that brought down transatlantic flight forty two. The flight that was supposed to bring Chloe home from Europe.

It had almost driven her insane. Beca just couldn't process a world without Chloe, that idea drove her to this extreme. Willing to risk everything to fix this broken world.

Lilly had explained how this would work. Apparently only her consciousness would be making the trip, something about how organic matter couldn't survive the experience. So the plan was to send Beca back five months, to just before her debut performance on the USO tour. That's when things went sideways.

"It's ready." Lilly popped back up and headed to the control panel.

Beca laid down in the central apparatus, feeling a little nervous as the machine started to close above her head.

"All settled?" She gave Lilly a thumbs up, not wanting the other girl to stop now they were so close to doing this. "Remember. You have to focus on a specific set of memories. That will help guide your consciousness to the correct time."

Beca knew all this. Lilly had made sure to ram it into her head a couple times a day since they started this project. But still, she heeded Lilly's advice and pictured singing on stage, pulling the other Bellas up for one last performance.

"Godspeed Beca." Lilly flipped a switch and watched as the time capsule came alive. The room they were in was flooded with colors and shining lights that nearly blinded her. Once everything settled back down there was nothing in the room. The machinery, the time capsule, even Lilly had all disappeared.

Whatever Beca was expecting time travel to look like it wasn't this. She kinda expected it to be instantaneous. Instead it felt like she was floating while simultaneously moving really, really fast. Or maybe whatever she was looking at was what was moving. It kinda looked like a massive web of interconnected bubbles, each glowing a different color with vague images being played like a movie.

Beca looked down at herself to see that she didn't really have a body anymore, just a collection of random sparkly bits that seemed to float around her. Kinda like a planet with its moons.

She started to drift towards one of the glowing spheres. Inside looked like an old movie reel of her sitting in her second grade class as Mrs. McHue explained the solar system. It confused her at first but then Lilly's voice was screaming at her. Her thoughts dictated when and where she ended up. And she definitely did not want to end up back in the second grade.

Chloe, that was the answer, she just had to focus on Chloe. As Beca had the thought, several dozen orbs started to glow a bright blue. 'Wow, there's a lot of them.'

She would have to narrow it down. The intended target was right before her performance in France. So music, she tried to focus on moments of music and Chloe. Which didn't help all that much since music was a cornerstone of their friendship. A few of the orbs dimmed but the others seemed to brighten. Her ethereal body floated towards the shining collection of memories, marveling at the complexity of this time space continuum thing.

There was still some whittling down that she needed to do so Beca tried a different tactic. Right before her performance Chloe had helped her do a few warm up exercises in their hotel room so she tried to focus on that. Several more orbs darkened, leaving only about half a dozen lit up. She was about to take a closer look at the individual moments but the space she was in gave a tremendous shake. The "walls" started to crack, little white lines forming around the edges of her vision.

Lilly had said that the time continuum was fragile, it seemed like the world she was in was starting to crumble. She needed to hurry up and pick a memory to travel to before everything collapsed. Her anxiety must have caused her to move faster, hurtling towards the closest sphere without giving her a chance to sort her thoughts.

The first thing she noticed was that she was wet…which was weird. Weirder still was that she was naked…what in the hell was going on?

"You can sing!"

Oh…

Oh no.

To be continued -