Chapter Text
“Now, there’s been a fun rumour floating around,” the interviewer starts, cutting off the end of Chloe Beale’s summary of the movie this interview is about. She hates when they do that. The statement is raising a giant red flag in her mind, too, but Chloe manages to maintain her fake-genuine smile, a mirror image of the woman to her side. “were you really best friends with Beca Mitchell in high school?” she finishes. Chloe knows she hasn’t managed to hide the grimace that crosses her face at the thought judging by the raised eyebrow and predatory smile now adorning the interviewer’s face.
“Ms. Beale will take no further questions, it has been made quite clear in your media licensing documents that questions on this topic are not permissible,” Chloe’s agent seems to appear out of thin air between the two seated woman, pulling Chloe up and out of her chair before the interviewer has a chance to respond.
“Fucks sake,” Chloe grumbles once they are out of earshot of anyone else, her agent sighing in response as they stalk towards the private dressing room they have been allocated for today’s barrage of interviews.
“Mitchell question,” Veronica explains when Chloe’s manager, Aubrey, starts to panic at their early return to the room. “You know, I don’t know why you can’t just say that you were but you had a falling ou-“
“No!” Aubrey hisses forcefully, not letting the idea reach its full form in the open. “We do not acknowledge Mitchell.”
“I’m sure the self-entitled bitch can do enough of her own promotion without interrupting mine,” Chloe runs a hand through her hair, rolling her eyes when everyone in the room immediately flinches as if to stop her. “God, I’m a person with real hair that’s occasionally not perfectly positioned, how on earth will I keep my adoring, objectifying, fucking insane fans if they know.”
Aubrey rolls her eyes at the sarcasm, everyone else merely looking down and going back to their jobs. It’s always Aubrey who stands up to her bullshit, but why wouldn’t she? She’s known Chloe longer than anyone. Well, almost anyone.
Beca wasn’t quite sure how she’s got here, sometimes. She knew the basic outline, of course - start college, run into a studio exec at a dodgy radio internship, drop out of college, move to LA, sign to a legit label, write an album, sing an album, tour an album, seize the rising popularity of singer/producer types and jump on that train straight to unimaginable success - but the why always felt a little fuzzy. Especially since, somewhere, she still felt like she was 18 years old desperately grabbing at the parts of her life she thought she could control while everything else spun with wild abandon.
Eighteen-year-old Beca was kind of an idiot, though. She could at least accept that a decade on she was a little smarter, or at least, a little more jaded to the world at large. One time, when asked about her musical inspirations, she had joked Daft Punk - not for anything musical, but because they got to hide themselves behind a mask and escape the shitty side of fame. The next day she was hammered in the media for being ungrateful for her fans, so that question was now firmly – at her management’s request, not hers - on the “do not ask” list distributed to anyone with the unfortunate task of interviewing her. Not that she’d say Daft Punk again, of course.
She hasn’t changed her mind. She just thinks Marshmello would be a more culturally relevant example now. Besides, she does actually like his style. There’s a collaboration in the works, according to her boss at the studio, so maybe she can slip something about it into an interview whenever that comes to fruition before her manager, Jackie, can veto it.
Beca is quite aware that she’s a pain in the ass to deal with for her team, sometimes, and she doesn’t necessarily have to act like a petulant teenager just because she feels like she’s locked inside her own 18-year-old brain. It’s just... easier. 18-year-old Beca Mitchell was in a lot of pain. At 28, she’s not entirely sure it’s ever gone away. She has to mask it somehow.
It would probably help if she could stop thinking about it, she knows that. She knew that even before the psychologist her first manager had pushed her to see had told her that fixating wasn’t helpful. Unfortunately, the pain is still everywhere. She is still everywhere.
“Chloe stormed out of an interview when she was asked about you again today,” Stacie comments, when Beca wanders into her house after a relatively unproductive day at the studio where she largely moped around and trashed old song drafts.
“How many times do I need to tell you I don’t want to hear about her?” she lies, voice weak, Stacie laughing out loud as she follows Beca through the house.
“Try saying that a little more believably and maybe I’ll stop.”
“Why the fuck are you in my house again anyway?” Beca switches the subject, praying that Stacie will let her have it this time.
“You gave me a key.”
“Yeah, I’m pissed at past Beca for that too,” Beca gives in, starting to pull off her shirt and search for another as Stacie stands unflinching in her bedroom door.
“You’re going to be really mad soon, because Jackie sent me here to tell you something so you won’t fire her on the spot for it,” Stacie’s tone turns uncharacteristically cautious, Beca turning with her pants half-removed to stare.
“Who says I won’t fire you too?”
“You can’t fire your only friend, Beca.”
The indignant huff she lets out in response as she goes back to changing out of her work clothes might have had more force if Stacie wasn’t right.
Beca doesn’t say any more, feeling Stacie watch her as she wanders into the bathroom to (unnecessarily) meticulously remove her makeup and pull the mild wave out of her hair with her fingers. She’s not delaying on purpose, she swears. She’s just… putting it off. Eventually, she can’t do any more, pushing past Stacie as she walks back out into her living room and falls down onto the couch, looking up at her friend expectantly.
“So you know how you have no say in major one-off jobs the label books you for?” Stacie starts, remaining standing opposite Beca, arms crossed defensively across her chest. It would probably make Beca feel a little guilty if she didn’t suspect that it was less her friend feeling defensive around her and more the fact that Stacie tended to naturally fall into any position that accentuated her chest.
“Oh, god, please tell me I don’t have to actually sing with a bunch of kids that think they’re top shit,” she groans in response, not able to think of any worse assignment.
“Nope, this collaborator is a fully-grown adult one year your senior,” Stacie confirms, raising an eyebrow at Beca’s exaggerated sigh of relief.
“Why so scared of telling me, then? Is it Marshmello? They mentioned that one already, I really wanna work with him, actuall-“
“It’s Chloe.” Stacie cuts her rambling off. “As in Chloe Beale, your favourite. She’s doing a movie musical, but they want to feature your vocals as a duet on some of the music alongside her lead. You’d be producing a handful of songs, too.”
Beca bursts out laughing, letting her posture relax as she shifts to lean sideways against the couch, noticing Stacie has moved to the armchair when she looks up again. “As if that’ll actually happen, she’ll refuse to sign the contract.”
“She did sign a contract, it just listed as producer of studio’s choice, they hadn’t confirmed with your people yet. She won’t know it’s you until she walks into the studio and doesn’t have any option. Also, yes, Jess and I pushed both your agents to try and get you to do something together,” Stacie elaborates, eyeing Beca carefully, although the latter remains unflinching.
“Whatever, dude, you know I don’t have a problem with her. It’s her that’s holding an insane eleven-year grudge over some high school bitchy shit that was entirely her doing anyway. Her or Aubrey will find out and they’ll find a way to get out of it. It’s not like she doesn’t have money to burn, she can pay contract break fees.”
“We’ll see,” Stacie starts, and Beca breathes a sigh of relief, thinking the conversation is going to move on. “Sorry I called myself your best friend,” she adds.
“What? You are,” Beca answers, confused, turning so she is facing Stacie again.
“You told me it’d always be her.”
The lump in her throat forms so quickly that she can’t help but make some strangled noise of surprise, her cheeks heating up as her heart rate increases and her eyes blink back a sudden onslaught of tears, a familiar ache worming its way through her veins at settling firmly in her chest.
“Ten fucking years,” she bites out, after a moment, giving up as she curls forward and lets her body start to shake with loud sobs. “Ten- fucking years. And I- I don’t even know why she did it.”
“I know,” Stacie answers, sadness evident in her own voice, much closer than Beca expected. For once, the hand Stacie places on her shoulder isn’t shrugged off.
“I just want to talk to her.”
“What the fuck!” Beca screams, slamming her laptop shut and managing to spin her chair around and step out of it at the same time, an uncharacteristic display of coordination in response to the throat clearing behind her in her home office. Her heart stops racing once she realises it is Stacie leaning against her door frame, smirking.
“I have a key, remember?”
“Yeah, but you could maybe call before making me think someone has broken into my fucking apartment?” Beca retorts back, reluctantly sitting back down into her chair and gesturing for Stacie to come into the room.
“Nice picture of Chloe you were looking at there, by the way. Sounded like her voice too…” she trails off as she sits on the armchair across from Beca’s desk, teasing.
“I need to listen to her voice before I go into a studio in a week to produce her, assuming you aren’t here to tell me her or Aubrey found out and either I’m off the job or she quit?” Beca’s tone drops a little at the end as her thoughts wander off, and she quickly clears her throat to try and hide it.
“It’s still happening, don’t worry. You’ll get to see her again, although no telling what her reaction is. I’m just here because I haven’t eaten your chilli for a while and I thought I could convince you to make it tonight…” Stacie trails off, hopefully, and Beca laughs.
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’m fine with doing the whole duet thing, I can see how it’ll work with these scenes, but do we know who I’m actually doing it with yet?” Chloe asks one of the film’s executive producers as she hangs around on set between takes. She’s one of the few people in today, so while she’s made decent acquaintance with most of the cast, there’s not really anyone around up for hanging out between takes today. And Aubrey was getting on her nerves, so she gave her the day off.
“Um, we’re still narrowing down options, actually,” she answers, messily, the majority of the production team well aware of the fact that Chloe Beale and Beca Mitchell did not get on.
“Wasn’t it Be-“ a passing PA adds, quickly cut off by one of the cameramen.
“I was helping shoot a couple of promo things the other day, they’ve definitely not decided yet, I think Julia Michaels was one of the options though…”
“Ooh, I love her! She’s such a good songwriter but I’m so glad she’s releasing her own stuff these days too,” Chloe enthuses, conversation moving on.
Beca prides herself on being on-time, but absolutely never early. She’s early for her first session with Chloe. It’s not her first session on the project – she met with some of the other sound crew the previous week and has already started working on producing some of the minor numbers within the movie from tracks handed to her of other vocalists – but it’s her first with Chloe and her first in the studio. She still doesn’t entirely get why she’s putting her vocals in a movie that she isn’t actually appearing in, but apparently, it’s something about the lead character being two people or having a long-lost cousin or maybe a ghost or… she’s not sure. It’s a big budget movie, though, so she’s pretty sure they’ll have it worked out.
She isn’t sure where to sit in the studio – obviously, at the mixing desk, but it’s a big desk – and there’s a percussion setup in the room that she guesses would normally be inside the actual recording booth that she’s been kind of hiding behind and tapping her fingers against the edge of the snare, in between wringing her hands together and peering out the door. Stacie had tried to amp her up about the day, promising her it might actually mean they talk, or acknowledge each other, or just… move forward. She’s not sure it helped, because now she’s some combination of hopeful, terrified, and heartbroken. Maybe she won’t even show. Maybe-
“Okay, the studio just around here?” Chloe’s voice is unmistakeable even a decade after she’s heard it through anything other than a speaker, Beca almost falling off her chair in response to the sound. She still can’t decide where to look, whether to hide, what to do-
Her eyes flick up when the door clicks open. Chloe’s eye movement from the door handle, up and into the room to look at Beca seeming to take at least ten seconds, if not a minute. Beca can’t breathe, she can’t make her thoughts slow down enough to be intelligible even to herself, she can’t-
Chloe freezes when their eyes meet, recognition the first and only emotion visible in them before she immediately turns and leaves the room again.
Time catches up, then, Beca collapsing forward off the chair out of control and sinking to her knees on the floor as she gasps for the breath that seemed to escape her for however long it was, and now she’s inhaling too quickly, and she’s hyperventilating, and this is a professional environment and she’s going to be so embarrassed because she’s still just an 18-year old kid who-
The next time Beca is aware of her own surroundings, she’s sitting on a couch in an unfamiliar room with Stacie and Jessica either side of her, holding her tightly.
“What is- what – where-“ she isn’t sure what question to ask first, and she’s not yet present enough to ask all of them. “Jessica?”
“Hey, Beca. I’m… sorry it’s been so long,” she says, softly, Beca just nodding. It’s been years since she saw Jess.
“Did I black out?” she asks, after another minute, trying to piece together the last… she’s not even sure how long it’s been. It feels like an hour since she was at that desk.
“No, you’ve been conscious the whole time, you just went into psychosis according to the doctor, but it’s only been 3 minutes and she said anything short is kind of fine,” Stacie responds, sounding stressed herself, and Beca takes a careful deep breath as she tries to take it all in.
“What happened? I remember falling onto the floor after Chl- after she walked out, and I know I was hyperventilating, and then suddenly I was here…”
“I was behind her. She pushed me out of the way when she walked out and I went in and got you, Stacie was in the building already in case something happened like this, and there was a doctor on site because of one of the other shoots happening at the moment who came within a minute and got us to help walk you into here. This is the meeting room near the entrance, the studio is two doors down, do you remember that?” Jess explains, carefully, and Beca simply nods in response.
“So am I getting fired, or is she quitting?” Beca asks, a darkness creeping into her tone that causes Stacie to grip her shoulder harder.
“She didn’t leave the studio entirely, so… I’m not sure. If you two are okay I might… go and find her. Before Aubrey gets to her,” Jess pulls away slowly at Beca’s nod, Stacie pulling her closer in response.
“Chloe?” she hears Jessica’s voice before she enters the room, Chloe sitting silently on the couch across from her agent, refusing to meet her eyes.
“Mm?” Chloe’s response is sharp, and Jessica sighs loudly in response.
“Have you called Aubrey?” Jessica asks.
“No. Aubrey’s distaste for Be-“
“Don’t say her name,” Chloe cuts Veronica off, her voice close to a hiss.
“-Aubrey’s distaste for her is more personal than professional so I doubt it would be productive for her to be here,” Veronica finishes, Jess nodding.
“How the fuck did this happen?” Chloe finally looks up, to see Jess and Veronica staring her down with more strength in their gazes than she remembers seeing for… well, ever.
“Beca Mitchell is the best producer in the business. The studio wanted to hire her. We all know your voices sound fantastic together. So you’re going to sing together, and she’s going to produce you,” Jessica explains, her tone pointed as if she expects resistance. Chloe bites out a laugh.
“As if she’d actually sing with me, she doesn’t think my voice is worth shit, remember? Hell, I wouldn’t put it past her to be doing this to intentionally wreck my career by throwing terrible production on me.”
“What? She doesn’t think that…” Jessica trails off, confused, and Veronica sighs.
“Chloe and Aubrey have been adamant for years that Mitchell tried to convince Chloe not to pursue acting or singing because she wasn’t talented enough for either of them,” she explains, Chloe nodding along.
“Yup. Why do you think we fell out, anyway? I was fucking in love with her, but she couldn’t even have the basic decency to support me because she couldn’t stand the idea of not being the best,” Chloe’s tone is higher-pitched than usual, and she feels a burning pressure behind her eyes, but she hopes the others don’t notice.
“You fell out because she thought you were in love with her then she caught you making out with Tom in her car!” Jessica spits back, her voice raised, “and I want so badly to support both of you, Chloe, but you’re being fucking ridiculous, and you took Beca and gave her hope and then crushed it to pieces weeks later and cost her the only constant in her life in the process. Grow up and just fucking talk to her. She’s been trying to fix things for years. It’s on you.”
Chloe sits, silenced, for two minutes trying to process Jessica’s attack, but it doesn’t make any sense. That’s not how anything happened. Sure, she ran off to Tom to get back at Beca, and that was stupid, but Beca tried to ruin her dreams, and that’s not something Chloe will let go.
“I don’t see her trying to do a thing except continue to fuck with my career,” she replies, finally, eyes narrowed. “I know what she did. I know what she said.”
“Would you at least listen to her, if she told you she never did that? You know she can’t lie for shit,” Jessica pleads, exasperated.
Chloe lets out a long sigh, bringing her hand to the centre of her forehead and squeezing her eyes closed. She’s an adult, a professional, and she has a job to do. She doesn’t have time for this high school bullshit, but she also doesn’t have time for the hit her career would take if she bailed on this movie or agitated for a producer change. She knows Aubrey would tell her to bail on the movie, but Aubrey’s hatred of all things to do with her once-best-friend predated their falling out and maybe wasn’t the most sensible. She could at least admit that. And Jessica had stuck by her for ten years, although apparently talking to Beca in the background without her knowing…
“Fine. She can talk. If she wants to. I wouldn’t be surprised if she up and left because I wasted her studio time, though,” Chloe relents, looking back up at the others, Veronica quickly shaking her head and gesturing to Jess to speak.
“She’s still here. She had an intense panic attack and went into full psychosis when you walked out. We had to get a doctor because she wasn’t responding to me or Stacie,” Jess explains, before quickly turning on her heel and walking out.
Chloe feels Veronica’s judging glance but isn’t particularly ready to look back up from where her eyes have returned to the floor to meet it. Still, the silence is stifling. Silence is one thing she has never dealt well with. Well, unless it was with… her.
“I’ve never had any reason to think she cared,” Chloe points out, reluctantly looking up to see Veronica’s responding head shake.
“I’m more interested in the part where you admitted you were in love with her.”
“I… yeah,” Chloe sighs, recognising the feeling that settles in her head and her heart simultaneously. “Am. Not were.”