Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

they started sayin’ when you can’t hide, run / when you can’t run, hide / started thinkin’ love’s a loaded gun / nobody wants to fight / and when did we all start thinkin’ that the world stops spinnin’ in a kiss goodnight / and when did our heartbeat beatin’ too fast stop meanin’ it was worth the while / i wanna, i wanna be loved / and i don’t wanna run, i don’t wanna hide – run and hide, sabrina carpenter

//

Beca swore she’d never fall in love.

Her kindergarten teacher chuckled lightly at the proclamation during music class one day. Two girls beside her were giggling about a boy on the other side of the classroom and Beca thought the situation warranted her input. Love is pointless, was her eloquent remark. Girls were supposed to love boys, but boys were gross, so Beca thought she’d skip it. She deemed it unnecessary. She loved music, she told the girls. Music is much better than boys.

(She tapped out her own songs on her xylophone while the rest of the class dissonantly banged out “Mary Had a Little Lamb” out of key and out of tempo. Her teacher said she was a natural. Beca blushed and hid her face in her oversized t-shirt.)

Her teacher chuckled softly again.

(Beca loved her teacher. She was a blond woman in her mid-20’s with and undercut and more piercings in her ears than Beca had ever seen on one person. Beca thought she was awesome.

Also, she let Beca play with her new puppy that one time she ran into her on the weekend with her dad, so she was up pretty high in Beca’s books.)

She smiled softly down at Beca’s hunched form scowling fiercely at the notes on the sheet in front of her as though they were insulting her with their simplicity.

“You know Beca, not all girls are supposed to love boys. Some girls just aren’t born that way.”

Beca looked up at her with a mix of confusion and excitement in her expression.

“So you mean I don’t have to like boys?”

“Not if that’s not who you are, Beca.”

Her teacher didn’t elaborate or say anything more. She simply smiled at Beca once more and walked across the room to help out a particularly ungifted student.

For about 2 weeks Beca thought this meant she would never have to love anyone, and honestly who needs to, everything’s easier on your own anyway. But then a new girl transferred into Beca’s kindergarten class, and let’s just say Beca began to understand what her teacher had meant in music class.

In a very kindergarten sort of way, anyway.

The new girl was the coolest kindergartener that Beca had ever met. She wore ripped jeans and a Rolling Stones t-shirt and her backpack was covered in patches from different cities all across the country. Beca befriended her immediately. She was good at that: making people listen to her out of stubbornness and big ideas.

The girl’s name was Claire, and she was so laid back that she didn’t mind that Beca would basically talk at her non-stop until the bell rang for class. She had two older brothers, she told Beca, so she’d built up a bit of a tough exterior.

But then Beca would rattle her ear off about not having any siblings and what it was like not having anyone to talk to at home, so Claire decided she’d let Beca keep talking as long as she wanted to.

One day at recess, the other kids in her class were playing a game of tag where the person who was in would have to kiss whoever they tagged.

When it was Beca’s turn, she tagged Claire.

She didn’t realize that all the other girls had tagged boys, and vice versa, so she gave Claire a quick peck on the lips. All of the other kids began to whisper excitedly to each other and everything around Beca seemed to freeze. She looked around at all of her classmates’ shocked expressions before proceeding to blush and sputter something about the game rules said I had to.

Claire smiled brightly and told Beca not to worry about it.

Beca blushed even harder.

But then she was being yelled at by the teacher on duty and she and Claire were being ushered to the principal’s office.

She tried to explain that she shouldn’t be the only one in trouble, the rest of her classmates were playing the game too. But she was just being given pitying looks and her parents were being called to the school and her mother was yelling at her about something not being right by god as she rushed Beca to the car and her dad was looking at her with an emotion Beca couldn’t quite understand – but Beca wasn’t paying attention to any of it. She was looking for Claire, but she’d been waiting a while before her parents had been able to come and pick her up, so she figured Claire must have already left.

That night was the first time she’d ever heard her parents yell at each other before.

It certainly wouldn’t be the last, either.

The next day was Saturday, so she didn’t go to school, but when she got back on Monday, Claire was nowhere to be found. Beca’s teacher with the undercut and the piercings told her sadly (but with a touch of what Beca thought was anger? She wasn’t sure) that Claire had transferred and wouldn’t be coming back to school again. Beca’s teacher hugged her as she cried, and she swore she saw a tear slip out of the older woman’s eye as she told beca that she could spend the rest of the maths lesson playing the xylophone if she wanted to.

Of course she wanted to.

As Beca poured herself into her music to escape her life for the first time of many to come, she swore to herself that she’d never fall in love.

//

Beca swore she’d never fall in love.

This time she was serious.

It was her freshman year of high school and she wanted nothing more than to just fly under the radar. She didn’t need any more drama than she already had at home, so she spent her lunchtimes locked away in the music rooms, desperate to avoid any kind of social interaction. The kind of endless energy she’d had as a kid had been drained out of her, and she no longer felt the need to talk to other people at all unless absolutely necessary.

She’d moved school districts just before the start of the school year, so she thanked her lucky stars that no one here knew her. The kids at her old school were horrible. Ever since that day at recess, and since kids had grown old enough to learn ways to actually be mean to each other, she’d been called names like “dyke” and “queer” and basically shunned by her entire school.

The words had hurt so badly that when she finally realized she was bi, she cried herself to sleep for weeks because she didn’t have anyone to tell her that there was nothing wrong with who she was.

She’d tried to tell her parents at dinner one night, in the ever-narrowing hope that they might be her someone to confide in, but instead, her mother slapped her clean across the face with tears and fire in her eyes, and the most her father could do was step in between the two women and tell her mother not to touch Beca.

When her mother finally stormed out of the room, Beca’s father turned back towards her, opened his mouth to say something with a slightly uncomfortable look on his face, before closing it and slumping down onto his chair at the dinner table, a distinctly torn expression possessing his entire being. Neither he nor Beca knew what to do next, so Beca stayed up all night watching Buffy with a steady stream of noiseless tears cascading down her face, desperately trying to escape her life for just a moment.

So at this point in her ife, Beca wasn’t sure that love even existed, let alone that she deserved it. So she spent her lunchtimes in the music room.

One Friday lunchtime, as Beca sat next to the piano with her headphones plugged into her laptop, mixing the riff she had just recorded, she was interrupted by the sound of guitar spilling loudly from the room next door. As she scowled and pulled off her headphones, getting ready to bang on the wall that connected the two rooms to let whoever was distracting her from her solace know to shut the hell up, a mesmerizing voice started to accompany the somewhat messily played guitar.

It was high for a boy, but rich and mellow and beautifully projected.

Holy shit, that’s beautiful.

Every fibre of her being told Beca to stay put, but her ears, her stupid, music-hungry ears seemed to lead her against her will out into the hallway to stop and lean against the doorway into the other room.

The boy stopped playing when her saw her, and flashed her a stupid, boyish grin as he said, “Sorry, was I playing too loud?”

Yes, you asshat, I’m pretty sure they could hear you in Australia.

“No, no, of course not.”

Same difference.

They struck up a relatively awkward conversation about music, and before she knew it, Beca was asking this boy, this thus-far nameless boy that she had just met, whether she could record his voice on a track she was mixing.

He flashed her that stupid grin again as he said yes.

They met up after school in that same music room, and she recorded his voice on a new mash-up, and the next thing she knew he was asking her if he could kiss her, and to her utter surprise she was saying yes. It was short and somewhat awkward, but it was the first time Beca felt connected, like really, truly connected to someone since she was five years old, and she kind of didn’t want it to end.

They arranged to meet up in the music room at lunchtime on Monday. She finally asked him his name. It was Josh.

After a weekend of tension and screaming matches at home, Beca was more excited to see Josh than she had been for anything since her dad bought her those headphones as a peace offering after that night. (She appreciated the gesture. He was trying to help where he knew how.)

For a fleeting second, she feared he wasn’t going to show up, that he’d disappeared off the face of the earth and left her behind (it wouldn’t be the first time), but he showed up five minutes later with his guitar and greeted her with a cheesy “hey,” and a quick peck on the lips.

A week later he asked her to be his girlfriend. She said yes, and for a few months she was happier than she’d thought possible.

Her mother seemed so ecstatic that she’d come home with a boy that she left them to their own devices, and she and Beca managed to be civil with each other for the most part. Beca wanted so badly for things to stay that way that she didn’t tell Josh she was bi until they’d been dating for four months.

He said he was okay with it, and she wanted so badly to believe him that she did… but the next day at school in the music room, he told her he’d thought about it, and that while he respected her and her “choices”, it made him too uncomfortable, and he just couldn’t go through with their relationship anymore.

Their relationship ended the same day her parents sat her down and told her they were getting a divorce.

Four months ago, Beca wouldn’t have thought it possible to believe any less in love. She didn’t know if she’d loved Josh, but she liked him and how steady her life was with him, and she figured that was close enough.

Close enough, that is, to use him as a reason to swear to herself that she would never fall in love again.

//

Beca swore she’d never fall in love. It’s too complicated and it never ends well.

She wonders where she learned that from.

She’d been dating Jesse for two years when he first told her he loved her. She figured that a romantic like him had waited so long to say it because breaking down her walls felt like he was slowly chipping away at them with a toothpick. Beca knew he’d wanted to hear it back, but a montage of her parents early I love you’s flashed through her mind like an old-timey film projection (Funny, she thought. Jesse would like that.) and the thought of putting herself out on the line and the possibility of that backfiring… well, let’s just say she’d seen enough of the damage love could do to a person to find out how much more it could do to her.

So she didn’t say it back.

They broke up a week later.

//

Beca swore she’d never fall in love. In a way, she stood true to her word.

The Bellas were her found-family. She loved them all in a way that was so rare yet so pure that she convinced herself it didn’t count. She loved them, but she wasn’t in love with them. They knew her through and through, her flaws, her biggest secrets, and they were the only ones to do so that had stuck around (except for - though it took him a little longer for him to understand her - her dad). They didn’t just tolerate who she was, they loved every part of her – except her, to quote Chloe, “uncanny ability to leave trash in every room of the Bella house that you step foot into” - (though she still wasn’t sure she deserved unconditional love like this).

So she wasn’t in love. But she thought that someday, maybe, just maybe, she might be ready to let herself fall.

Chapter Text

all i want to get is / a little bit closer / all i want to know is / can you come a little closer? / here comes the breath before we get / a little bit closer / here comes the rush before we touch / can you come a little closer? / the doors are open / the wind is really blowing / the night sky is changing overhead - closer, tegan and sara

 //

Beca is fucking screwed.

Three years of college (that she’d never intended to experience in the first place) have told her that, yeah, she still wants to be a music producer, and no, she’s not any closer to becoming one than she had been when she’d told her dad she wanted to move to LA in her freshman year.

But it’s totally fine, she’s got it covered.

(Except that she doesn’t. Like, at all.)

The only thing that has really advanced on that front is Beca’s anxiety that she’s wasting her life away, because how can she really know if she’s even good at it if the only person that listens to her mixes is herself?

Still, even with that constant crippling fear of never amounting to anything weighing on her shoulders, Beca can’t seem to move forward with her music. Every ounce of energy she has left is channeled straight into the Bellas, and she’s not sorry for that, she really isn’t… except in those quiet moments alone when the devil on her shoulder tells her to just screw the Bellas and focus on herself.

And sometimes, though it scares the shit out of her, she thinks it may be right.

But then she’s walking into the living room of the Bella house and seeing the girls that have literally kept her alive for the past three years, and she knows she wouldn’t give them up for the world. So she puts her ambitions on the backburner for a while. It’s not a big deal, she tells herself. As long as I’ve got the Bellas.

She repeats it like a mantra.

As long as I’ve got my family.

//

It’s only two weeks into her senior year that Beca meets Emily. She’s walking back across the quad to the Bella house after her Advanced Music Theory class when she’s bowled over by an over-eager freshman, her books are being knocked to the ground and she’s cursing under her breath.

“Oh crap, I am so sorry, I’m such an idiot, I should’ve been looking where I was going, I’m sorry, I am just so late for class, and god, I’ve only been here like, a week and a half, and I’m already falling behind in my classes, oh yeah, and knocking over complete strangers in the quad…”

But Beca’s already zoning out, because the clumsy, rambling girl now helping her pick her books up off the ground is kind of ridiculously attractive, and also it’s slightly difficult to understand her when she’s speaking a mile a minute, so Beca just cuts her off and says, “Dude, calm down, don’t worry about it.”

The girl just sort of freezes when she hears Beca’s voice, and sure it’s a little creepy, but then she’s slowly looking up at Beca’s face, a look of dawning excitement spreading across her face, and it sort of makes Beca want to smile, too.

She doesn’t, but the urge is a little harder to control than usual.

But then 10 seconds have passed and the girl is still frozen, so it’s getting a little creepy again.

“Uh… okay, well… thanks for…” Beca just motions to her books, which the girl is still gripping tightly in her hands.

“Oh, sorry I just - you’re Beca Mitchell!” the girl practically squeals.

“Yeah, I - I’m sorry, do I know you?”

The girl seems to be physically incapable of standing still. She fidgets uncontrollably with her hands and with a large, old watch on her wrist, which Beca thinks seems out of place as her eyes glance over the younger girl in front of her.

“Oh god, sorry, I realize that must have sounded weird. No, uh, you don’t know me, but I know you! Well, know of you, we’ve never met in real life… I mean, apart from now! Cause we just… oh god, I’m rambling, aren’t I - I’m sorry, it happens when I get nervous, and you’re somehow even prettier in person which is very intimidating, so I’m just gonna… stop now.”

Her last comment makes Beca blush, which she finds super embarrassing in any normal situation, let alone in front of a really attractive girl, but the girl now looks like she's about to faint, so Beca figures it’s probably time to leave.

“Okay, well, uh, thanks again for helping me pick up my books,” Beca says, and realization that she’s been holding onto Beca's books for 5 minutes dawns on Emily, effectively keeping Beca there against her will, so she jumps and quickly hands back the books. “It was nice meeting you.”

It’s only when Beca has started to walk away that Emily decides to respond, so she has to yell slightly so she can still hear her.

“Uh, it was really nice meeting you too!”

Beca keeps walking, but turns around long enough to wave and see Emily trip over her own feet, and a small laugh escapes her as she keeps on walking back to the Bella house.

She thinks about the girl the whole way home.

It turns out she’d also smiled about the girl the whole way home, because the moment she steps into the kitchen, she’s greeted by an odd look from Chloe and Stacie, who whisper something to each other before looking inquiringly back at Beca. Beca, who doesn’t like being stared at like a zoo animal (but who incidentally loves going to the zoo), puts on her most intimidating glare, and aggressively asks, “What?”

“I’m sorry, but did we just see you smiling?” Chloe asks. “What happened, did somebody trip in the parking lot?”

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Beca retorts.

“Seriously Beca, that was some real cheesy smiling, I haven’t seen you smile like that since we saw those red pandas at the zoo,” Stacie adds.

“Okay, those pandas are adorable, anyone would cry seeing them for the first time okay, get off my back,” Beca huffs. “And I wasn’t smiling.”

“Whatever you say.”

Chloe and Stacie aren’t convinced.

It’s two days later when they realize what got Beca smiling so hard.

Beca’s in the kitchen that night, grabbing a cup of coffee so that she can keep working on a mix, when the doorbell rings. She hears Amy yell “Not it!” from the living room, so she rolls her eyes and goes to open the door herself.

The same smile threatens to return to her face when she opens the door to see the girl from the other day standing outside.

“Are you stalking me?” Beca asks sarcastically.

(Okay, so there’s a hint of real fear there, but really, how much damage could this girl really do?)

“Oh my god, hi! I, uh, I just came from auditions, and you guys weren’t there, I was hoping to get a chance to sing for you. For the Bellas, I mean,” she says frantically. “My name is Emily, by the way, I realized I'm an idiot and didn’t actually introduce myself the other day.”

“Well now I get how you know me, honestly, I was getting a little worried,” Beca jokes, and Emily smiles, which is a really beautiful sight, Beca thinks, so she smiles back.

When Chloe appears behind her, having heard the doorbell ring, Beca jumps a little and quickly wipes the smile off her face, hoping Chloe doesn’t notice.

(She notices.)

“Hey, Chloe, this is Emily, she was hoping to see us at auditions,” Beca says quickly, trying to deter Chloe’s knowing grin.

It works, so Beca counts that as a blessing.

“Oh! Yeah, we kind of stopped auditioning people last year, we figured we had enough members already,” she says. She turns to Beca and adds, “I mean, we’re still not even sure why Jessica and Ashley are even here.”

The look on Emily’s face turns to one of disappointment. “Oh. I didn’t realize. Sorry to disturb you, I guess I’ll just -” she points over her shoulder to say she’ll leave when Beca quickly yells, “Wait!” slightly louder than necessary, which causes both Emily and Chloe to jump.

“Oh, sorry - I mean, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to just hear her sing, would it Chlo?” Beca asks, turning almost pleadingly to Chloe.

Chloe raises her eyebrow, very confused by her friend’s change in demeanour. She looks searchingly into Beca’s eyes, and she looks kind of desperate, so Chloe finds herself saying, “Yeah, I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

The ecstatic look on Emily’s face is worth any look from Chloe, Beca thinks.

The next thing Beca knows, they’re calling the other Bellas down into the living room, much to Amy’s disdain (she glares at Emily for the rest of the night), and they’re having an impromptu audition.

“Why are we holding an audition for just one person, doesn’t that seem a little unnecessary?” Stacie whispers, but one suggestive look and an “It was Beca’s idea,” from Chloe, and she’s fully on board.

It takes until Emily says, “I’d like to perform an original song that I’ve been working on,” to get the other Bellas interested.

Emily is good. Scratch that, Beca thinks, Emily is amazing. Her song is beautiful, and her voice, god, her voice. Beca’s kind of mesmerised by it. Sure, Emily’s a little weird, but honestly, she finds it kind of cute, which is certainly not something Beca finds herself thinking often.

(Okay, so she's a little weird and very eager, but Beca thinks her amazing voice kind of outweighs that fact.)

The other Bellas seem to agree about her voice and her song, their stunned silence very telling, and Cynthia Rose asks, “Did you really write that?”

Emily blushes slightly. “Yeah. I mean, like I said, it’s not finished yet, but… yeah, yeah I wrote it.”

The Bellas all whisper to each other in approval, and Chloe says, “Well, let’s take a vote on it,” looking pointedly at Beca, whose eyes have drifted over to Emily.

She feels Chloe’s eyes burning a hole into the side of her head, so she quickly turns around and says, “Yeah, uh, sure. Let’s vote.”

They all look to Beca, whose hand is already in the air, and follow suit, many of them thinking something along the lines of, well, I mean if Beca’s saying yes, she must be pretty worth it.

Chloe walks up to Emily with her most intimidating look, before her face softens and she says, “You’re in!”

Emily is like an overly excitable puppy, and she squeals slightly before doing a very awkward sort of victory dance and starts thanking the Bellas profusely. Most of them introduce themselves to her and peel back off to their own business, save for Beca who walks over to Emily, and Stacie and Chloe who stay behind (at a safe distance) to, you know, pry into Beca’s personal life.

They say it’s for her own good.

Beca usually says she thinks it might be for their own good.

“Hey, so I guess congratulations are in order,” Beca says to Emily once Flo has finished introducing herself.

“Yeah, I mean, thanks to you!” Emily replies, and Beca thinks she might literally burst with excitement. “Seriously, you have no idea how much this means to me,” she adds, her tone filled with sincerity.

“Don’t mention it,” Beca smiles. “I, uh, just wanted to say you have a lovely voice. And that song was really great, you should give yourself more credit. You’re very talented. A little clumsy," she adds with a laugh, "but talented.”

Emily blushes, again, which Beca is starting to notice is something they have in common when they’re around each other. She also lets out a sort of harsh laugh before she says, “I don’t know, I mean… you, you’re talented, but I just… I don’t think I’m anything special.”

“Woah, dude, are you kidding me?” Beca asks, visibly shocked. “I wish I could do what you do. Take it from me, it’s not easy exposing yourself like that. Being brave enough to put your thoughts into writing… not all of us are like that.”

Emily smiles softly, and Beca sees an understanding behind her eyes that’s sort of intimidating, so she just mumbles something that sounds like or so I’m told.

It takes a few moments of both girls awkwardly studying at the ceiling, but Beca clears her head and remembers something.

“Hey, I can show you up to your room if you want,” Beca offers. “I mean, there’s only one left, and it’s kind of small and shitty, but it’s a single so it’s better than a dorm room. Plus, it’s either that or the attic, so I’d count your blessings,” she adds, and Emily laughs.

They both stand still for a few seconds, before Beca realizes she’s staring at Emily, and Emily realizes she’s staring back, and Beca quickly tells Emily to follow her upstairs.

They walk unknowingly past Chloe and Stacie on their way up, and it’s Stacie who turns to Chloe and asks, “They do realize they’re both into each other, right?”

"You know, I'm really not sure they do."

//

The next month goes by, and it’s gotten to the point where the other Bellas have begun to make a tally of all the times they’ve caught Beca staring at Emily, or vice versa. Stacie and Chloe have taken it upon themselves to make sure to point out the attraction to every other Bella when something like this happens, which is, like, all the time.

Except, you know, Beca or Emily themselves. They want to see them fumbling awkwardly for a little while longer.

They’ve also begun to make bets about when the two will get together, which has led to many awkward occasions of Beca catching them and asking why they’re exchanging money, but they deny everything, so Beca just gives them suspicious looks and carries on with her business.

But it’s really Beca who thinks about it the most, because with every new encounter with Emily, she finds herself smiling more than she’s done in her whole life, she’s pretty sure, which is a terrifying thought when she really lets herself go down that rabbit hole. She can’t stop herself thinking it’s too complicated and it never ends well , so she denies to herself that she has any feelings for Emily at all. She also often finds herself reliving every bad memory she’s ever experienced with love, which often just leads to a two-hour long mixing session and no real progress on the feelings front, so it’s safe to say she’s still having trouble accepting the truth.

Somewhere deep down, she still doesn’t think she deserves the love she tries not to feel so strongly herself. Everytime in her life she’d felt happy somewhere, it had crumbled down around her. She’s still terrified that the Bellas will come to their senses and leave her behind in the dust, but it never happens. She’d like to believe it never will, but her mind is plagued with doubt, and she’s still learning that her past doesn’t define her.

She just needs some time.

Emily on the other hand, knows exactly what she feels for Beca, because she’s known it since the moment they met, and she spends most of her days just thinking about Beca. It’s hard not to when they spend most of their days in the same general vicinity.

Also, sometimes when Beca can’t figure out a track, she unplugs her headphones to listen to it out loud, and Emily can’t help but stop in her tracks and smile at whatever masterpiece comes spilling out from under her door.

It’s not creepy, she swears. She’s simply appreciative of good music.

(Even she doesn’t really believe that.)

It’s one day a month into her time as a Bella when it’s just Emily and a few other girls in the house, including Beca, when the doorbell rings. Beca’s upstairs working on a mix and the other girls are studying, so Emily figures she should get the door herself.

She’s surprised to find her English Lit teacher standing on the other side.

“Emily! I didn’t know you were a Bella, what a surprise!”

He really was a nice guy. He knew Emily by name because her hand managed to be up with either a question or an innocent correction or comment every single class, and Barden was a small university after all. It was one of her favourite subjects, and was one of the only non-music related classes she took, so it was a nice break when the rest got too much, and he was a great teacher.

“Professor Mitchell!” she replies animatedly. “What are you doing here?”

He smiles, but it’s with an odd mix of happiness and worry when he says, “I’m actually looking for my daughter, Beca. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?”

Realization hits Emily like a ton of bricks as it finally clicks in her mind that, of course, her favourite teacher is the father of her favourite Bella and how on earth did I miss this? She’d spent the whole third week of classes wondering where she recognised his particular brand of off-key sarcasm from (she’d spent the second getting to know Beca), before giving up and deciding it was a coincidence. She thinks it’s because despite that one similarity, Beca and her father are two of the most unalike people Emily has ever met. Beca is intimidating and outwardly unapproachable ( in the best way , Emily thinks, afraid to somehow mentally offend Beca), whereas her dad just gives off an aura of friendly warmth.

Although, it was the kind of warmth that seemed to be compensating for the cold underneath, as though at his core there was a sense of sadness he couldn’t shake.

Still, the warmth was genuine and convincing.

“Emily?”

She looks up to find Professor Mitchell looking at her like she’s a little bit crazy (a look Emily knows all too well), because she’s been staring off into the distance for 30 seconds after saying “Ooh,” and making a series of weird facial expressions, so she’s stuttering now, telling him she’ll go get Beca and “Sorry for… that.”

She takes the stairs two at a time up to Beca’s room, and it takes her a few seconds to work up the courage to knock on the door, because she doesn’t want to disturb Beca while she’s working, but she’s already made Professor Mitchell wait long enough, so she bites the bullet and goes for it.

When she doesn’t get an answer, she braces herself and opens the door.

Beca has her headphones and a determined look of concentration on, so she doesn’t notice Emily calling her name from the doorway, which, really, is making Emily’s job a lot harder.

She resolves to just lightly tap Beca on the shoulder, which turns out to be a horrible idea, because Beca has reflexes like a cat, and before they know it, Beca is swinging around on her chair in shock and knocking Emily to the ground.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

“Ow,” is all Emily can reply with.

“Dude, you scared the shit out of me, give a girl some warning next time.”

“Well I tried to, but you seemed a little preoccupied, and then you - oh, now you’re laughing, that’s great, I’ll just wait here,” Emily jokes, and she’s laughing too when Beca walks over to her and offers her hand to help Emily up.

When Emily is fully upright, they’re standing very close, and honestly, neither of them are really complaining.

But then Emily remembers why she came there in the first place and she finds herself stepping back.

“Oh hey,” she says, and they’re both still smiling, “I actually came to tell you that your dad is at the door, he’s looking for you.”

The mood of the room changes slightly as Beca just rolls her eyes and starts muttering something under her breath that Emily thinks sounds like “Seriously? I miss one call and you show up at my house… honestly, dude,” and somehow, Emily thinks it’s not directed at her.

She’s still muttering to herself as she leaves the room, without saying thank you, Emily might add, and she would be offended, but instead she kind of just finds it endearing that Beca gets lost in her head like that.

Kind of like me, Emily thinks.

Incidentally, Emily finds herself still standing in Beca’s room five minutes after she's left, because she’d started to admire minor things around the room. The stand out is definitely the pictures of the Bellas after their three won championships, and photos of Beca with various Bellas at the beach, and at the zoo, and around campus, all smiling and hugging. Including Beca, Emily notices, and it’s kind of mesmerising, because Beca doesn’t smile a lot, but when she does, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Or, at least, like Emily’s ever seen.

It begins to feel like an invasion of privacy when she remembers that Beca likes to keep things to herself, so she’s about to respect that and get the heck out of there when her eyes land upon Beca’s laptop, the screen showing a program littered with waveforms.

Emily swears she’s not usually a nosey person, but she’s a sucker for Beca’s music and it’s getting harder to resist by the second.

Without thinking, she walks up to Beca’s desk and places her headphones over her ears and presses the play button at the bottom of the screen.

She expects the music to be amazing, but god is she stunned when she hears the track Beca’s been mixing.

It is, quite literally, like music to her ears, as every little aspect of the song just comes together as though every note has been painstakingly planned out, and Emily thinks it probably has. It's absolutely beautiful.

It’s not until she feels a tap on her shoulder that Emily realizes that Beca really had a right to knock her to the floor earlier. She jumps and pulls the headphones off her ears, and it’s not until she sees Chloe standing above her that she realizes how badly she’d been wanting to see Beca again.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to -”

“Beca will kill you if she sees you touching her laptop, Emily, you should know that.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll put it all back, I just couldn’t help -”

“Hey,” Beca is saying from the doorway, and Emily is about to mentally kick herself for ever even stepping foot in Beca’s room, but then Beca is smiling and saying, “It’s no problem, Emily. You can stop worrying, you look like you’re about to pass out.”

(Chloe is the most shocked by the fact that Beca isn't yelling, because she has a very vivid memory of Amy doing the same thing in their sophomore year when Beca left her laptop in the kitchen and Beca nearly crucified her, but now that Emily’s doing it, Beca is just… smiling?)

It’s almost as though Beca’s smile puts Emily in a trance, because she gives her an odd smile back and asks what the mix is for.

(Again, Chloe is shocked, because Emily was quite literally about to faint not two seconds ago and now she’s acting like the world has stopped spinning. It’s a little disconcerting.)

“It’s kind of… well it’s sort of just for fun, really. Or, practice, I guess,” Beca answers, and Emily’s eyes widen.

“Jeez, if this is what you do for practice, what can you do when it’s for real?”

Beca blushes, and she swears to god if she doesn’t stop doing that really soon...

She laughs lightly and says, “Thanks,” but she seems a little worn out. “You can… you can listen to another one, if you want. I’ve got some that are complete, they might sound slightly better than that. Or they could be crap, I really couldn’t tell you, I’m the only one that’s listened to most of them.”

(It’s like Chloe’s not even in the room, which honestly Beca and Emily have almost forgotten she is, so she just walks open-mouthed straight out into the hallway and seriously considers having a Bellas meeting purely to tell everyone what she just witnessed.

Because really, she is very, very stunned, but at the same time, she really just wants the Bellas to know that Beca seems happier than Chloe knew she could be, because it’s literally all any of them want for her.)

Beca and Emily spend almost an hour listening to Beca’s mixes and having animated conversations about music, and they’re both so in their element that they don’t realize how much time has passed. When Beca finally chances a look at the clock on her laptop, it’s been 45 minutes and she’s starting to (rather irrationally) worry that she’s boring Emily to death, so she waits for a lull in the conversation to say, “Sorry, you must have been doing something before I held you captive, you can… go, if you want.”

Emily just smiles and says, “Oh, no, I was just…” but she trails off when she remembers what she was doing before they started listening to Beca’s mixes. “Hey, I forgot to ask you, what happened with your dad?”

She realizes this was a mistake when she gauges Beca’s reaction to the question.

Beca is sort of taken aback, like she doesn’t quite know how to answer. Instead she just sort of stutters something along the lines of, “Oh… yeah, uh…”

Emily cuts her off and says, “Oh god, sorry, that’s totally none of my business, you don’t even really know me, you don’t have to tell me, I’m sorry -”

This time it’s Beca who cuts her off, because really, she wants to tell Emily, which is frightening because she’d usually prefer to keep something like this to herself.

“No it’s okay,” she says, and she’s smiling inwardly at the relief that washes over Emily’s face. “He just came to check on me, ‘cause he called me twice the other day and I didn’t answer or message him back - which really he should be used to by now,” she adds, only slightly bitterly. But she’s lost in her own head, and what she says next is more for her own benefit than Emily’s, because she’s sharing things that she’s sure Emily doesn’t want to know. “He just sort of… I don’t know, overcompensates? Like, a lot. He worries about me - which is stupid, because he knows I can take care of myself - but lately it’s been like he’s been trying to make up for lost time, ‘cause we weren’t very close when I was younger, and he's been trying reconnect for like 3 years, and -”

She seems to realize what she’s starting to say, because her eyes widen and she stops mid-sentence, but Emily’s looking at her with a kind smile and soft eyes, and her heart is racing even faster, and she thinks it’s probably time to cut the conversation short.

“Anyway, thanks for coming to get me - and for listening to my mixes!” she adds, and its sincere, but also just a little bit awkward, because she’s somehow still not sure if they’re even good and is getting increasingly more worried that she just wasted and hour of Emily’s life. “I don’t usually… show them to people unless they’re for Bellas performances, but, uh, you kind of reminded me why I love making them - you know, for other people to actually listen to, not just me locked away in my bedroom like a loner,” she laughs, but it sounds a little bit sad. Emily hasn’t said anything the entire time (it’s a little bit like she never wants Beca to stop talking), which is starting to scare Beca because she’s having trouble gauging Emily’s thoughts. “So… thanks, I guess is what I’m trying to say, and also sorry, because I’ve been talking your ear off for like a whole minute, and I’m sure there are plenty of better things you’d like to be doing with your life.”

Emily doesn’t think before she says, “Not really,” and it’s honestly a feat that she doesn’t die of embarrassment right there on the spot. But then Beca’s looking at her with bright eyes and a really goofy smile, because no one has ever enjoyed her company that much and it’s a little overwhelming.

Despite what she said, though, Emily actually does have other things to do (like, you know, school work and not falling behind in her classes, but hey, Beca's worth it), and she also senses that Beca might want to be working on her mix, so she thanks her for showing her her mixes and smiles as she walks as calmly as she can manage out the door of Beca’s room.

The moment she’s out of sight, Emily’s waving her hands in the air like a maniac, because she’s just fulfilled a dream she’s had of hanging out with Beca Mitchell ever since she watched her first ICCA performance in her sophomore year of high school, and Beca is even more amazing in every way than she'd thought was possible of a human being.

She nearly trips over her own feet, but she’s too happy to care.

(She’s pretty sure she’s falling for her.)

Meanwhile, Beca’s still smiling as she moves back to her laptop, opens a new track and simply titles it ‘Emily’.

(She’s pretty sure she’s falling, too.)

Chapter Text

remember those walls i built? / well baby they’re tumbling down / they didn’t even put up a fight / they didn’t even make a sound / i found a way to let you in / but i never really had a doubt / standing in the light of your halo / i got my angel now / it’s like i’ve been awakened / every rule i had to break it / it’s the risk that i’m taking / and i ain’t never gonna shut you out / everywhere i’m looking now / i’m surrounded by your embrace / baby i can see your halo / you know you’re my saving grace - halo, beyonce

//

Emily loves being a Bella.

It’s literally all she’s ever wanted to be. Sure, the rehearsals are long (and incredibly tiring thanks to Chloe’s mandatory workout regime), and she was a bit unsure where she fit at first, but the girls are so friendly and welcoming that before long, Emily feels like everything just begins to click.

She tells herself it has nothing to do with Beca.

(It has everything to do with Beca.)

Emily’s feelings for the older girl have in no way subsided in the two months that have gone by since they listened to Beca’s mixes together, in fact, Emily can feel them growing stronger with literally every passing second. It’s kind of distracting really, when Emily finds most of her study time being taken up by thoughts of Beca, but she’s only slightly sorry, because in her mind, Beca is way more important than her grades.

(She doubts her mom would agree, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.)

Emily can’t explain the hold that Beca seems to have over her. They’ve only known each other for four months at this point, but Emily can and would already say she’d do anything for her. In the last two months, they’d gotten closer and closer every day, but somehow Emily was still learning new things about Beca (which was mainly due to the fact that Beca seemed to have walls made of steel built up around her that made it a damn sight near impossible to see much further through her). Emily doesn’t mind, though. She can sense that she’s been the only one to truly try, which feels sad, but exciting.

The things she learns about Beca just make Emily like her even more. Like how she takes her coffee black (she really shouldn’t be surprised), how she cherishes her headphones like they’re her child, the way she has to sit on the edge of the couch during Bellas movie night so that she’s not sandwiched between anyone (and can escape quickly and unnoticed), and last but certainly not least, the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles.

Emily just can’t shake the feeling that she was supposed to know Beca. It’s like every little interaction they have feels like gears turning in the universe, like they were supposed to run alongside each other in tandem, moving each other along.

It’s not until one very eventful Bellas rehearsal that she begins to think she might be driving down a two way street.

//

It’s completely accidental. They’re in their usual auditorium for practice, and Chloe decides that it’s a good idea for the Bellas to make a human pyramid. You know, for team building and all that.

To no surprise, Beca really doesn’t want to join.

She makes the excuse that she needs to keep working on the set, so Chloe begrudgingly gives her a pass.

Emily, on the other hand, is considered too much of a liability. The Bellas all seem to think she’ll somehow knock the whole pyramid over with one touch, which Emily thinks is a gross injustice, but to be honest, she’d rather sit on the sidelines with Beca, so she lets it happen.

She finds Beca standing a few feet away leaning against the wall with her phone in her hand, just close enough to see the Bellas flail and fall on their asses every once in a while, but far enough away to not be directly part of the action.

“How’s the setlist coming along?” Emily asks, moving over to lean against the wall next to Beca.

And Beca feels like her whole world suddenly has colour, because Emily’s voice is enough to brighten up even her best day… which, five seconds ago, this one was kind of feeling like it wasn’t.

“Oh, the setlist? The setlist for the Bellas, the one that was supposed to be finished weeks ago? That setlist? Yeah, it’s… good, ready,” Beca replies uneasily. “Sort of.”

Emily laughs, and it brings a smile to Beca’s face and she thinks maybe everything’s okay.

“How can a setlist be sort of ready?”

Beca’s smile fades and the uneasy feeling returns to the pit of her stomach.

It was nice while it lasted.

“Oh you know,” she sighs, “in that it’s actually not ready, like, at all.”

Emily smiles sympathetically, but it kind of hurts more than it helps, because Beca really doesn’t want Emily to pity her.

“Call it writer’s block, I guess, it just feels like everything I try isn’t good enough, but hey, that’s just life when you’re me.”

Really not helping with the pity thing, Mitchell.

But Emily’s stepping forward, and there’s a real indignant look on her face, and it’s got Beca thinking what she could have possibly done to offend her. “Hey, what do you mean nothing’s good enough? I’ve heard your mixes, Beca, every one of them is amazing.”

Beca blushes a little, but at this point she’s stopped getting embarrassed by it, because it happens all too often when she’s around Emily.

(Okay, so she gets embarrassed when the other Bellas call her out on it, which is also very often, but they’re all a bit preoccupied at the current moment.)

“Thank you,” Beca says softly, but she’s forgetting why she’s saying it, because Emily suddenly feels very close to her, so close that she can feel her breath on her forehead, and it’s a little intimidating the way it makes her feel.

But Beca is Beca, and a pretty girl standing that close to her kind of makes her weak, so the next thing she knows, her phone is slipping out of her hand and onto the floor.

Be cool , she thinks, and she is, for the most part, as she stutters awkwardly and bends down to pick up her phone.

But Emily is also Emily, so naturally she bends down, too. It’s a little bit like the fates are testing them, because their hands brush as they both reach for Beca’s phone, and their foreheads are practically touching, and it’s all a bit much, so Beca stands up so quickly it makes her feel lightheaded.

God can she not catch a break.

Emily stands up, too, and Beca’s pretty sure the last person she stood this close to was Jesse right before she kissed him, which really scares Beca because she sort of thinks she might want to kiss Emily, too.

She feels Emily’s breath again, and it’s like there’s an energy between them that’s pulling them closer together because before either of them know it, Emily’s leaning down, and their hearts are both racing like crazy, and it’s almost too good to be true, and -

“Emily, Beca, we need you over here to help get Lilly on top of the pyramid!”

And then they’re both turning abruptly towards the sound of Chloe’s voice, and Beca thinks it must be some sort of cosmic test, because now, god knows how, she’s having an existential crisis about whether Emily feels the same mix of adrenaline and severe confusion she’s feeling right now. But before she gets the chance to gauge Emily’s reaction, Chloe is ushering her away, and Beca doesn’t see her again for the rest of the rehearsal.

Beca has to take a moment to catch her breath, and she gets to thinking (overthinking, really), and she’s a little bit like the actual definition of a bi disaster, because despite the electricity between them, despite the way her heart was beating, she can’t help but wonder if she dreamed up the whole encounter.

What she doesn’t know is that Emily’s wondering the exact same thing.

//

It takes almost a full week for Beca to calm down, and in that time, she doesn’t say a single word to Emily.

Seriously, every time Emily walks into the room, she remembers she has laundry and makes an abrupt exit from the situation.

(Which really shouldn’t bother Emily, but it really, really does.)

But Beca is an emotionally inept idiot who doesn’t know how to handle feelings all that well, and she thinks she should be cut some slack. She wants to talk to Emily, she really does. She just knows that there going to have to talk about their almost-kiss, and she’s not sure she can handle the rejection that will inevitably follow, because she’s had enough of it in her life and she thinks it might break her. And she really thinks she’s made a lot of progress as a person in the last couple of years knowing the Bellas, and she really doesn’t want to go back to how she was before.

She knows it’s not really a way to live, fearing love for the possibility of rejection. But it’s hard to learn not to be afraid when it’s all you’ve ever known.

So she hasn’t talked to Emily in a week, which has made breakfast super awkward for everyone.

Three days ago, Emily asked Beca to pass her the juice, and Beca just stood up abruptly and said, “I think I left the oven on,” and then proceeded to walk straight into the kitchen, stop at the oven, mumble something along the lines of, “Nope, that oven is… off… that’s neat...” and then look quizzically around the air above her before heading back to her bedroom.

Cynthia-Rose just stared off at her and exasperatedly muttered “White people,” and went back to eating her cereal, while the rest of the Bellas shared bewildered looks, many of them sharing the suspicion that Beca was going through an emotional breakdown.

(They collectively decided not to question it, because getting involved in Beca’s personal business had turned out to be a very bad idea in the past.)

Stacie and Chloe, however, just shared a knowing look, their suspicions confirmed by the sad frown on Emily’s face as she looked of after Beca into the kitchen.

So, yeah. Super awkward.

Emily, on the other hand, is just really, truly confused. One minute she and Beca are really becoming friends, and the next minute, Bcea won’t even make eye contact with her.

She goes down a rabbit hole of self-doubt and starts to think over every action, looking for something she might have done wrong to Beca, because that’s just who she is. She’ll blame herself even when she knows she can’t be at fault. She just wants people to be happy.

So naturally, when Beca stops talking to her, she’s the one who feels guilty. Somewhere deep down she knows she shouldn’t, but it’s a hard habit to kick.

She forgets that she deserves to be happy, too.

//

Beca keeps trying to will herself to get over her fear and just talk to Emily, but the furthest she can get is to just pace back and forth outside Emily’s door for ten minutes before chickening out and going back to her own room.

She hates herself for doing this to Emily. She can see that Emily has no idea what’s going on, and she knows it’s a dick move, but the only logic she knows when it comes to relationships is telling her that it would be worse to try and fail than to never try at all.

She’s doing her best. She thinks her brain is her own worst enemy.

It turns out it takes a certain redhead to knock some sense into her.

One night when she goes to Emily’s room to try and summon the courage to finally go and talk to her, she hears the sound of a keyboard coming from the crack in Emily’s door, Emily’s voice accompanying it, and she doesn’t even realize she’s stopped until she’s leaning on the wall outside.

It’s a beautiful song sung by a beautiful voice, but it’s not one Beca recognises. Her head nods slightly along with the melody until it stops abruptly and she can hear Emily groan, “Oh, come on !”

She plays the last little riff again and cuts off in the same spot, groans again with a little more emphasis and smashes her hand harshly against the keys. It’s then that Beca realises why she doesn’t recognise the song: Emily hasn’t finished writing it yet.

Beca thinks she understands what other people say when they hear her mixes, because Emily’s song is the pure definition of gold, and her voice is the sweetest thing Beca has ever heard in her life, and she doesn’t realize she’s holding been holding her breath until she whispers, “Holy shit, that’s beautiful,” under her breath.

She listens for a while as Emily adds some new lyrics, and shuffles around some of the verses, and later she thinks she could have stayed there all night if Chloe hadn’t scared the shit out of her.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Chloe had somehow snuck up behind Beca, who proceeds to jump and yell-whisper, “Dude, what the hell are you doing?”

“I asked you first.”

Beca, who was never a very good liar, has no excuse that isn’t just slightly creepy and won’t give her away, so she tries to play cool and hope for the best.

It’s safe to say that doesn’t work. Like, not even close.

What Beca decides is ‘playing it cool’ turns out to be casually leaning against Emily’s door, but there’s nothing casual about forgetting the door is open and falling onto her ass straight into Emily’s bedroom.

Emily stops mid-song and jumps out of her chair to see Beca sprawled across the threshold of her room, Chloe smirking down at her from the doorway, and Stacie and CR rappear at the doorway after hearing the commotion

“What… what’s happening here? Beca, why are you on the floor?” Emily asks, visibly puzzled.

“Yeah Beca, why are you on the floor?” Chloe asks teasingly, and Beca gives her a look that says I will murder you in your sleep . Chloe’s okay with it, though. It’s Beca’s choice menacing glare, and the Bellas are all immune to it by now.

“I… I was just… I tripped,” is the only lame excuse she can come up with and she’s mentally kicking herself for getting herself into this situation.

“On the carpet?” Emily asks as Beca gets up off the floor.

“Um… yeah,” Beca mumbles in reply, and she doesn’t even believe herself when she says it, but she’s started the lie and she’ll be damned if she gets caught in it.

They spend another few minutes in silence, Emily looking quizzically at the scene in front of her and Beca staring at the ceiling.

Beca chances a look at Emily, and she thinks she sees the hint of a smile tug at the corners of her mouth, and the situation is so ridiculous that she can’t help but smile, too.

Now she knows that Emily’s smiling because after a tentative giggle, she’s grinning from ear to ear, and it feels so good to be in Emily’s company again that she lets out a small laugh herself. Emily just makes her feel alive, and she never wants to go another second without talking to Emily, ‘cause one week felt like an eternity.

Stacie just mutters, “God, those two are idiots, they should just bang already,” to Chloe and CR from the doorway, who nod and murmur in agreement, just looking at their two clueless friends smiling at each other.

Both Emily and Beca hear this, and they’d like to pretend no one notices, but they’re both blushing and Beca thinks it might be time to remove herself from the situation, because she’s had far too much embarrassment for one night.

(She’s also, you know, terrified of her feelings and incapable of acting like a normal human being. The usual.)

She opens her mouth to say something to Emily, but she doesn’t really know how to proceed in a situation like this, so she closes it and turns on her heel out of the room, squeezing between Chloe and CR on her way out.

Emily moves forward to try and stop her, but Beca’s already gone by the time she thinks to move.

“Well that was not at all the most awkward thing I’ve experienced, what about you guys?” Chloe asks nonchalantly.

Stacie and CR just inhale sharply and murmur responses that sound vaguely like, “No, no, not at all.”

They all look at Emily with sympathy in their eyes, before CR nudges Stacie in the ribs, telling her she thinks that Emily may need a little time alone (judging by the pained look on her face) and they both head back downstairs.

But Chloe, Patron Saint of Idiots and Fools, decides she needs to have a word with a certain short brunette to knock some sense into her loser of a best friend, because Emily looks like she might crumble into pieces of uncertainty, and it’s a really uncomfortable sight to behold.

Emily just stares out into the hallway as Chloe leaves before marching to her bed and grabbing a pillow to scream into.

//

When Beca gets back to her room, she shuts the door somewhat harshly behind her, but doesn’t move any further. She just stands there, rooted to the spot, swaying slightly like a tree in a light breeze.

Her mind is racing a thousand miles a minute and she has to steady her breath because she really doesn’t know what the hell just happened but it’s scaring the shit out of her. In all her life, she has never been this afraid of her feelings for someone, but to be honest she’s even more scared that she’s ruined her friendship with Emily, new though it is, because it’s kind of one of the most important things in her life.

Basically, she’s a big fucking mess and she doesn’t know how to stop.

It’s only when she hears Amy coughing loudly that she realizes the blonde is in the room, buried under a mountain of bed covers.

“Jesus, Amy, you scared me.”

Amy blows some hair out of her face and mumbles, “Sorry I was just taking a power nap, did you need something, Chloe?”

“Dude, it’s Beca. Your roommate,” Beca says, and she’d be offended, but this sort of thing happens a lot with Amy, and she’s grown used to it. “Beca, not Chloe. Just nod so I know you’re getting this,” she adds when Amy doesn’t reply.

She props herself up on her elbows to get a better look at Beca, who she studies with an unconvinced expression, before she says, “Huh. So you are.”

Beca just furrows her eyebrows as she starts pacing back and forth across the room, now unable to stand still with her mind running on overdrive. She knows she should apologise to Emily for being such an ass, but she’s afraid if she does, she’ll let slip that she thinks she might be falling in love, and that opens up a whole new conversation that she is definitely not ready to deal with, so, yeah, she’s not really up for it right now.

But it seems that fate (okay, Chloe) has other plans for her.

The door flies open behind her and she turns sharply to find a visibly angry redhead with a scowl on her face standing in the doorway.

“Ah-ha! I knew Chloe would be in here at some point,” Amy says, and she seems to be thinking hard as she says, “I think I might be a bit psychic,” more to herself than the other two.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Chloe yells, marching straight up to Beca, getting a little too close for Beca’s liking.

“Woah, okay, calm down Chloe,” Beca says exasperatedly, and she’s a little overwhelmed by Chloe towering over her. “What are you talking about?”

“What am I - god, you really are clueless,” Chloe says incredulously. “Emily,” she adds simply.

Beca just sort of blinks back at her because she doesn’t really know what to do in this situation and she’s very against confrontation.

“I… you don’t… that’s none of your business, Chloe,” Beca stutters back, putting on her best pissed off expression.

It’s enough to get Chloe to step back a few paces, but emotionally, she’s not backing down.

“It becomes my business when the Bellas can’t function properly with you two avoiding each other like the plague.”

“Can’t function properly? Dude, come on, that’s a bit of an overstatement.”

“Beca, you got so scared when she bumped into you the other day at practice that you had to leave an hour early! And not to mention all this drama seems to be making you incapable of finishing the set, despite constantly saying it’s nearly done.”

“Okay, me not finishing the set has nothing to do with Emily,” Beca spits back. “And for your information, I had… errands to run.”

Chloe just scoffs. “Beca, don’t insult my intelligence, I’m not an idiot. Why don’t you just stop being so afraid of your damn feelings and go apologise to her for god’s sake.”

“Oh do not talk to me about being afraid, Chloe,” Beca spits back, because Chloe hit a nerve and without thinking she says, “If you weren’t so afraid of being alone you would have graduated three years ago!” and she regrets it as soon as she says it, because Chloe gasps and she looks like she might cry.

“Okay, don’t… look like I just kicked your dog, I’m sorry,” Beca mumbles. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean that.”

She feels like the biggest ass in the world, because she just picked on her best friend’s biggest insecurity to win an argument, which feels like one of the most truly despicable things she’s ever done.

“It’s fine,” Chloe says, but Beca (and Amy, who’s started watching the two raptly like a tennis match) can see that it’s clearly not fine.

But Chloe’s main strength in life is being a true friend, and she has the remarkable ability to forgive good people, and she knows Beca really is a good person.

Beca doesn’t know how to respond, so in classic Beca fashion, she doesn’t. There’s a couple of seconds of truly awkward silence before Chloe pipes up.

“Beca, I know that you don’t deal with feelings well, or whatever,” she says softly, looking anywhere but at Beca, “but I see the way you are around Emily, and how happy she makes you, so just… stop hiding, okay? Cause I’ve never seen you as happy as you are with her, so don’t ruin it.”

“Getting real sentimental there, Beale,” Beca replies sarcastically, but there’s a small smile on her face giving her away.

“Beca, you’re my best friend, I know you, and I know you like her, so just… apologise, okay?”

The two girls stare at each other for a good few seconds, neither one moving. It’s a little tense, but Beca actually feels more comfortable than she’s felt in a long time. It’s like she’s finally starting to understand that the Bellas aren’t going anywhere and they never will. Like nothing she could do will ever drive them away, and she thinks this is what family is supposed to feel like.

So, yeah, she’s actually pretty comfortable.

It’s not until Amy clears her throat from her bed in the corner as though she’s trying to remind them that she’s still in the room that Chloe decides she should probably go.

She’s halfway out the door when Beca calls her back in. “Chlo?” she calls, and the redhead pokes her head back through the door. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. About being afraid. I just… I get it, so, I’m sorry. I’m here if you wanna talk.”

Chloe offers a small smile before she leaves, and it’s a little sad, but she really appreciates the sentiment.

Beca’s starting to think that talking to the people you love and sharing parts of yourself with them is kind of one of the best feelings in the world, and not a terrifying concept like she’s though for most of her life.

She feels like she owes it to Chloe to take her advice.

So she steels herself to face her feelings, and walks back to Emily’s room.

//

Beca takes a moment to breathe before walking back to Emily’s room. The trip seems like it takes hours, half owing to the fact that she’s walking as slowly as she possibly can to delay the inevitable, half because she’s nervous as shit, which isn’t really conducive to a fast pace.

When she finally reaches Emily’s door, she freezes. She realizes she hasn’t even thought about what she might say to Emily, which is both unlike her and a little bit terrifying, because she’s the kind of person that always likes to have a plan. But her mind is on overdrive like all the time now, and it’s getting really hard to think straight. So she settles for a light knock on the door.

She hears a dejected, “Come in,” from Emily, and god does it break her heart, because she’s quite sure that she’s the reason Emily sounds so beaten down.

She opens the door a crack and whispers, “It’s Beca,” and when she doesn’t get an answer, she opens the door fully and steps in.

She stops in her tracks when she sees Emily’s face.

She’s been crying.

Emily’s sitting at the edge of her bed, hugging a pillow, and poring over a notebook. There’s a lot of crumpled up paper on the floor and she’s gripping her pen tightly as she turns to face Beca.

“Em, I -”

“Oh so you’re talking to me now?” Emily says angrily. Despite the situation, Beca can’t really take Emily’s anger seriously, because in her opinion, even an angry Emily still looks like she couldn’t hurt a fly. Also, even just being near Emily fills Beca with an inexplicably warm feeling and she almost forgets why she’s there.

But reality snaps back in when Emily roughly puts her notebook onto her bed and starts walking towards the door after Beca hasn’t replied in a full minute, and Beca mentally kicks herself for being such an idiot. Again.

“Emily, wait, I came to apologise,” Beca says hastily, taking a few steps forward to catch Emily before she leaves.

Emily stops in her tracks.

She turns around to face Beca, her arms crossed and a frown on her face. She doesn’t look angry anymore, Beca notices. She just looks… scared.

“Em, I am so sorry for avoiding you, and making you upset, and being such a fucking ass. You have every right to hate me and I get it if you, like, never wanna speak to me again, or whatever, but I just need you to know that I’m sorry,” Beca says, and she’s a little out of breath when she’s finished.

Emily studies her for a moment, her eyes searching Beca’s, and she exhales deeply before moving her gaze to the floor, her arms still crossed, but her feet now shifting nervously where she stands.

Beca doesn’t know how to interpret this response, so she just stands there too. She stands there for a few minutes of silence, before realizing this is probably Emily’s way of telling her to get out.

“I’m sorry, I’ll just… get out of your hair. I’m sorry,” Beca says, and she moves forward to leave, but she’s stopped by a hand on her shoulder.

She turns to see Emily looking down at her, that same look of fear still in her eyes, and it’s heartbreaking, but Emily’s hand on her shoulder just feels so right, and Beca’s starting to get lost in her eyes, so much so that she almost doesn’t notice her own fear begin to dissipate.

Emily whispers, “It’s okay. I forgive you,” and it’s so soft that Beca has to strain her ears to catch it.

“Thank you.”

They stand there for a moment, Emily’s hand still resting gently on Beca’s shoulder, and it’s so comfortable that Beca thinks she could stay that way forever.

But then Emily’s hand slides off her shoulder and the younger girl walks back over to her bed, and Beca gets scared again. Scared that Emily didn’t mean it, that she doesn’t forgive her, scared that she’s fucked up one of the best things in her life, scared that everything she has falls to shit.

She should have more faith.

Because Emily’s calling her over as she picks up her notebook, and Beca’s a little confused, but she’s glad that Emily still wants her around, so she walks over to the bed and sits down right next to her.

“I’ve been working on something,” Emily says, but there’s caution in her voice. “And… I’ve been wanting your opinion, but…”

She trails off, because they’re just starting to get back to normal, and she doesn’t want to ruin that by bringing up something they literally only resolved two minutes ago.

“Anyway, can you - would you listen to it for me?”

Beca’s a little bit taken aback, because no one’s ever asked her to listen to their unfinished music before (she’s always been the one asking), and it’s really gratifying. She’s speechless, but in a good way.

“I - of course, I’d love to.”

Emily smiles for the first time since Beca apologized, and honestly, Beca thinks she’d do anything to make Emily smile like that all the time.

She starts singing, and Beca thinks she might never get used to hearing Emily’s voice, because it sends shivers down her spine like she’s hearing it for the first time. The song is slow, but it’s happy and vibrant, and the mixture of the lyrics and melody is so poetic that Beca is instantly enraptured.

And it’s a love song.

If Beca weren’t such a hot mess, she’d probably realize the song was about her.

(She doesn’t, of course.)

When Emily stops singing, and there’s a wavering expression on her face as she looks up at Beca, like she’s having second thoughts about showing Beca the song.

“Em, that’s - that’s amazing,” Beca says, her voice full of sheer awe.

The hesitant look disappears from Emily’s face and it breaks into a huge grin, and she lets out a small laugh of relief.

“Do you - I have some ideas, do you mind?”

“No, no, not at all!”

Beca smiles back, and she thanks the stars that she’s here with Emily, happier than she can remember being.

She gives Emily some notes about the chord progression and some ideas for the bridge, and Emily makes a face of extreme concentration as she nods eagerly at everything Beca says and scribbles it down in her notebook.

Beca thinks it’s adorable, and before she knows what she’s doing, she says, “Do you want to maybe sing on one of my mixes?”

Emily looks up abruptly from where she’s hunched over her notebook, and does an almost comical look over her shoulder before turning back to Beca and pointing to herself as if to say, “Are you talking to me ?”

“You - you want me to sing? On one of your mixes? Like, me, me?”

“Yeah? I mean, unless you don’t want to! Of course you don’t have to if you don’t want to, I just thought - uh, nevermind, just forget I said anything,” Beca rambles, turning her head to look like she’s very interested in something across the room.

“Yeah,” Emily replies simply, but she’s smiling like she might explode.

“You want to?” Beca asks quickly.

“I would love to!” Emily says a little too eagerly, so she counters it with, “I mean… yes. I would like that very much.”

Beca also doesn’t want to seem overeager, but she does as bad a job of hiding it as Emily when she says, “Do you want to start now?”

Emily doesn’t seem to notice.

“Sure!”

//

Beca didn’t realize the emotional toil that recording someone on one of her mixes would bring when she asked Emily to sing on one.

They’ve moved to Beca’s room, because Beca’s laptop and mixing equipment are there, so they don’t have to move them all the way across the Bella house.

Amy, thankfully, has disappeared god knows where when they get back, so they have a bit of privacy.

She sets Emily up near the mic and takes her usual seat by her laptop.

She sings a part on one of Beca’s mixes that Beca just couldn’t quite get right, and when Emily starts singing, Beca realizes she was exactly what the track was missing.

She gets to the first chorus when a weird feeling starts growing in the pit of Beca’s stomach. It’s like she has a horrible sense of déjà vu, but whatever she’s remembering didn’t end well.

It’s like she’s been punched in the gut when a certain vivid picture enters her mind for the first time in five years, her throat closes up and it gets so hard to breathe that Emily stops singing when she notices.

“Beca is everything okay?” she asks, her voice full of worry as she moves closer to Beca.

But Beca stands up before Emily reaches her, and she leans against the desk and closes her eyes as her heart races in her chest.

“I’m… fine, I’m sorry, just… give me a second,” Beca says, and every instinct she has is telling her to tell Emily to leave, but she can’t keep pushing her away like that, so she just turns her back so Emily can’t see her face.

What she doesn’t expect is Emily walking around Beca to face her, and locking eyes for just a moment before pulling her into one of the warmest hugs Beca’s ever had. Now usually, hugging isn’t a thing Beca particularly likes (and is something she’s still not used to, despite living with the Bellas for three years), but she’s really freaked out and it’s kind of exactly what she needed.

She can feel her breathing slowing down as she wraps her own arms around Emily’s waist. She can feel Emily stroking her hair, and they both just stay that way for a few long moments.

Her mind almost begins to clear - but no matter the distraction, however nice it was for that short time, she can’t just push her feelings down and will them to go away. She knows from experience.

She pulls out of the hug and looks up at Emily, her eyes full of concern, but the amount of care and compassion Emily emits just gets a little overwhelming, so she shifts her eyes down to the floor.

“Sorry, I just know hugs help me when I’m sad, I thought you could use one,” Emily says apologetically, but she’s only met by silence.

“Beca,” Emily whispers. She waits a few moments to give Beca a chance to reply, but it’s clear that she’s not ready to speak.

“Beca you know you can talk to me,” she says, and this time it elicits a response.

(Not exactly the one she was expecting, but it’s something.)

Beca exhales deeply and runs her hand through her hair. She takes a few step backwards to sit back in her chair, and rests her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” Beca says, her voice hoarse with emotion.

“Beca, why are you apologising?” Emily asks incredulously, moving to kneel down in front of Beca.

“I just… I… you know what, it’s not important, I’m sorry,” she mutters, not making eye contact with Emily.

“Hey, whatever you’re feeling, it’s important,” Emily replies sincerely. “Look you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but you know that you can, right? I need you to know that.”

Beca looks up at Emily and just wonders what she did to deserve to know someone like her.

Emily gives her a nod of assurance, and the worry in her eyes makes Beca feel guilty for causing this amazing, loving girl in front of her any kind of negative emotion whatsoever, but it somehow also makes her feel safe. Like everything will be fine as long as she’s got Emily.

“I’ve only ever recorded one other person on a mix before,” she starts, and it takes all the courage she can muster just to continue. “Besides myself, I mean. And he… we were… together. It was… well, let’s just say it didn’t end well.” Her voice cracks a little, and more and more bad memories flood to the surface of her mind, and she thinks it’ll be impossible to go on, but there’s Emily, and her understanding eyes, and some of the weight lifts off her chest. So she goes on.

“Just… looking at you, it felt so similar, like I was right back there, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” she says, her voice strained, and her heart beating pretty fast again. “Just this whole… situation,” she says, wary of actually admitting her burgeoning feelings for the younger girl, “feels like history repeating, or déjà vu or whatever, and I really don’t want this to end the same way. I really don’t think I could take it if another person I cared about rejected me like that, I’m just… I’m not strong enough for that.”

“Woah, Beca, who said anything about rejection? You’re my friend. I care about you too, I’m not gonna reject you.”

“How can you know that? You don’t know everything about me, Emily, what if… what if there’s something you don’t like?”

“Beca, there’s nothing I couldn’t like about you.”

Beca looks up at Emily, and that beautiful smile, and she wants to believe her, she really does.

“I’m bisexual.”

Emily looks at her for a second, and her eyes widen. And then she does the last thing Beca expected.

She laughs.

It’s a soft laugh, and it sounds kind, but Beca doesn’t know how a laugh at her coming out could be kind.

She really, really doesn’t know what to say or do in this situation, so she does nothing. She just sits there, not saying a word or moving a muscle.

It’s not until she rolls her chair backwards away from Emily to get some distance to process the situation that Emily looks back up at her, her eyes widening in shock, and says, “Oh shit, Beca, no, don’t… I’m sorry I didn’t mean that the way you think I did, I -”

“It kind of seems like there’s only one way to interpret that, Emily,” Beca says, her voice cracking.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry, I didn’t even think, I’m sorry, it’s just…” She pauses for a second, and a sweet, small smile graces her lips before she says, “Beca did you really think that was going to change the way I think about you? That I was going to reject you ‘cause you’re bi?”

“Well, it’s happened before,” Beca says with a bitter laugh. Tears well up in her eyes, and it takes everything in her to keep them in, but it’s no use. A few silent tears stream down her face, and she moves to hastily wipe them away with her sleeve, but Emily beats her to it.

Emily’s hand cups her face, her thumb brushing over her cheek, wiping away the few tears that escaped. Beca leans into her hand, because she is so confused about so many things right now, but the one thing that she is certain of is the way Emily makes her feel. She shuts her eyes and just breathes.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m sorry,” Emily whispers, and she lets Beca just be for a while before she talks again.

“I meant what I said. There is nothing I couldn’t like about you, Beca. Especially not that.”

Beca opens her eyes, and there’s such a sincerity between the two girls that even Beca can’t deny is real, and she thinks she might be ready to believe Emily.

“Why did you laugh?” she asks cautiously.

Emily’s eyes search Beca’s once again, before she chuckles inwardly and smiles. “Because that was the best thing I’ve heard all week.”

Beca’s a little confused, and seeing the look on her face makes Emily roll her eyes and sigh.

“Beca, I’m bi.”

“You’re what now?”

Beca’s mind races, and it dawns on her that in all of her stress and confusion about her feelings for Emily, she didn’t actually stop to think about whether Emily even liked girls. She kind of wants to ram her head into a wall because oh my god what the fuck is wrong with me?

“God, Beca, you have horrible Bi-Fi.”

“I - I’m sorry, I have what?”

“Bi-Fi,” Emily replies cheerfully. “Like Gaydar, but for bisexuality.”

She says it so matter-of-factly that Beca can’t help but burst into laughter. Emily follows suit, and within seconds, Beca is laughing into her hand, and Emily has fallen back onto the floor.

Beca’s still laughing when she says, “Emily, that is both the stupidest and most wonderful thing I have ever heard.”

Emily throws her head back in laughter, and it takes them both a good two minutes to come down from it.

When they do, they fall into a lull of comfortable silence, both girls just smiling to themselves.

“Thank you,” Beca says, breaking the silence. “For telling me. It means a lot.”

“Ditto.”

Beca smiles to herself, and she’s not entirely sure why, but feels the need to explain herself more to Emily.

“I’m sorry I’m unloading all my crap on you, but I feel like you should know why I freaked out before when we were recording,” Beca says, and she’s still a little uneasy thinking about it, but she’s never really had anyone to talk to like this, and she thinks it’s helping.

Emily doesn’t say anything, wanting to let Beca get there by herself, but she nods so Beca knows she’s listening.

She tells Emily that his name was Josh. Tells her how he was the first guy she’d ever been in a relationship with, how they bonded over music and recorded him for one of her mixes. She tells her how he was the only one who she could talk to, the only one who really knew her. How everything was great… until she told him she was bi.

How he rejected her.

She explains that that’s why she freaked out before.

(She thinks that’s important to note.)

She nearly stops there. Part of her wants to. But the other part of her really needs to get something off her chest.

So she tells Emily about her parents. How her mother probably would have kicked her out of the house if she hadn’t divorced her dad and left first.

She tells her about the night she came out to her parents. She almost doesn’t get through it.

And she tells her about her dad. How hard he tried to be there for her. How he didn’t quite know how.

How he’s getting a lot better.

(She thinks that’s also very important to note.)

Emily doesn’t stop looking at her the entire time. With wonder, and with admiration. With sorrow. With understanding.

When she finishes, Beca takes in a deep, shaky breath, and looks down at Emily. She gets a deep urge to be closer to her, so she slides from her chair down to the floor right in front of where Emily is sitting, legs crossed, holding her hands together in her lap. She shuffles forward and moves so that she’s mirroring Emily, their legs pressed together.

“Thank you,” Emily whispers, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Their faces are very close, and this time Beca knows she’s not going to run away. Beca feels Emily’s breath on her forehead as she says, “I know that was hard for you to talk about.”

There’s an unspoken connection between them in that moment, and it says more than any words could, so neither of them say any more on the subject.

But Emily just has one thing she can’t resist asking.

“Beca what did you mean before when you said this was like history repeating?”

The unspoken connection between them kicks into high gear and when their eyes meet, they both know exactly what Beca had meant.

There’s a beat in which both of their hearts begin to race.

And then Emily is leaning forward, her forehead stopping to rest on Beca’s. She waits for Beca to close the gap between them, and -

The door slams open, and Amy stumbles in, and Beca thinks the universe is just fucking with her at this point.

Beca and Emily break apart, their hearts still racing like crazy.

Amy’s drunk, which is not at all an unusual occurrence, but she starts mumbling something that Beca thinks sounds like, “Who does he think he is? No, who does he think I am? Fucking Bumper and his stupid… banquet dinner.”

She’s kind of only half surprised, because really, Amy and Bumper weren’t being subtle at all, but she’s a little confused about the whole ‘banquet dinner’ thing, and it would be intriguing if she didn’t kind of want to murder Amy right now.

Amy turns towards Beca and Emily, Beca having stood up to nonchalantly lean on the desk, and Emily still sitting on the floor, leaning back on her hands, looking a little dazed.

“Oh! Beca! And… you! What’s your name again? Eleanor? Evelyn? Nevermind, it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s Emily. My name is Emily,” she mutters, but Amy has long since stopped paying attention.

She looks up at Beca, who offers out a hand to help her up, and she takes it. They just look at each other for a few seconds before Beca says, “I, uh… I should probably make sure she’s okay.”

Emily starts rambling for a bit about needing to go to bed for an early class, but her mind is still reeling from what just happened, so she just stands still running her hand through her hair.

“So I guess I’ll… see you tomorrow?” Beca says, and Emily realizes that’s probably her cue to leave so her eyes widen slightly before she says, “Oh! Right, I, uh… yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She takes a step forward, but hesitates for a second as she considers saying something else to Beca, but her good sense kicks in and she thinks she really should leave, so she keeps walking, giving Beca a really awkward wave and a “Bye!” on her way out the door. She’s about to die of embarrassment, but Beca gives her a smile and a small chuckle, so she thinks she’ll be okay.

And then she trips on a loose piece of carpet.

Smooth, Emily.

They’re awkward, it’s awkward, what do you expect.

//

Emily thinks about it all day. About everything that happened over the past week: her near-kiss encounter with Beca, then Beca avoiding her for a whole week, then Beca apologising for avoiding her all week, about working on music with Beca, and about Beca coming out to her (and about promptly then coming out to Beca). She thinks about Beca telling her about her ex, and about her parents, she thinks about her second near-kiss encounter with Beca, and -

Yeah, okay, so she thinks a lot about Beca.

She leaves for her early class before Beca wakes up, and by the time she gets back at lunchtime, Beca’s already left for her first class. Which really, really sucks, because Emily’s really not sure she can take not seeing her much longer.

Despite being interrupted by Amy, though, Emily feels like she can feel a tangible change in her relationship with Beca. It’s not just guessing games anymore, it’s real, and it’s happening, and she’s not going to hide from her feelings anymore.

Because she was hiding. She may not have had as rough a go of it as Beca, but she’s dealt with her fair share of rejection in her life.

She had admired Beca for years before she even met her, and in her mind, Beca had been more of a concept than a real person. Like a dream that could never seep through into reality. Unattainable as the stars in the sky.

That was just how it was.

Well, until she practically bowled Beca over in her first week of college.

Now she’s as real to Emily as anything ever has been.

So she’s not going to hide anymore.

As soon as she finds Beca, that is.

Beca’s still not back at the Bella house when Emily has to leave for her study group with some of the kids in her Intro to Psychology class at four pm.

(Which, might she add, is like two hours long, so she’s really not having a good day. It’s like the whole damn universe is against them, or something.)

When her study group finally ends, she doesn’t stick around to chat like she usually does. She just legs it as fast as she can back to the Bella house.

When she finally gets there, it’s 6:15, so most of the Bellas are usually home by this point.

Something which is very true of this particular day.

Every single one of the Bellas is at the house, which Chloe had once deemed an ‘automatically mandatory Bella bonding session’, and was now regularly enforced, which most nights could actually be pretty fun, but not on a night where all Emily wants to do is just be with Beca.

(Universe = against them.)

Apparently tonight’s bonding activity was a jam session, so when Emily opens the door, she’s immediately greeted by the sound of the perfect harmonies of a very energetic a capella group.

She walks through the foyer of the house and stops right at the entrance to the living room, where she finds the Bellas. After a few seconds of searching, she finally finds Beca amongst the group, sitting at the very edge of one of the couches.

As the girls sing along to a classic Taylor Swift song, Beca has that cute look of determined apathy on her face that lasts all the way until the Bellas call on her to sing the hook, at which point her expression quickly turns into one of unabashed enjoyment, and Emily can’t help but smile.

She leans against the wall and watches the girls as they sing the rest of the song.

They hold the last note for a few seconds, and then break into smiles and laughter, a few compliments thrown to certain girls for particularly great work. It’s Jessica who notices her standing in the hallway and calls her presence into the attention of all the Bellas. Emily can’t help but smile when she sees Beca’s head shoot up, a cute look of excitement in her eyes, and she gets a warm feeling in her chest as Beca smiles up at her.

“Hey stalker, why don’t you take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Beca jokes, and she hasn’t stopped smiling since she laid eyes on Emily.

Emily just chuckles to herself as she moves into the room and taking the fortuitously empty seat right next to Beca.

The rest of the Bellas start debating which song they should sing next, and Emily takes the moment to talk to Beca.

“Hey,” she says, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever stop smiling, because Beca seems to have this indescribable hold over her.

(Beca’s thinking the exact same thing.)

“Hey,” she replies, and she opens her mouth to say something else, but the Bellas have agreed on a song, and Chloe’s telling them all to be quiet while she assigns people their parts, and she’s sitting on Beca’s other side, so there’s no real opportunity to talk.

But that doesn’t stop Emily from staring at Beca in amazement throughout the whole song, and she loses track of where they are in the song, but she doesn’t really care, because holy shit, she’s beautiful.

Beca’s singing the lead, so she’s a little preoccupied, but Emily doesn’t mind. Beca’s in her element. It’s kind of magical to watch.

Halfway through the second verse, Beca looks back over at Emily, and she doesn’t even think when she stops singing, because she’s looking at Emily, and Emily’s looking at her, and they’re just smiling, and they really can’t help it.

They don’t even notice that the other Bellas have stopped singing, too, until Stacie’s saying, “Oh my god, you guys, get a room.”

But for once, finally for once, they don’t get awkward, because they’re finally just… clicking.

It feels meant to be.

(God does Beca hate the cliché, but she thinks she’ll let it slide just this once.)

All of a sudden, Emily’s standing up, and she holds her hand out for Beca to take.

Beca doesn’t hesitate before she takes it.

Emily smiles, turns around, and starts leading Beca into the kitchen to a chorus of ‘ooh’s and ‘aww’s from the Bellas (and a wolf whistle from Stacie), the sound disappearing behind them.

When they get to the kitchen, Emily takes her hand back from Beca and fidgets slightly nervously with the old watch on her wrist, but she’s looking straight into Beca’s eyes.

Beca tentatively asks “What’s up?” but she’s smiling so wide her cheeks are starting to hurt, and she’s almost entirely sure she knows exactly what’s about to happen.

Both of their hearts are beating so fast, and Emily thinks she gets a shot of adrenaline when she finds the sort of courage only possible in one of the moments of pure comfort that she feels when she’s with Beca.

“I just wanted to finish what we started last night.”

Beca barely has a moment to process her words before Emily’s hands reach out to cup Beca’s face, and their foreheads are touching again, and Beca will be damned if she lets anything interrupt them again, so she closes the gap between them and suddenly Emily’s lips are on her own.

The kiss is soft and sweet at first, and Emily feels Beca smiling into it. It’s a feeling of pure ecstasy, and Emily thinks her heart might beat out of her chest.

Beca leans in further to deepen the kiss, and all of a sudden it’s getting passionate and little desperate, like they’re making up for lost time, and -

And then they’re being interrupted (Again? Seriously?) by the flash of an iPhone camera, and they break apart to the sound of Chloe loudly whispering “Shit! I left the flash on, everybody run!” and to the sight of all of the Bellas scrambling out of the doorway.

They hear a dozen sets of fast footsteps running up the stairs, the Bellas all afraid of the wrath that Beca might unleash on them - but she doesn’t even care. In fact, she just looks back at Emily, who bursts into laughter, and Beca starts to laugh, too. She’s just happy to be with Emily.

(She does make a mental note to make Chloe delete the photos in the morning, though.)

They move back into the living room, now that it’s completely vacant, and after a few hours of just being together, talking and getting to know each other better, they fall asleep on the couch, Emily’s head on Beca’s lap (and her feet hanging off the edge of the couch, because seriously, that girl is tall).

Emily falls asleep first, and Beca thinks she’d be content to just stroke her hair for the rest of eternity.

(Okay, so she falls asleep ten minutes later, but it’s the thought that counts.)

This time when the bellas come to take photos of them, there’s nothing they can do about it.

To be honest, neither of them really would have cared.