Work Text:
It doesn’t really hit Emily until they come to a stop in front of the airport security gate.
“Well. This is my stop.” Beca drops their linked hands to shrug off one strap of her backpack and Emily already misses the contact. “I’d offer to sneak you in my luggage, but —” she waves vaguely down the length of Emily’s body “— this isn’t gonna fit in a carry-on bag.”
“We could trade places for the trip,” Emily suggests. “You’re easier to stuff in a small bag. I can just chop off the bits that stick out.”
“Aw. Dismemberment and identity theft. You’re cute when you roleplay as a psychopathic serial killer.”
“Oh, yeah. My specialty.” She lets Beca pull her in by the collar of her jacket and into her arms. It feels different from their usual hugs, more sad and final. Emily hates it. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too,” Beca mumbles into Emily’s shoulder. “It’s only a month. It’ll fly by.”
“It’s five weeks,” Emily corrects, tinging her words with a whine that she knows will make Beca smile. “That’s like, a month and a whole extra week.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” She pulls away and rolls her eyes at Emily. “We’re both working every day, it’ll fly by. And I’ll call you when I can, okay?”
“Okay.”
Beca shakes her head a little at Emily’s glum tone, tugging her in again. “Hey,” she says quietly, pushing all thoughts of how disgustingly sappy they look, sharing this private moment in a very public airport. “I’ll be back before you know it. You won’t even know I’m gone.” She presses a soft kiss on Emily’s lips, holding back a smile when Emily responds with excessive enthusiasm.
An uncomfortable cough from a passerby breaks them apart. Clearing her own throat, Beca grabs her bag. “Well. Anyway. I’ll call you when I land,” she says, saluting awkwardly and heading through the security gate.
“I miss you already,” Emily calls.
Beca laughs, waving over her shoulder. “What’d I just say? Don’t be dramatic.”
Then with one last wave, Beca rounds a corner and disappears from sight.
For the most part, Beca’s right.
Her European trip with the label’s A&R department barely has enough free time scheduled into it for sleep. Even her weekends are booked with appointments and recording sessions with prospective clients, and when she’s off the clock, she’s grabbing dinner and drinks with them and her coworkers to “strengthen potential business relations, or whatever the fuck,” according to her.
And Emily doesn’t have it any easier. Her new job is everything she could’ve wanted, but the fulfillment of the dream comes at a price — most prominently in the form of long, tedious hours. Unlike Beca, she absolutely loves every single one of her young patients and would kill to have some outside downtime with each of them if it were ethically allowed.
Their extensive work hours and the 5-hour time difference don’t exactly allot for lengthy phone conversations or opportunities to text, and while Emily misses Beca so much it hurts, she can hardly spare a moment to think about it with all the new job stress and exhaustion filling her brain to max capacity.
“Is this like, good or bad?” she asks Beca one day when they’re on the phone, a rare twenty-minute window where Emily had managed to sprint out of work early enough to catch Beca before she passed out for the night.
“Is what good or bad?”
“Like, you know...how...okay we are? I thought this would be a lot more stressful and I’d feel all insecure about not being around you all the time, but...” Emily trails off, unsure of where she was going with this.
“Why would you be insecure?” Beca asks, managing to sound concerned even through a yawn. “We’re both working inhumane hours, there’s no time for...thoughts and feelings.” She lets out a dry laugh. “Depressing, sorry, but true.”
“Mmm I guess.”
“You think I’m gonna run off with some hot European model?”
Emily huffs out a breath, unamused by Beca’s teasing. “No, you’re not that shallow. Or reckless. But I dunno, there’re all these horror stories of long-distance relationships or couples being apart for a significant amount of time, so I thought it’d be harder, you know? But in reality we’re just...”
“...too damn tired,” Beca finishes.
“Yeah,” Emily laughs. “Maybe I romanticized the struggles too much. I mean okay, yeah, maybe there is a little part of me that imagines you meeting some hot European model in a fancy cafe in Paris or something and just never coming home or something.”
Beca snorts on the other end. “We’re too old and married for that shit, dude. Also that’s not really how we roll as like, people or whatever. Above all that drama and stuff. And that’s a good thing, not bad.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” She feels dumb for bringing it up, but the thought would’ve eaten away at her if she hadn’t. But Beca never made her feel dumb for thinking these absurd thoughts, and Emily wonders how she could ever doubt someone as straightforward and rational as her.
“But still,” Beca says, sounding close to sleep. “For what it’s worth, I do miss you. A lot. Some of these artists are assholes and even a few of the A&R guys can be dicks. I wish I could just come home and rant to you and punch some stuff.”
“And I’ll give you a hug and make you hot chocolate.”
“No,” she whines, words starting to slur together. “I’m tryna to be badass here, babe. ‘M gonna break tables and shit.”
“Whatever you say, Beca.”
“Meh. You’ll see. G’night, Em. I’ll talk to you when I talk to you.”
“Mmhm, good night.” Hanging up the call with an exasperated smile, Emily tosses her phone aside and rolls up her sleeves to prepare dinner.
Emily doesn’t really know how to bring it up without being awkward, and maybe that’s her first mistake: thinking that it has to be a forethought conversation and not just an impulse thing.
The fact that she brings it up while they’re video-chatting for the first time makes it all that much more embarrassing.
It’s a quiet Saturday morning — Saturday afternoon for Beca — and they’re both going about their own business with their phones propped up to show each other their face. Even though it’s the first weekend they’re both free long enough to justify a video chat, there’s only so much they can do after catching up on their lives, so Beca pulls out her laptop to answer some e-mails and Emily picks up where she left off on her latest novel.
There’s absolutely nothing uncomfortable about the silence, but the longer it goes on, the antsier Emily gets, until she finally puts her book down and just watches Beca fiddle around on her laptop. It takes a while for her to realize Emily’s just staring at her through the camera.
“Oh, whoa. Hi, sorry, what’s up?”
Emily shrugs. “Nothing. Just watching.”
Beca raises her eyebrows and smirks. “Mmk, stalker.”
“We’re married.”
“Still.”
Tapping the cover of her book impatiently as Beca turns back to her laptop, Emily mulls the words over and considers how much of her dignity she’s about to sacrifice before clearing her throat.
“Do you think,” she starts slowly, “or, actually, uhhhh. Should we like...um. You know. Actually no, yeah. Do you think we should...uh. Hmm.”
By now Beca’s squinting at her with growing confusion. “What is happening. Are you good?”
“Just! You know! Should we....like?” Emily continues, still floundering but raising her voice as if that would make the point any clearer. She desperately wishes Beca could just read her mind so she doesn't have to utter these words. “Do...the thing where we...where we...! You know!”
Beca looks ready to explode. “What, Emily? Should we do what?”
“Sex!” she screams. “Should we! I dunno! Like, be doing...? Something? Sexting? Phone sex? Sex! Beca!”
Beca stares at her, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, clearly holding back torrential laughter. “Oh my god,” she finally whispers when the shock wears off. Emily’s face is on fire and she regrets literally every word she’d said in the last forty-five seconds.
“I take it back.”
“No, don’t,” Beca says quickly through a poorly hidden smile, trying hard to sound serious. “Very valid question. It was just. Very unexpected delivery.”
Emily groans and pulls her knees up to her chest.
“Did you want to?”
Emily groans again and sinks further in her chair. “I don’t know,” she says in a small voice. “I guess I just thought...it’s one of those things...”
“That long distance couples do?” Beca’s still fighting a smile, but there’s a softer light in her eyes. “Yeah, sure, if you want to, let’s go for it.”
“Wait, ohmygod, wait, not now, this is the worst set up for a —”
“No, I don’t mean now,” Beca says patiently. “But like, whenever. Or never. I’m okay with either, no pressure.”
Still mortified, Emily just groans in agreement. Beca’s looking at her curiously through the phone screen. “What?” Emily moans.
“Are you asking because you like...want to? Or are you going down a checklist of things involved in an LDR? Because like,” Beca pauses and shrugs, chewing over her words, “neither of us are really, uh, talkative. In bed.”
Impossibly, Emily’s face grows hotter at the thought. “Oh, stars.”
“So, like, you know. Might be a bit of a struggle to come up with the right sexy verbiage for us to get each other off —”
“Okay!” Emily interjects, waving her hands wildly. “You’re right. You’re right.”
Beca finally bursts out laughing. “If it happens, it happens,” she chokes out. “I mean, it’s cool that you asked. But seeing how this is our activity of choice when we both have some downtime, I’d say we’re too fucking tired to be horny.”
Emily squeezes her eyes shut and snatches up her book. “Augh. You’re right and I’m glad that was cleared up but now I want us to stop talking about this so I can die.”
“Whatever you say, you naughty little vixen, you.”
“Beca.”
The next chance they get to talk over the phone is almost a week later. It’s another early day home from work for Emily and she’s practically bouncing on the bed with excitement as she makes the call to Beca. But on the other line, Beca sounds less than enthusiastic.
Emily finishes reiterating everything that happened in her relatively uneventful week and all the fun shenanigans her younger patients get into to make up for it and pauses long enough for Beca to reciprocate if she wants to. When there’s only silence on the other end, Emily smiles sympathetically even though Beca can’t see her.
“Hmm. Bad day?”
“Mmph,” Beca grunts.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Emily prompts.
Another grunt. “Not really. Just fuckin’...dumb work stuff,” she bites out before sighing. “Sorry I’m being shitty. It’s just been A Day.”
“You’re not being shitty,” Emily assures her, “but maybe you should get some rest. Whatever happened, tomorrow’s a new day, right?”
It’s a lukewarm sentiment, but it’s the best she could do for someone who’s 3,000 miles away in a foreign country.
“Yeah, I guess.” There’s a clear hesitation, like she’s holding back from saying something. Waiting patiently, Emily listens to the white noise of the live line. “I wish you were here right now,” Beca says finally, voice so small it’s barely audible.
Emily’s gut clenches. It’s one thing to tell each other “I miss you” and another thing entirely to admit how hard this distance is; it kills her to hear Beca like this, so vulnerable and fragile and tired.
“Yeah,” she breathes before clearing her throat. “Yeah, me too. I wish...there was something I could do to make you feel better.”
There’s a long silence and Emily hopes to god Beca’s not crying; thankfully, her voice is heavy but steady when she speaks. “You’re doing it already. Just...talking. About your day and your patients and stuff. It helps.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Not sick of my voice yet?”
There’s a small smile in Beca’s voice. “Never.”
“Hmm I guess I could tell you about some of my coworkers too. Oh! Or! I wrote a small part of a song over the weekend! Do you wanna hear?”
Beca reverts back to grunts again, but this one sounds a little more intrigued.
Digging up the smudged sheet of lyrics and grabbing the guitar, Emily rushes to remember what fret she’d put the capo on when she wrote the intro. “Um, okay. It’s still very much a draft, but here goes.”
Fingers fumbling a little over the still-developing intro riff, she shakily plucks out the first few bars before starting to sing.
You are the sunrise waking my day
You are the moonlight shining my way
This is where I call home
You are the fire warming my night
With you I'll stay till the morning light
This is where I call home
Your love is like no other
Your love is where I feel alive
My safety and my shelter
Your love is my home
Musically, it’s an awkward place to end, but there’s nothing more to play and she hasn’t figured out an ending yet, so Emily just plays the last chord and lets it ring out.
“And that’s all I have for now. There’s like, another line of the next verse and I might switch them all around, but that’s it for the complete parts,” she explains, “I kinda want there to be more to the chorus, though. Or maybe like? A pre-chorus? Or, or, ohhh, orrrr this could be the pre-chorus and I’ll just add a whole new chorus? Hmm or I could make this the bridge?”
She scribbles on the messy lyrics sheet as she talks, circling this and connecting that, feeling more invigorated now that she has someone to bounce ideas off of.
“Okay, but I guess the melody of the verse can stay that way, since the chorus is more simple,” she muses. It takes a second for her to realize that there’s dead silence on the other line. “Uh. Beca?” she asks softly.
There’s no answer. Emily waits another minute before calling her name again, but there’s still no response. Thinking Beca just left the phone to use the bathroom or something — and trying not to be offended by that — Emily keeps the phone on speaker and returns the guitar to its stand.
A muffled snore hisses through the phone speaker.
“Dork,” Emily mutters, smiling to herself. She plugs her phone into the wall charger on the kitchen counter and mutes her mic, leaving the call running with Beca’s light snores as she dives into the fridge for dinner.
Beca [8:12pm]: Hey, you busy?
Emily [8:12pm]: Not really, what’s up?
Emily [8:12pm]: Wait why are you awake??? It’s like 1am over there
Beca [8:12pm]: Nah we just got to France so it’s a 6 hour difference
Emily [8:13pm]: That means it’s 2am!!! That’s worse >:(
Beca [8:14pm]: It’s fine don’t give me that face
Beca [8:14pm]: I just have a quick favor to ask
Beca [8:14pm]: [click to see attachment]
Beca [8:14pm]: This dude’s been stuck on this one verse for like, a week and it’s driving us insane. Any input?
Emily [8:14pm]: Oh uhhhh hmmmm
Beca [8:14pm]: Wait here’s the other verse and chorus
Beca [8:15pm]: [click to see attachment]
Beca [8:15pm]: [click to see attachment]
Emily [8:15pm]: Oh yeah that helps! Give me a minute
Beca [8:17pm]: It’s cool, take your time
Emily [8:32pm]: Ok how bout this
Emily [8:32pm]: [click to see attachment]
Beca [8:33pm]: Jesus that was fast
Beca [8:33pm]: And yeah, awesome this looks solid, I’ll send them over to him and see what he thinks
Beca [8:33pm]: Thanks a bunch Em
Emily [8:37pm]: Jesus ain’t got nothin’ on me!
Emily [8:37pm]: Have you even read his stuff? Dude can’t rhyme like a single line, you’d think it was written in another language
Beca [8:37pm]: LOL you’re such a dork
Beca [8:37pm]: Thanks again for the help
Beca [8:37pm]: Now go to bed
Emily [8:37pm]: It’s 8pm here YOU go to bed!!!
“Hey, so do you remember how you helped me with song lyrics the other day?”
Beca kicks off their next phone call with the question, barely giving Emily time for a greeting.
“Yeah?”
“You wanna listen to it?”
Jaw dropping, Emily bounces violently in her seat. “Hell yeah!”
“Okay, I just sent you the mp3. You can put it on speaker if you want, but it sounds better through headphones.”
Too excited to waste time fetching headphones, Emily hits play as soon as she pulls up the file on her phone. A merry melody fills the apartment, a indie-type tune that’s right up Emily’s alley. She recognizes some of the lyrics from the other day, and when the song gets to the verse she helped with, a wave of happiness washes over her.
“Whoaaa that’s so cool!” she exclaims as soon as the song ends. “I love it.”
“Yeah, he’s a talented dude. We cleaned up a couple more of his demos and he’s got some solid potential. Reminds me a lot of you.” Beca’s compliment is off-handed but it still makes Emily smile. “And he’s not the only one, we have a bunch of potentials on our list now and some of their stuff is insane. I can’t wait to show you some of it when I get back.”
It’s an innocent sentiment, but it tugs at Emily’s heart.
Another reminder that they’re apart, that they’re thousands of miles away, that there’s a whole dang ocean between them. Another reminder that phone calls and video chat are the only ways they can talk, no matter how much Emily aches to hold Beca in her arms.
“Two weeks,” Beca says gently, reading Emily’s mind. “Not even. Like, eleven days. And I’ll be right there with you, okay?”
“Okay. Yeah, okay.” Prickling heat stings at the back of her eyes. Emily presses the heel of her palms to her eyes to push back the threatening tears, absolutely not about to let herself cry on the phone. She clears her throat and rushes to lighten the conversation again. “So, you having any second thoughts about staying in Europe?”
“What? Why would I want to stay here?”
“Dunno, but you seem to be living it up on your Insta,” Emily teases. “The rate you post about how great Florence is, people’ll think you’re about to rent an apartment there.”
“Oh, that shit. Nah, that’s mostly for publicity purposes. Honestly, this whole trip is like, a fun-free vacation,” Beca sighs, and Emily can practically hear her eyes rolling. “My posts are kinda like a small promotion for all the scouting work the label’s doing abroad, so it’s half fake. The other half is pretty true, Florence is bomb.”
“Didn’t you say your label has a studio in Italy?”
Beca hums. “Yeah, but it’s super small and outdated. And kinda smelly.”
“So’s New York.”
“Yeah, but it’s a more familiar kind of smelly.” Her tone switches to something more playful. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Junk? Getting used to having that apartment to yourself?”
Emily splutters. “Wh-no, I’m just saying. Europe is nice and even though you complain about work, you also seem to be having a lot of fun. So like, you know. I can see how New York is kind of disappointing next to that.”
“It’s definitely different,” Beca agrees. “But I’d choose New York any day.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Huh. You really gonna make me say it?”
“Uh.” Emily frowns. “Say what?”
“Because that’s where you are, dork.”
“Oh.”
Beca laughs, soft and light. “Can’t believe you made me say something so cheesy.”
“Well I can’t believe it even crossed your mind.”
“Course I did. You’re always on my mind.”
She knows Beca can’t see her, but that doesn’t stop Emily from burying her blushing face in her hand. “Oookay, I’m. All right. Too much cheese.”
“Wow, that’s a rare comment coming from you. Wh—” she cuts off mid-sentence; Emily hears a small buzzing sound on her end. “Sorry dude, my dad’s calling.”
“Oh, take it! I should eat dinner anyway.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” Emily says, giving her empty apartment a thumbs-up. “Bye, Becs.”
There’s a smile in Beca’s voice when she responds, “Bye, Em. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The apartment seems bigger than usual after Emily hangs up the call. She pulls up the mp3 file Beca had sent and plays the demo again, smiling at the verse she helped write. A wave of nostalgia hits her, the feeling of scribbling down lyrics and strumming out a simple tune and having Beca put a simple beat and instrumental accompaniments on the fly, a casual Sunday afternoon activity they’d done countless times.
The song winds to an end and Emily decides right then and there.
She’s going to Europe to visit Beca.
It isn’t as simple as booking the next flight out to Europe. For one thing, Europe is a whole continent. For another, Emily doesn’t have a clue where Beca’s staying or what her schedule is like or even what country she’s going to next. For an additional other, she’d just started at her new job and she’s not about to impulsively ask for a ten-day vacation.
So clearly, she needs inside help if she’s going to plan a short surprise trip to see Beca.
And since it's not like she has Theo on speed dial, Emily spends a good chunk of an evening digging through every drawer in their apartment to find his business card and pull up his e-mail address. The rest of the night is spent typing up a well-worded message explaining the situation and wondering if he could lend a hand in organizing the surprise.
His response comes immediately.
Just a string of ten numbers and the words, “call whenever.”
So on a break between patients the next afternoon, she pulls up Theo’s number and gives him a call.
Theo answers his phone after the first ring. “Emily,” he greets.
Emily freezes, face screwing up in confusion. “Uh. How’d you know it was me?”
“I have your number saved. You’re Beca’s emergency contact.”
“Oh. Oh, right.” It makes perfect sense — they’re married — but it’s completely unexpected and it throws her off. “Uh. Um, okay. So...uh. Stars, sorry, sorry. I kinda just lost my train of thought.”
“Flying to Europe? Surprising Beca?”
“Right. That.” Emily flips through her notebook at the short potential itinerary she’d scrawled in this morning. “So I was thinking of taking Friday off and flying out right after work Thursday. So that’ll give me Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I have Monday off because of Labor Day, so I’ll fly back then.”
“Awfully pointless holiday in my opinion,” Theo comments airily. “But making good use of it. We’re traveling to London tomorrow so that’s where we’ll be Thursday night into Friday. I’m looking at flights now and looks like there’re a few red eyes for Thursday night. Can you get to JFK by 5:30?”
“Should be fine.”
“Great. There’s a 6:20 flight. And you should get to Heathrow around 5 in the morning. Wow,” he whistles. “Real commitment there. Hope you’re the type to sleep on planes.”
“I can sleep anywhere,” Emily assures him. “I’ll book the flight as soon as I get home. Thanks, Theo.”
“Perfect. I’ll see you at Heathrow Friday morning, then.”
“What? No, no that’s not...no, I’ll just take a cab.”
“The hotel’s not that close to the airport, a cab’ll cost too much. No, I don’t want to hear it. I’m picking you up. No, you don’t even know where we’re staying and now I’m not telling you.”
Emily narrows her eyes. “You sound exactly like Beca.”
Theo hesitates. “Should I...be offended or flattered?”
“Both of you are overprotective in the worst ways.”
“So, uh. Which?”
Emily glances at the clock and peeks in the waiting room. “Sorry, I gotta go. Thanks again for helping me with all of this. And for offering to pick me up at the airport,” she adds glumly.
“You have my number. Keep me updated. Oh! And Emily?”
Finger hovering over the end button, she pauses. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for doing this. For Beca. I think...she seems like she needs a bit of home, you know?”
Smiling to herself, Emily nods. “Yeah. I know.”
True to her word, Emily sleeps like a rock through the whole plane ride. From the second the plane took off until the moment it started its decent into London, Emily was dead to the world; she emerges into Heathrow fully rested and frighteningly alert.
“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Theo greets with a smile, a hug, and coffee. “Good to see you again, and so far from home.”
“Good to see you too! I still can’t really believe that I’m here,” she admits, laughing nervously.
“Not quite yet. Let’s get you back to the hotel, yeah?”
Theo leads the way into the still-dark parking lot and into the rental car, cranking up the heat to melt away the brisk air that clung to their jackets. It feels surreal, riding along on London roads before the sun has fully risen, considering that Emily was in cold and clammy New York just a few hours ago.
“Oh, I nabbed this for you,” Theo says as he reaches into his pocket. He hands her a hotel key card. “It should have her room number on the envelope. My guess is she was up late so she’s still sleeping. Might not answer the door.”
Emily snickers. “Wow, you really get her.”
“Yeah, not as well as you do.” He pulls the car into the driveway of the hotel and unlocks the door. “I have to park this thing in the garage and it’s a hell of a process. Go ahead inside and rest up, I’ll probably see you sometime later today.”
Grabbing her suitcase from the trunk, Emily ducks her head back in the passenger seat. “Thanks again, Theo. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”
He waves her words aside. “Eh, save it for later. Go surprise your wife.”
She doesn’t have to be told twice.
Beca’s room is on the sixth floor and the elevator doesn’t move fast enough for Emily’s liking. Mashing the buttons and tapping her foot impatiently, she squeezes herself through the doors as soon as it stops on the right floor.
Then she’s standing in front of Beca’s door and everything just hits her all at once; she impulsively flew to London, she’s here without anyone’s knowledge but Theo’s, and now she’s really standing in a different country outside the room of someone she’d been yearning to hold for what feels like years.
Flipping the key card nervously in her hands, Emily takes a deep breath and unlocks the door, cringing at the echoing clunk of the lock opening. It takes another deep breath for her to creak open the door.
The first thing she sees is the empty, untouched bed, and for a wild second she thinks Theo was wrong and Beca’s actually not staying in this room or this hotel or even in this country. But the nightstand lamp is on, bathing the tiny room in a warm light, and there’s a suitcase tossed open at the foot of the bed.
Emily slips in and closes the door behind her and finally finds Beca. She’s passed out on a small loveseat-type couch in the corner of the room, the tiny coffee table next to it covered with papers, takeout containers, and empty coffee cups. Beca herself is in a similarly disheveled state, legs hanging over one arm of the couch, headphones clamped firmly over her ears, dead to the world.
It’s such a familiar sight that they might as well be back in New York.
Though it’s clearly an unnecessary precaution, Emily tiptoes over to Beca, not even bothering to take off her jacket, and squats down by her head. If she were awake, Beca would be calling her a creep for just staring, but Emily can’t look away. She’s actually here, inches away from Beca, and the last nine hours of traveling and four weeks of missing her favorite person just fades away as she looks down at the peaceful sleeping face.
Carefully, she reaches over to remove the headphones; there’s music still playing, a wild EDM-type beat that no sane human could possibly fall asleep to, but Beca doesn’t even stir at their absence.
Emily doesn’t know how to wake her up. Should she just shake Beca awake? Call her name? Wait until she wakes up on her own? She doesn’t want to bother this obviously exhausted woman but good god, she didn’t fly all this way to be roadblocked by sleep.
Hands starting to shake with anticipation, Emily leans in slowly, brushing aside a few stray hairs from Beca’s face, and presses a soft kiss to her forehead. That pulls Beca from her slumber; a crease forms between her eyebrows and Emily kisses that too.
Smiling from ear to ear, Emily leans back as Beca groans sleepily and shifts stiffly in her awkward position. Her bleary eyes widen as soon as they find Emily.
“Hi,” she whispers, facing Beca’s intense confusion and astonishment with as steady a voice as she can manage.
“Wh...? Emily? Wait, wait, what the...”
“Surprise.” She can’t stop smiling, and now, neither can Beca.
“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” she asks hoarsely, scrambling up wildly from her awkward position and popping every stiff joint in her body.
“Visiting you, of course.” Emily doesn’t know how she can sound so casual and carefree while practically vibrating with excitement. “I kinda missed you, I guess. So I thought I’d drop by.”
“Holy shit,” Beca says breathlessly, touching different parts of Emily’s body at random as if to affirm she’s real. “Whoa, holy shit, you’re actually here. Wow.” Her face goes all still like she’s holding back tears, and Emily is too so she plops herself on the couch and catches Beca as she slams into her for a hug.
For the first time in a month, everything feels right.
“I love you, Beca,” she whispers, “I love you so much.”
“Oh my god, you’re literally making me cry, I hate you,” Beca says, her voice thick and muffled. “Fuck. That’s a lie, I love you too. You’re fucking amazing.”
“Anything for you,” Emily laughs, sinking into her arms.