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It’s no secret that Beca and Chloe basically adopted Emily.
Chloe is the fun mom, who slips her condoms before her dates with Benji, and Beca is the fiercely protective mom, who snatches them up and gives them to Stacie. Beca even has her mom’s number, which is a little unsettling for Emily. (Even worse, they speak on a moderately regular basis.)
Things change when Chloe and Beca graduate, but not as much as she feared. Sure, Chloe isn’t there to slip Emily alcohol behind her back, and Beca isn’t there to swoop in and take it away, but they’re still involved in her life, just like proper acapella moms. They have weekly skype calls, and both women text her on a daily basis. They’re honestly more involved in her day-to-day life than her actual mom, which isn’t a bash on Katherine Junk, because she’s awesome, but in addition to being her adoptive moms, Beca and Chloe are also some of her best friends. (And not to mention, extremely codependent, just like all the Bellas. It’s a little unhealthy.)
Emily is happy. Like, really happy. She has her biological family (which includes literally just her mom), and then she has Beca and Chloe and the rest of the Bellas. And then a few years later, at the tail end of the USO tour, everything kinda falls apart.
Okay, that’s being a little bit dramatic, she thinks. Reel it in, Emily. It isn’t like everything falls apart. Just almost everything. At least, everything that she has believed for over four years. Because here's the thing: from the night she met them, it was obvious to her that Beca and Chloe were an unstoppable force. They were practically attached at the hip, and so in sync that it was almost weird.
Emily was standing by the punch with Fat Amy, who was so far gone and wobbly enough that she was starting to worry about her. The music was loud and people were dancing and laughing and it was exactly like Emily had imagined a college party would be like. She loved/hated it.
Beca and Chloe were dancing, laughing and spinning each other around, coming back together to dance slow to a fast song, and Emily thought she understood. So she turned to Fat Amy, smiled at the clumsy drunk who was trying to fit an entire handful of chips into her mouth, and said: “They’re really cute. How long have they been dating?”
The woman cocked her head at Emily and squinted like she was trying to make three of her turn back into one.
“Who?” She asked through a mouthful of food, messily washing it down with her drink.
“Beca and Chloe?” Emily said, and Fat Amy’s reaction was both violent and weird: she choked on her alcohol. Sputtering, she set the drink down and Emily, concerned, whacked her on the back. She blew out a loud breath smelling so strongly of vodka that Emily winced and backed up several feet.
“Thanks,” Fat Amy said. “And, um, I dunno? I’m kinda . . . drunk? I’m . . drunk . . . drink. I need another drink. I’ll get back to you, ‘kay? ‘Kay. Can I have more?”
Her voice was slurred, every word melting into the next, and she made grabby hands at Emily’s solo cup, the one she’d been holding all night and hadn’t touched at all. Quickly, she moved it out of Fat Amy’s reach and laughed, and the liquid splashed against the side of the cup and dripped onto her hand. And that was the end of it.
Fat Amy didn’t remember even a second of that night when she woke up the next morning, and Emily never brought it up. The year went by, and her aca-moms adopted her, and everything was good. Better than good.
Things got a little weird when all the other Bellas graduated and moved on, and Beca and Chloe—and Amy, weirdly enough—left for New York, to proper adult life and an apartment not really meant for three people. She tried not to think about how much she was going to miss them, simply clutched on tight when they hugged her goodbye and cried a little a lot. (And when Jessica and Ashley told her they would miss how she was the only one who really knew which girl was which, she cried harder.)
It sucked, at first, without them around.
She doesn’t see much of most of the Bellas again until the tour, except Beca and Chloe. They visited her during the year sometimes, and she saw them every summer when they took their annual road trip, and they even brought her to the city one time and she stayed in their apartment. It was super cramped, and she slept on the floor in a sleeping bag, but it was an amazing two weeks. She’d missed her aca-moms—and Fat Amy, of course—so much.
Then the tour comes around, and she is thrilled to be reunited with the girls that made her a Bella. They greet her with open arms, and she cries like a baby and so does Beca. (Although, since she’s “got a reputation” and is a “total badass,” she denies it adamantly when Aubrey teases her.)
She’s so happy and caught up in seeing the girls again, thrilled to be singing with them, that she doesn’t notice Chloe flirting with Chicago. She eventually notices him flirting with her, and the uncomfortable look on Beca’s face as it happens, but she figures Chloe will shut it down quick and that will be that. She doesn’t notice the flirting again. Maybe because she just doesn’t want to.
She watches Beca and Chloe embrace after singing Freedom ‘90, and her heart swells. Everyone tackles them and piles into a giant group hug around them, and Emily is right in the middle, thinking that she's never felt so loved before. She’s thrumming with joy and running on adrenaline, which is probably one of the reasons she reacts so aggressively when Chloe kisses Chicago.
Beca has always been the protective mom, watching over Emily with a thoughtful and loving eye. Emily loves Chloe, and knows that Chloe loves her, but her relationship with Beca is different. And Emily knows that Chloe is always ready to protect her if need be, but Beca has always been the first to charge into battle for her. And it’s usually a complete overreaction, but Emily really appreciates the gesture.
In turn, Emily is fiercely protective of Beca. And Chloe, of course, but she’s protective of Beca in a ferocious way where she’s always ready to cut someone who even looks at her wrong. Emily was dropped into unfamiliar territory when she arrived at Barden University, and even though she put on a confident and brave face, she had been scared. As sappy as it sounds, Beca was a flashlight in the dark.
So when she watches Chloe run in Chicago’s arms, her heart jumps into her throat. Her eyes instantly shoot over to Beca, who’s next to Theo (the turtle guy, she remembers) by the door. The devastated look in her eyes is what tears Emily out of shock and into action. She doesn’t even stop to think. She just marches right over to Chloe and he-who-shall-not-be-named and pulls them apart, and shrieks as she does: “What are you doing!”
Startled, Chloe flails a little as she jumps back, and Emily drops her arm, which she’d grabbed maybe a little harder than she meant to. Chloe gives her a weird, mildly annoyed look and says, really slowly: “What are you talking about, Em?”
She hates this. Chloe is the sweetest person she’s ever known, and she can’t even fathom why she’d do something like this, especially to Beca. She doesn’t want anything to happen to them. She doesn’t want Chloe to break Beca’s heart.
They’re Beca and Chloe. Or as Fat Amy would say: “They’re Beca and Chloe. Together, they’re Bhloe. And everyone loves a good Bhloe.” They’re literally perfect together. Emily has never known of a healthier and softer relationship.
She knows she’s going to cry before it happens. Her eyes get watery and her lip quivers a little and she tries to swallow the rock that’s lodged itself in her throat. Chloe steps towards her as though to comfort her, but Emily jerks back like she’s been burned by just being close to the fire and hisses: “How could you do this to Beca!”
Emily thinks it’s a little weird how confused Chloe seems, but remembering the look on Beca’s face drowns out the weirdness of her reaction. With a furrowed brow, Chloe looks over Emily’s shoulder at Beca, who looks like she wants to sink into the floor when Emily turns to look at her, eyes wide and doing their best to look anywhere else in the world but at them. But when Emily reaches out for her, she appears instantly by her side, and lets Emily melt into her arms.
“Why would she do that?” She asks, but Beca just shakes her head softly, and the end of her hair tickles the skin just above Emily’s collar on her shoulder.
“I don’t understand, Em,” she says, pulling back just a little to hold her at arms-length and look at her carefully with worried eyes. Then, as if summoned, Fat Amy appears, waltzing over with three drinks balanced between two hands.
“What’s up, bitches!” She says with a wide grin, but the smile fades quickly and she stops short. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure,” Chloe says after nobody else responds with anything other than a blank, uncertain expression. Emily is frustrated. Why is Chloe so confused?
“Chloe kissed Chicago,” she tells Fat Amy in a rushed, frustrated huff, and she shoots Chloe a glare. Sure, she loves her dearly, but right now, she doesn’t like her very much. It makes her uncomfortable that she can love a person without liking them.
Fat Amy’s eyes are darting back and forth between Beca and Chloe so fast that Emily feels a little dizzy just trying to follow her gaze.
“Oh,” Fat Amy says slowly, drawing the single syllable for far longer than necessary. “I think I need a drink.”
Promptly, she looks down the glasses in her hands as if only just remembering she has them, and swallows an entire glass in one gulp like a shot of vodka instead of a full cup of champagne. Beca still looks like she wants to sink into the floor, and is back to trying to avoid catching anyone’s eyes. When Chloe turns to look at Emily, her head cocked, she flinches a little at the bright anger in her eyes.
“Emily,” she says gently, like Emily is a spooked animal she’s attempting to calm. “Why are you upset with me?”
“What?” Emily breathes out, and as she continues, her voice grows and builds with her anger. “You cheat on Beca and kiss Chicago and then ask me what you’ve done wrong? What the hell, Chloe!”
Everyone winces—Emily never swears. In fact, neither Beca, Chloe, nor Fat Amy think they’ve ever heard her do so before this. The surprise takes a moment to shake off, but after a few seconds, they seem to process her words, and Chloe goes completely still. Beca looks like she really, really, wants to disappear, but she’s the first to speak anyway.
“Emily . . . do you think Chloe and I are dating?” She asks, her voice soft and a little anxious. She looks sad in a way that scares Emily a little because she doesn’t know what it means and she doesn’t know how to fix it.
“Of course, because you are,” she whispers back, and her heart is throbbing in her chest so loud, like it might crack her ribs and fall right out onto the floor. Beca just shakes her head, even though she kind of looks like she doesn’t want to. “No, we’re not.”
And everything Emily thought she knew about her aca-moms starts to crumble.
“But . . . when I met you, it seemed like . . . and Fat Amy said . . .” she trails off. A gross feeling is crawling up from her stomach into her chest and then her throat, and it feels an awful lot like heartbreak and panic.
“She told you we were dating?” Emily turns to look at Chloe, who’s finally seemed to have found her voice, which is coming out all gentle and soothing and it’s confusing Emily, who wants badly to be angry at her, but she’s never been particularly good at staying angry with anyone, let alone someone she loves so much. Her anger and adrenaline are fading fast, leaving her with just confusion and someone that feels far too much like grief.
“Yes? I mean, I think so? I met you guys and I thought you were dating—you just seemed so . . . couple-y? So I asked Fat Amy how long you’d been together and she said she wasn’t sure but she’d get back to me about it and she tried to take my drink.”
The woman in question holds up her hands in surrender, still with more champagne flutes than one person should have at a time, as Chloe turns her head to shoot her a glare.
“I don’t remember that at all!” She says defensively.
“You rarely remember anything after getting drunk. You tend to overdrink,” Beca points out, and Fat Amy scoffs. but she doesn’t deny it.
“Why aren’t you dating?” Emily asks, when an unsettling silence has stretched around them for what feels like hours but probably was less than twenty seconds, and after Fat Amy has (completely unsubtly, and ramming into a table) snuck away. Chicago looks really uncomfortable, and mumbles something about having somewhere to be before practically running away.
“Chloe doesn’t have those kinds of feelings for me, Em.” It’s only after she’s finished saying it and paused for a beat that Beca seems to realize what she implied and tries to backpedal. “I mean—”
“Do you?” Chloe says. “Have those feelings. For me.”
Frozen like a deer in headlights, Beca doesn’t move or even seem to breathe for a really long few moments. When she shakes out of it, Chloe is waiting patiently for an answer. She knows by now when to push Beca, and when not to.
“It doesn’t matter. You like Chicago, and he’s . . . great. Really, he’s perfect. You know, for you.”
“No, he’s not,” Chloe says, her voice nearly a whisper, and she’s suddenly standing way closer to Beca than she was just a heartbeat ago. (Emily suddenly feels like she’s intruding, but her feet feel really heavy and she can’t make herself move. Maybe if she just stands really still it’ll be fine.)
“You are. If you want,” Chloe says, and Emily wonders why Beca’s face looks so pinched and sad when that’s such a wonderful thing for her to have said. But Chloe’s face is so soft and genuine and real, and slowly, the fear melts out of Beca’s eyes and what’s left behind is something just as soft and so very vulnerable. The thought that everything might turn out okay flashes through Emily’s mind.
“If you aren’t completely sure right now,” Beca starts, her voice no louder than a whisper, but Emily is close enough that she can hear it without trying. She shakes her head faintly. “Then walk away, please. I can’t let you break my heart.”
“I won’t,” Chloe whispers back. “I promise.”
“Okay." Beca sounds hesitant, but there’s a little smile pulling the corners of her lips up, and it’s mirrored on Chloe.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d like to kiss you now.”
“I’d be okay with that.”
Yeah, everything is going to be just fine. Emily isn’t worried.