Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Beca Mitchell leans back in her worn office chair, not even attempting to hide her eye roll. It only took her potential client about five seconds to start spewing misogynistic nonsense about his wife. Why does this business always attract such a disgusting level of human? she wonders bitterly. Television makes the private detective life sound so tantalizing and thrilling. It doesn’t prepare anyone for bullshit like this, over and over again before anything good comes along. Beca’s mind drifts to dinner ideas for Chloe as the middle aged man across her desk rattles on.

“I swear she’s cheating on me with this guy from work!” says the man angrily. “She’s acting different!”

“Yeah? How so?” Beca asks, unfazed.

“She’s just...different!” the man insists.

What was his name again? Beca thinks to herself. All these asshole husbands start to blend together. “That vivid explanation helps me so much, Stephen.”

“David.”

“Tony,” nods Beca.

“David,” he enunciates with a vein starting to bulge in his temple.

“I’m sorry. Continue, Jerry.”

David turns red and clenches his fists on the arms of his chair. He ignores Beca and continues. “Susan’s different. She’s getting home later sometimes. Says it’s this Zumba thing. And then when she does come home, she tells me I could make dinner for once! Me! When it’s a woman’s job! And she doesn’t listen to anything I tell her to do anymore, she’s turning into a real bitch. You need to tail her after work-”

“Well, David,” interrupts Beca coolly. “Has it ever occurred to you that your wife is actually taking Zumba class? Because women have the power to like, act of their own volition. I know that might sound shocking to you.”

“She-”

“Now, maybe Zumba has given Susan a sweet release from your shitty attitude. Maybe it’s given her the realization that she doesn’t have to put up with your shit anymore,” Beca continues, propping her boots up on her desk. “Whatever it is, I say good for her.”

“You-” David starts turning red, much to Beca’s amusement.

“You did pay money for this little meeting here, so let me give you some advice since I won’t be stalking your poor wife for you. And trust me, this is more useful for you,” Beca glares into David’s eyes. “She’s tired of all your bullshit. Susan isn’t your maid. And she sure as hell isn’t yours to order around like some obedient puppet. Grow up, and fucking respect your wife.”

“You have no right to talk to me like that! You’re a fucking scam artist, all you’ve done is rip me off and insult me!” David yells as he stands up.

Beca laughs dryly. “Listen, Tim-”

“ David- ”

“Right, that’s what I said. Tim, I say up front the consultation fee is nonrefundable. You signed a form acknowledging said fee, that’s literally step one. Step two, we have this fun meeting and figure out if I can help you or not. Guess what? That’s also on that wonderful form you signed. Unfortunately for you, I don’t help ungrateful, shitty guys spy on their wives and girlfriends. Not my style. Sorry dude.”

David looks at Beca, utterly flabbergasted. Beca can tell the wheels are spinning in his head. Looking for a comeback. This should be good.

“If you talk this way to all the men in your life, you’ll never find a man who’ll put up with you!”

“Oh god, you’re so right. I’ll have to go home and tell my girlfriend of five years the horrible news,” grins Beca, enjoying the shades of red and purple this man is turning.

“Unfuckingbelievable,” David seethes, and stomps out of the tiny office without another word.

“Oh no, Dick, Richard, come back! I’m so sorry!” Beca deadpans before he slams the door. 

Savoring the newfound silence in the room, Beca tilts her head back in her chair and closes her eyes. What a bummer. She could really use the client money too, but Beca would rather live on the street than stalk an innocent woman just because her husband is an insecure idiot. At least she got in a few good digs before he left. Poor Susan. Beca hopes something she said to David stuck in his head somehow. 

Beca checks her watch and sighs. Almost five. Close enough, she thinks, the beauty of being your own boss. Even though she’s the boss of her failing private detective business. A problem for another day. Shaking her worries from her mind, Beca packs her things and leaves her office.

****

“Chloe, I told you, it’s just the shitty pipes in that building or something,” says Beca, reassuring her girlfriend over the phone. She pours the stir fry she made for dinner into a Tupperware container and snaps the lid on.

“And I told you there’s no way it’s pipes. This is the newest wing of the hospital. Well, newer compared to the other ones. Plus, it sounds-”

“Like a groaning noise,” Beca finishes, adjusting her phone in the crook of her shoulder. “Babe, listen to yourself. You’ve been working crazy hours with your residency at that place, you’re totally exhausted. I hear you muttering your patient notes in your sleep. You’re overworked.”

Beca hears Chloe sigh on the other end. “Okay, I am a little tired. But this is weird, Bec. Sometimes it’s like...it sounds like a voice. And it’s the same time, every night. Please believe me?”

Beca can practically see the puppy eyes Chloe’s using right now. She curses to herself. The woman knows how to play her like a fiddle.

“What would you like me to do, dear?” asks Beca, a little exasperation in her voice.

“Can you- can you stop by? Bring me some coffee? And...check out this noise?” Chloe says.

“Chlo, I’m a detective, not a Ghostbuster,” Beca replies, but she’s already packing Chloe’s dinner and getting her jacket.

“I hear your keys,” says Chloe. Beca can hear her smiling around the words.

“Yeah, yeah. I have your dinner too. Latte, extra shot?”

“Pleeease, thank you,” Chloe sings through the phone. “I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight.”

Beca smiles. “You better, Beale.”

****

With Chloe’s dinner packed away, Beca brings her motorcycle to life with a roar and takes off through the city.

The city of Barden is on the smaller side as far as cities go, but it has enough to keep its residents busy without being completely overwhelming. Beca and Chloe have called it their home now for four years, ever since Chloe had been accepted into its medical school. She had moved up in the medical field flawlessly with a lot of hard work and dedication, and now she is on the last leg of her journey- her residency at Lanes Mill Hospital. 

Beca herself had gotten her private detective license from Barden and set up her own small business only five minutes away from their tiny apartment downtown. Business is shockingly hard to come by in the city, the majority of people are either insecure spouses like David, or people with problems beyond Beca’s capabilities. She’s growing frustrated with her lack of clients, and finds herself wondering if it would be better to close up shop and find another line of work. One that can more reliably provide for both Chloe and herself. Beca doesn’t want her girlfriend stressing out about anything else.

Stopping by their favorite coffee shop after parking her motorcycle, Beca picks up drinks for the two of them and makes her way up the street to Lanes Mill Hospital. The white building shimmers brightly in the moonlight, and a smile breaks out on Beca’s face as she sees a familiar redhead waiting outside.

“Hey you,” Beca says, coming up on her toes to kiss Chloe’s cheek.

“Hey yourself,” smiles Chloe, giving Beca a quick hug.

The couple make their way into the hospital, chatting excitedly away, happy to be in each other’s presence.

****

Beca heats up Chloe’s dinner in the staff break room before having a seat across from Chloe. The room is small, with assorted circular tables and uncomfortable plastic chairs. A few appliances and a vending machine are tucked into one wall. 

“How was work?” Chloe says as she begins to eat.

Beca lets out a groan. “Shitty. That potential client turned out to be an insecure douchebag wanting me to spy on his poor wife. Another dead end.”

Chloe makes a face and reaches across the table to rest her hand on Beca’s. “I’m sorry babe.”

“Eh, not your fault,” Beca replies with a soft smile. She distracts herself from her failing business by tracing Chloe’s wrist. “How has your day been-”

Chloe suddenly grabs Beca’s wrist and stares at her watch.

“Uh-”

“Crap!” Chloe stands up abruptly, nearly knocking over her chair. She shoves the rest of her food in her mouth. “We have to go now! The voice!”

“What-” Beca starts, but Chloe is already grabbing her forearm and dragging her out of the room. Beca just manages to pick up her coffee before being whisked away.

“It’s almost time, come on! We’ll just make it,” Chloe exclaims as she leads Beca by the hand through the maze of the hospital.

“I’m pretty sure I’m like, super not allowed to be here, Chloe,” says Beca, struggling to keep up with her girlfriend. She practically has to run to keep up. “Why are your legs so long?!”

“You like my long legs, especially when-”

“We are very much in a public place right now!”

“I was gonna say when I can reach things you can’t! Where is your mind?”

“You were totally not gonna say that-”

“But that does remind me, there’s this one closet back there that I think we could really-”

“I am NOT gonna Grey’s Anatomy you in a closet right now-”

Their banter gets cut off as Chloe comes to a screeching halt after entering an abandoned looking hallway. Beca gracefully crashes into Chloe’s back and nearly falls over.

“Shit, sorry!” Beca straightens up and looks around. Despite being totally empty, there’s nothing strange about the hall. “Is this where you hear it?”

“Yes,” breathes Chloe. “Every night at 9:26pm. It took me awhile to notice it since I’m only assigned here twice a week. But it’s the same time, I’ve checked all this week.”

Beca rubs Chloe’s waist. “Babe, I’m sorry but it has to be the plumbing, something like that. Especially if it kicks on like clockwork at a certain time.”

“It’s different,” Chloe insists. She looks at Beca with a serious expression on her face. She almost looks scared. “Bec, it’s weird.”

“Okay,” Beca finds Chloe’s hand and squeezes it. “Tell me more about it.”

Chloe nods, grateful to be believed. “I heard something weird when I was first put here three weeks ago for the first time. I didn’t think anything of it. Then I’ve been stationed here every Monday and Thursday night and I’ve heard it every single time. Last week I snuck in here every night just to check, and it’s the same. Every night at 9:26. And-”

Beca studies Chloe’s face with concern. Her eyes flick from her girlfriend to the hall, and she can find nothing sinister about it. “And?”

Chloe smoothes back her hair and lets out a shaky breath. “And...you’re gonna think I’m crazy-”

“Hey, you’re not crazy,” Beca says softly, gently cupping Chloe’s cheek. “And I’d never think that. Tell me.”

Chloe rests her hand on top of Beca’s, recentering herself. “It was always just a noise. But last week when I checked every night...it sounded like a voice.”

A million questions rise up in Beca’s mind but she controls herself and asks only one. “Did...this voice say anything?”

“It didn’t make any sense at first. But the other night I was here, it sounded like numbers.”

Beca glances at her watch. 9:25pm. “Do you remember them?”

“It was…” Chloe’s brow furrows. “3127 I think.”

Beca repeats the numbers to herself. “Do those numbers make any sense to you?”

Chloe shakes her head and she grips Beca’s hand tightly. Beca kisses her knuckles and checks her watch. 9:26pm.

Chloe looks around the hall with wide eyes and takes a few tentative steps forward. Beca follows, their hands still intertwined. She’s never seen Chloe so unnerved like this, and it rattles Beca’s confidence slightly.

A soft hissing noise breaks the silence. It almost sounds like steam being released from a pipe. It dissipates as quickly as it starts. The hall remains empty and unchanged.

Chloe’s hand is like a vice over Beca’s. Together, they shuffle forward a bit. The hissing noise starts again, longer this time, building in intensity.

“Threeeee…” a low raspy sound distinguishes itself from the noise around them. Beca jumps so much that her coffee cup flies out of her hand, the contents spilling onto the ground.

“Oneeeee…”

“What the fuck kind of Chamber of Secrets bullshit is this??” Beca shouts, pulling Chloe behind her. Her free hand twitches to her holster.

“Twooooo…” 

There’s a prickly sensation on Beca’s neck as she scans the hall. A light flickers towards the end of the corridor.

“Beca,” Chloe whispers into Beca’s ear. The fluorescent lights start flickering and going dark one by one, like some sort of creepy domino effect. “This has never happened before-”

“Sevennnnn…”

Beca starts backing up towards the door, her hand at her hip. Chloe’s grabbing her girlfriend’s waist and pulling her back. Beca keeps waiting for something, anything to reveal itself but there’s nothing aside from the hissing filling her ears, growing unbelievably louder. Darkness slowly fills the long hall, eating away three quarters of the hallway now. There’s a sudden, bone chilling cold in front of Beca and her breath feels like it’s stuck in her throat.

“Beca-” Chloe’s voice is shaking so much that Beca risks a concerned glance behind her. She frowns in confusion as she finds Chloe staring horrified at the floor.

Beca quickly looks back and follows Chloe’s line of vision. “What the-”

The question dies on Beca’s lips as her brain struggles to comprehend what she’s seeing. Her spilled coffee is pooled on the linoleum floor in front of them. There's two spots of clean flooring visible in the middle of the liquid, shaped perfectly like-

“Foot prints,” Chloe squeaks out. The chill in the air is intense, enveloping, and Beca can now see her breath in front of her.

“Three one two seven,” a voice breathes directly into Beca’s ear, making her blood run cold.

“Chloe, get the fuck out of here!” Beca shouts, pushing Chloe into the door, shielding her from whatever is standing in front of them. She pulls out her gun and almost laughs out of nerves. What the fuck is she going to shoot, the air?

“I’m trying!” Chloe’s throwing herself against the door, the noise echoing down the darkened corridor. “It’s stuck!”

The lights are flickering above them wildly, bringing the searing cold with it, permeating all the space around them, leaching into them, making their teeth clatter.

“You can do it!” Beca yells, pointing her gun at random positions, feeling utterly useless. Her heart is hammering in her chest. Her gaze darts wildly around the space in front of her and then Beca sees it, coalescing mere inches from her face.The faintest echo of a sunken face materializes out of thin air, the mouth stretched in a silent scream. 

The sound of Chloe struggling with the door becomes muffled and distant as the hissing whirls around Beca, all encompassing. The transparent face drifts closer to Beca, the number 3127 whispering in her head, somehow as loud and persistent as her own wildly beating heart-

There’s a bang as the door flies open and Chloe and Beca tumble through it, landing in a heap on the ground. Beca scrambles to sit up, staring at the now empty air in front of her. Chloe’s clutching her from behind, shaking like a leaf. Beca looks down the hallway, now appearing as normal as ever. No flashing lights, and definitely no face to be seen.

"We’re okay, we’re okay,” Beca’s voice quivers as she rubs her hands along Chloe’s arms locked around her waist. She glances at her watch. 9:29pm.

“That- it’s never been like that, never like that-” Chloe says quietly with tears in her eyes.

“You’re not working in this wing again,” says Beca, setting her jaw. “Tell your boss you can’t. Stay away from here. I need to figure this out.”

Chapter Text

“Babe, can you come to bed now?”

“One second, Chlo,” Beca runs her fingers through her hair in frustration, staring at her computer screen. She’s been pouring over countless research papers for the past two hours. There must be some sort of logical explanation for all of this. Some way to analyze the seemingly impossible. Beca rubs her eyes and looks at the physics theory again. What sort of alien wrote this shit? It’s complete gibberish.

Beca sighs in defeat and snaps her laptop closed. She gets up from her desk in their small bedroom and crawls into bed. Chloe immediately nestles into Beca’s side. Beca can feel her girlfriend relax at the contact, and she does the same.

“Seriously, promise me you won’t go back in there,” Beca says, brushing her lips gently on Chloe’s forehead.

“I promise,” Chloe replies, snaking her hand under Beca’s tank top to trace her stomach. She presses a kiss to her girlfriend’s shoulder.

“Good,” Beca tilts Chloe’s face up by her chin and kisses her softly. Chloe sighs into the kiss and deepens it.

Chloe shifts to get up and slides on top of Beca, both hands now finding their way under Beca’s shirt. A soft noise escapes Beca’s lips, and she starts to lose herself in Chloe, but the impossibility of the night keeps nagging in her mind. There has to be some sort of explanation, if she could only decipher what the hell that physics bullshit was-

“Stacie!” Beca blurts out, cutting Chloe’s kiss short.

Chloe looks down at Beca momentarily confused, then recovers. She presses a finger to Beca’s lips with her eyebrows raised. “You know I don’t like sharing you.”

“What?” Beca blinks, so lost in thought that it takes her a solid ten seconds to understand what Chloe means. “Oh GOD no! No!” Beca turns bright red. “I just realized Stacie can tell me what all this physics mumbo jumbo is, and how to apply it to what we saw! Christ, Chloe!”

Chloe lets out a sigh of relief and grins. “Well good. Because that was gonna be a hard no from me.”

“Please. Like I’d wanna share you either,” Beca rolls her eyes with a crooked grin. “Someone’s feisty tonight. I didn’t know unexplainable phenomena turned you on.”

“No I-” Chloe laughs a little but her face falls. Beca runs soothing fingers along Chloe’s hips. “I just...really, really don’t wanna think about what happened tonight right now.”

Beca’s expression softens with understanding. She squeezes Chloe’s hips gently, reassuringly. “Okay. I’ll talk to Stacie in the morning. What do you wanna do to keep your mind off it?”

Chloe grins, her face reanimating. “More like who do I wanna do. I told you earlier I’d make it up to you for the coffee.”

“Oh really? Maybe I should bring you lattes more often,” Beca winks up at Chloe. She tries to stop thinking about what on earth the number 3127 could possibly mean. Chloe makes quick work of Beca’s tank top and throws it on the ground. 3127...that’s only four digits...Chloe picks her favorite spot on Beca’s neck and her breath hitches. What form of identification is only four digits long...Chloe’s hand traces Beca’s chest before making its way downward and god that feels good...but is it even an ID number at all, perhaps a code…

“Babe,” Chloe’s voice is muffled against Beca’s skin.

“Hm?” Beca breathes, her hands massaging Chloe’s thighs absentmindedly.

“I can tell you’re thinking,” Chloe’s hand moves back up to trace a finger along Beca’s collarbone. She removes her finger and gives the spot a long kiss. “Save it for tomorrow, Sherlock.”

“Sorry,” Beca takes her hands to cup Chloe’s face and bring her down for a slow, building kiss. She shoves the number out of her mind. “I’m here now, babe. I’m all yours.”

“Oh I know,” Chloe mumbles. She tugs Beca’s bottom lip before bringing her searing kisses lower and lower, mercifully making Beca forget their night in the hospital entirely.

****

Beca walks into Sephora the next morning to find Stacie fixing a MAC product display. Studying her handiwork closely, she doesn’t hear the sound of Beca’s boots behind her.

“Hey, Stace.”

“Shit!” Stacie whirls around, nearly knocking over half of the eye shadow she just painstakingly set up. “Beca, Jesus Christ!”

Beca grimaces and begins helping pick up some of the fallen boxes. “Sorry, sorry!”

Stacie’s surprise is brief as she registers Beca’s presence in her store. A wide ecstatic smile takes over her face. “Oh. My. God. It’s finally happening! You’re going to let me give you a makeover! Ohhhh I can’t wait to scrub that heavy eyeliner off of you and give you a new, fresh look! I’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time-”

“No, no,” Beca waves her hands to cut her off, looking mildly horrified. “I, uh, appreciate that but it’s a hard pass, Stace. I’m here for your other talent.”

Stacie groans and taps her foot on the ground like an annoyed toddler. “God, Beca, I told you. I don’t wanna do shit with particle and material physics anymore. It’s SO typical and easy.”

Beca blinks. “I totally do not understand your mind, dude. Like this-” Beca gestures around the store- “is harder than like, the five types of physics you know? Your masters in both quantum physics and thermal science are chilling on the back burner in here. If you wanted to you could be like, solving Einstein’s fifth rule of impossible math x squaring y-”

“First of all, that’s not a thing. Second of all, physics is boring. You study the formulas and theories, and you apply them, solve for a few things and bam, done. The rules are the same for everything. But makeup, that’s a whole different ball game I love to play. Yeah, you have your standard tools but each face changes literally everything. You’re never gonna do the same thing twice.”

Beca sighs and runs a ringed hand through her hair. “Okay, sure. You do you, man. But this is...what I have for you is different. It’s like a whole new...face. For physics. It might change everything.”

Stacie raises an eyebrow.

“I really, really need your help on this, Stace. I think I saw something impossible and I want you to tell me if it was or not. I gotta know if my brain was playing tricks on me first before I dive into all this shit. Stacie...it involves Chloe’s safety. Please.”

“Okay,” Stacie agrees slowly. “Meet me at the pizza place in the food court at lunch and tell me what’s up.”

“Dude, thank you,” Beca squeezes Stacie’s shoulder. “Seriously.”

****

Beca relays the whole story of last night to Stacie over a few greasy slices of pizza. She doesn’t leave out a single detail, unsure what parts might be helpful to Stacie’s physics brain. Stacie listens silently throughout the entire thing.

Stacie takes a long sip of her fountain drink and then leans back in her chair. “I can’t believe Beca Mitchell just told me a fucking ghost story.”

“It’s not!” says Beca loudly and defiantly. She drops her voice to a lower volume as a young mother with a stroller throws daggers at her. “It’s not, okay? Both Chloe and I saw the same damn thing.”

“Okay, okay,” Stacie raises her hands up.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Sooo is there any science to prove any of that shit?”

Stacie carefully wipes the grease off of her fingers as she thinks. “Well, not really. There’s some theories and shit but it’s all just speculation and wishful thinking.”

“What about all those ghost shows and stuff? None of that is even a little bit accurate? Those EFGs or whatever?” Beca asks, desperate to find something concrete about all of this.

“EMFs,” corrects Stacie. “And nope. It’s all for show. EMFs are electromagnetic field detectors. The device itself is based on Maxwell’s equations and some other stuff and that’s all good and proven. Detecting both electric and magnetic charges and whatnot. But applying it to ghosts? That’s operating under the assumption that ghosts are like, sticking their corporal fingers into sockets and then running around. There’s no sound basis for it.”

Beca takes a frustrated bite of pizza. “Okay...so what you’re saying is it’s all garbage and won’t help me figure anything out.”

“Well, the EMF thing is total garbage. But you said the temperature dropped?”

“Yeah, like a ton in seconds,” says Beca. “I could see my breath. Wait, those ghost shows use temperature shit, right? Could that work?”

“The ones on all those shows typically are only for measuring surface temperature. Like, for solid stuff only. And ghosts are notoriously...not that. You’d need something that measures ambient temperature.”

“Okay,” Beca thinks, tapping her pizza crust on her plate. “Well that’s easy, right? Just like a regular thermometer then or something.”

“It sounds a lot easier than it really is. If the temp in that room really dropped as fast as you say, regular ambient temp instruments aren’t sensitive enough or fast enough to really register such a dramatic change at the drop of a hat. You’d never really pick it up,” Stacie explains, resting her arm on the back of her chair.

“So another dead end.”

There’s a spark dancing in Stacie’s eyes. “Well, I never said that . It just hasn’t been made yet.”

“Are you saying you could make something like that?” Beca asks hopefully.

“Give me some time. I think I can whip something up,” Stacie winks and stands up, pushing in her chair. “But right now, I gotta get back to work. I have an appointment in a few and I’m dying to fix this woman’s eyebrows. She’s like a solid brick of marble my Michelangelo hands can’t wait to carve into.”

****

Later that night, Chloe taps her pen nervously on her clipboard. She checks the clock for the fourth time in several minutes. 9:16pm.

“Dr. Beale and I will check up on you in the morning, Ms. Rodriguez. Try to get some sleep, okay?” says Benji with a gentle smile.

Benji steers a lost Chloe out of the patient’s room and into the hallway. He glances down the corridor before whispering to her. “Chloe, are you okay? You totally froze up in there. I- the patients really need your bubbly smile right now. You know I’m not even half as charming as you.”

“Oh, that’s not true,” Chloe insists. The two of them look at each other and simultaneously think about one incident a month ago where Benji had tried to cheer up an elderly woman with a handkerchief trick, only to have it land with a flourish in her used bedpan. “Well, okay, maybe a little. Sorry for being distracted. I’m good now.”

Benji wears a look of disbelief. “Are you sure?”

Chloe’s eyes dart to the clock again. 9:19pm. “Totally.”

Benji squints, face filled with doubt, and turns around to look at the clock as well. “Have a hot date with Beca when you get off at a nice, early 11pm?”

“What?” Chloe asks, not paying attention. I’m not in that hallway tonight, I’m good, she thinks to herself. A quiet voice persists in the back of her head, warning her that she is still on the same floor.

“You and Beca? Date?”

“Yeah, all the time,” replies Chloe blindly, taking out her phone. No messages from Beca. She bites her lip. “Benji, can you cover for me real quick? I need to make a call.”

“Sure,” Benji says slowly, his brow lined with worry. Chloe barely waits for his reply before turning on a heel, her phone already at her ear as she makes her way to the break room.

The room is empty and quiet, the only noise the screech of the chair that Chloe pulls to sit down in. She wishes Beca were here, sitting across from her like she was last night.

“Chloe? Is everything ok?” Beca’s voice comes to life on the receiver.

Chloe lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Just hearing Beca’s voice clears her mind. “Yeah, you?”

“Good, I’m glad you’re ok. I made a little bit of progress, I think? I talked to Stacie today. She says a lot of the ghost hunting instruments on tv are bullshit. But she thinks she can make something to detect quick temperature fluctuations.”

“That’s good,” Chloe says, trying to be hopeful. She frowns as her doubt seeps in despite her efforts. “Bec, maybe we shouldn’t look into this. It’s messed up.”

“I know,” replies Beca softly. “But I need to make sure that you’re safe in that place. I don’t feel right until I know that, like factually.” 

“Okay, just...be careful.”

“I will be, don’t worry. It’s you I’m worried about. You’re not in that hall, right?” 

Chloe glances at her watch and her stomach drops. 9:25pm. “No, I’m not. I’m on the same floor though.”

“Maybe you should move to a different floor. You sound a little nervous, babe,” says Beca, and the worry is so clear in her voice that Chloe can picture the little crease in her girlfriend’s brow. “It might make you feel better just to be somewhere else altogether.”

“I can’t. I need to finish a round here first, but-”

There’s a light thud of something falling in the room and Chloe knocks her chair over as she jumps to her feet.

“Babe?” Beca asks urgently.

Chloe whips her head around the room, trying unsuccessfully to find the source of the noise. There’s nothing out of place, the only sound a small drip from the coffee maker on the counter. Then the light of the vending machine flickers, barely noticeable.

“Chloe? Chloe, talk to me!”

Chloe feels like her feet have a mind of their own as she takes a few steps towards the snack machine, phone glued to her ear. The clock in the room reads 9:26.

The flickering in the machine becomes more frequent, and a bag of chips in the first position slowly pushes forward until it drops to the bottom. With her heart in her throat, Chloe tries to stammer a response to Beca.

“Chloe, what’s going on? You’re breaking up-”

The phone at Chloe’s ear starts crackling, and she shivers as the fluorescent lights overhead start blinking on and off violently. Everything in Chloe’s mind is screaming at her to run, to leave this room, but her feet betray her as she stays rooted to the spot in front of the vending machine.

There’s a small squeak as the Doritos in position A2 slowly move forward until they fall. The hair stands up on Chloe’s arms and neck as an intense cold fills the space around her, swallowing her with it.

“Chloe?” Beca repeats, but she feels so distant to Chloe in this moment, the word a mere whisper through ear piercing static.

M&Ms from B7 fall from their position as the flickering above Chloe gets faster, the cold air like a thousand icy daggers along Chloe’s skin. Cutting, biting, absolutely freezing. Chloe stares straight ahead, unable to do anything aside from see her own horrified face reflected back at her from the glass of the machine. Another minute crawls by. Chloe starts to back away from it slowly, hoping to remove herself from this unknown source of bitter air.

But then the slightest shadow of a face slowly takes over Chloe’s reflection- dark, angry sockets where eyes should be, its mouth stretched open, sickeningly, terribly wide.

Chloe reels backward, screaming and falling on her butt. Her phone skitters across the floor as she frantically tries to scoot herself backward, her normal poise completely and utterly gone, her body quivering from the chill that seems to have gotten under her skin-

And then in the blink of an eye, everything about the room is normal again. Chloe hugs herself, the drastic change in temperature too much, everything feels way too hot now. Her phone buzzes repeatedly on the floor. Chloe picks it up with a shaking hand and answers it. She notices the time on her phone. 9:29pm.

“Sweetie? Oh Chloe, thank god! Thank god, what happened? Are you okay, are you hurt? I kept asking but the line got all staticky and then I was disconnected,” Chloe can hear Beca nearly break into tears over the call.

“I’m-” Chloe tries to collect herself. “I’m okay now, I think. Bec, something just happened in the break room. Like last night.”

“What? But you’re not in that hall!”

“I’m on the same floor. Maybe...maybe it’s not isolated to that hallway like I thought. This is the first time I’ve seen anything happen outside of it though,” Chloe says, returning nervously to the vending machine.

“What happened? Did you hear the voice?” asks Beca. Chloe can hear the roar of a motorcycle engine on Beca’s end. “I’m coming over right now.”

“No, there wasn’t any voice,” Chloe brushes some of her hair behind her ear as she bends down to cautiously open the flap of the machine. The chips from A1, the Doritos from A2, the M&Ms from B7. And a bag of pretzels. Chloe straightens up and her eyes roam to the pretzel slot. A3, just as she anticipated. Her heart jumps to her throat again. It was the first thud she heard at 9:26. “But...it communicated in another way. Same thing. 3127.”

“Anything else?”

“There was a face. Kind of? Like it was barely there.”

“Shit, okay,” there’s the sound of wind whistling over the phone mixed with Beca’s voice. “I’ll be there in a few. Chloe, get the hell out of that room.”

Chloe nods, not needing to be told twice. “Happily. I’ll meet you out front.”

****

Beca parks her motorcycle haphazardly at the front of the hospital, not giving a shit about getting a ticket as she takes off her helmet and catches Chloe in her arms.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Beca murmurs into Chloe’s hair, rubbing comforting circles on her back. She can feel Chloe trembling slightly and holds her tighter. Chloe has to bend down so low to bury her face into the crook of Beca’s neck that it would probably be considered comical under different circumstances.

“Beca?” Chloe’s voice is quiet, small.

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared.”

Beca bites her lip, wanting to assure Chloe that it’s nothing, just a trick of the light. Just some fucked up prank they pull on new residents as some kind of hazing bullshit. But her mind wanders to last night, and she remembers how she was chilled to the bone, to the core. How she still closes her eyes and sees that ghost of tortured face boring into her mind. Beca knows she can’t write this off.

“I know. I’m scared too,” is what she finally says.

Chapter Text

“You don’t have to go in again if you don’t want to,” Beca says as Chloe leads her back towards the break room. The thud of Beca’s boots echo off the floor as Chloe finishes recounting everything she witnessed.

“No, it’s okay,” insists Chloe. She opens the door of the break room with a loud squeak. “I’ll be okay.”

The two of them walk in and take a look around the small room. It still appears as if nothing had happened in it aside from tired staff taking a reprieve here. Beca throws her leather jacket on one of the tables and walks over to the vending machine, examining it from all angles. Chloe notices the clock is stuck at 9:29, the second hand unmoving.

“Shit, this is heavy.”

Chloe turns around to see Beca, her shoulder wedged between the machine and the wall, attempting to push it forward.

“Let me help, don’t hurt yourself,” Chloe offers, joining Beca and pushing until it comes away from the wall about half a foot. 

Beca crouches down to look at the socket. There’s a dull gray mark around the plug of the vending machine. If it didn’t shimmer very slightly when Beca shifted her weight around to examine it, she would have written it off as dust. The longer she looks at it, the more she swears the shimmer is nearly transparent with flecks of pale blue. If her face wasn’t as close as it was, she doubts she would have seen the hint of color at all.

“Chlo, can you see this?” Beca moves over so Chloe can kneel down next to her and look at the outlet.

“Is that... glittering ?”

“You can see it too!” Beca grins, getting thrilled with the idea of a lead in spite of the circumstances. She takes out a pencil and touches the eraser to the chalky material. As she pulls it away slightly, the material becomes ropey, the thinnest tendril of the substance stretches between the eraser and the wall. Beca can’t decide if the material is clear or dusty, and it kind of reminds her of a spider web. “What the hell?”

Beca frowns in thought and puts the pencil down and reaches for the plug.

“Beca, maybe you shouldn’t-” Chloe begins, but it’s too late as Beca unplugs the machine.

“-do that,” Chloe finishes lamely. Beca shrugs an apology and holds up the plug between the two of them. The same substance is coating the entirety of the prongs of the plug. Soft, light, dancing between transparency and a dusty cobwebbed appearance.

“Chlo, take a photo. Maybe a video too, I’ll turn it in the light to get some of the blue in there. Please.”

Chloe takes a few photos at different positions with her phone. She records a video of Beca twirling the plug slowly, taking care to make sure the shimmering material is visible. Beca thanks her, plugs the machine back in, and they both push it back into place.

Beca is brushing her hands off on her jeans as the door bangs open.

“Chloe Beale, there you are!” a sharp voice exclaims.

Beca whips her head around to see a tall irritated blonde in the doorway. Shit.

“Aubrey, hey,” Chloe says with a smile. She has the decency to look a little apologetic.

“What-” Aubrey Posen begins, her nostrils flaring as her eyes find Beca. “-is she doing here? Your break has been over for twenty minutes!”

“I’m sorry, Aubrey. Beca was dropping off some coffee for me. We got talking and lost track of time. The clock in here stopped, but I should’ve picked up on that.”

Beca holds her breath as she appreciates Chloe’s smooth lie.

Aubrey looks at Chloe, to the leather jacket in a heap on the table, and to Beca’s slightly disheveled appearance from pushing an object easily four times her size. Aubrey sighs. “This is the last time I’m going to cover for you two and your...intimate relations at breaks. Please say goodbye and meet me in Hall E. We need all hands on deck there, the power went off for a few minutes. Things are back up and running but it really startled some of the patients.”

Chloe and Beca share a wide eyed look over Aubrey’s words.

“I’ll be right there,” Chloe says, plastering a smile on her face for Aubrey. Aubrey nods and leaves the room.

Beca and Chloe wait until they can’t hear Aubrey’s footsteps anymore before they turn to each other.

“Please tell me Hall E isn’t The Conjuring hallway from last night.”

Chloe grimaces in response.

“Great.”

There’s a pause as the couple looks at each other, Beca’s face lined with worry, and Chloe's slowly filling with resolve.

“Please tell me you’re not going back into said Conjuring hallway,” says Beca, taking a step towards Chloe.

“I can’t not go. People need help in there,” Chloe replies, her jaw set. Beca knows that look and sighs. She can’t change Chloe’s mind.

Beca hooks two fingers on the collar of Chloe’s scrubs and tugs gently to lower her face down for a kiss. “Please be careful. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Chloe puts on a reassuring smile. She tucks a free strand of Beca’s hair behind her ear before continuing. “I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

“And I’ll stay close in case,” says Beca. She looks up at Chloe, trying to find the right words to communicate a million different things running through her mind. Her worry, her love, her fear.

Chloe seems to understand Beca’s mixed thoughts by just reading her face, and takes Beca’s hand off of her collar and to her lips. “I’ll be fine, Bec.”

“You know that’s what the people who are gonna get offed in horror movies say,” Beca quips, but her voice shakes a little. “Plus, you’re gay and that’s like, already a strike against you generally in movies statistically speaking, not even considering the horror genre yet and-”

Chloe shushes her with a soft kiss. Beca makes the quietest noise, and Chloe can't resist kissing her again. Beca has to stop herself from clinging to Chloe and not letting her go.

“I’ll be fine,” Chloe repeats. “Our lives aren’t a movie.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I know. You don’t like most things,” Chloe says as her eyes twinkle.

“But I like you,” Beca pouts.

“Yeah, you do,” Chloe smiles warmly at her girlfriend. She kisses her forehead. “You’ll see me at eleven. I promise.”

“Okay.”

And with a final brilliant smile that flips Beca’s stomach, Chloe is gone. Beca stands in the break room alone, and can’t help but feel that Chloe took a part of herself with her. Picking up her jacket, Beca starts to leave but has a thought that stops her at the door.

“I wonder…” Beca walks back over to the vending machine and pops the flap open. She retrieves the four bags from the bin and brings them over to the table.

“Let’s see if these are some ghost pepper pretzels,” she thinks aloud as she opens the Utz bag. Beca hastily pulls her sleeve down over her hand before dumping some of the contents onto it. She takes a step under the light. Sure enough, the pretzels are covered in dusty, gray material with a glint of blue.

Excited by this newfound evidence, Beca shakes the pretzels off her sleeve and into the garbage before rushing back to the other bags and tearing them open. Each of them are lightly covered with the strange substance.

“Jackpot,” Beca whispers. She begins pouring out each snack on its own napkin, adjusting its position to highlight the odd dusty surface in the light. She’s in the middle of snapping photos from various angles when the break room door opens with a loud screech.

“Oh, hey Beca!” says Benji cheerfully.

“Shit, dude!” Beca nearly drops her phone in surprise.

“Sorry! That door is super old!” Benji apologizes and walks in to get a cup of water. Beca tries her best to block her snack piles from view.

“Whatcha doing?” Benji tries to peer around Beca.

“Nothing!” Beca says, shifting her weight to be in front of him again. She curses to herself. Be more obvious , she thinks. “It’s dumb really...sometimes I lay out snacks for Chloe so she has them all ready to go for her break. Like a gay Santa Claus type of thing.”

“Aw, that’s really sweet. What do you leave for her, maybe I could help you out sometime. Chloe’s really nice to me and helps me all the time-”

Benji moves out and forward to look at the table, and in a total act of desperation, Beca flings her hands out onto the table. In one big sweep, she sends all the snacks flying off the table and into and around the garbage can. Awkward silence fills the room and it’s only broken by a single potato chip crunching under Beca’s hand.

“Uh.”

“You know what? Now that I think about it, all of these snacks were actually expired,” Beca says, hands frozen on the table. “You should really call the snack company or like, eat all this shit faster. Expiration dates aren’t something to fuck around with. Especially like, how can you guys take care of the sick when you’re sick from rotting snacks, am I right?”

“Okay...yeah,” Benji agrees, completely baffled.

Beca is saved by Benji’s pager going off.

“Oh, I gotta go,” he says, checking the message. He looks at Beca, who hasn’t moved, unsure of how to end this bewildering conversation.

“Tell Chloe I miss her!” Beca says with a forced smile.

“Okay...see ya.”

Beca exhales as Benji leaves the room. She lifts her hand and flicks the chip pieces into the trash. There’s the tiniest tingling sensation on her hand, so she turns it over to inspect it. The shimmering gray substance is smeared across her palm.

“Shit!” Beca exclaims and books it to the sink. She turns it on and risks another glance at her hand. The traces of pale blue hit the light perfectly and the tingling intensifies. Beca’s about to wash it off when the sharpest, most precise pain she’s ever felt hits her between the eyes.

“Ow, what the fuck?” the pain rings throughout her skull like a bell, causing her to stumble backward. Beca’s lower back collides into a table, nearly knocking it over and she curses again. She clutches at her forehead, seeing stars. Barely able to see, barely able to walk through the agony, she somehow makes her way back to the sink with a crash.

As soon as she runs the cold water over her skin, the pain starts to subside. The roar of it steadily reduces to a dull throb. Beca hunches over the sink for several minutes, her mind reeling, trying to understand what just happened.

Beca washes her face and hands again, collecting herself. Her hands are shaking slightly from nerves and she stops to take a few deep breaths. “You’re fine, you’re fine.”

An idea pops into her head, and she rummages around in the break room cabinets to find what she needs.

She dials a number and shoves her phone between her ear and shoulder as she crouches down next to the fallen snacks.

“Hello?” a quiet voice answers the phone.

Beca uses a plastic spoon to transfer one of each snack into a Ziploc bag. She presses it closed, holding it up to her face as she responds.

“Hey, Lilly. I think I have something pretty interesting for you.”

****

Beca sends a quick message to Chloe, explaining where she’s going and how she won’t be far if Chloe needs her.

She makes her way out of the hospital and towards her motorcycle. The air is cool, the parking lot relatively empty and still. Beca pinches the bridge of her nose and shakes her head. It still doesn’t make any sense to her how the sharpest pain she’s ever experienced could be gone in the blink of an eye. She pushes the thought out of her mind and puts on her helmet. With a final long look at the hospital, as if to attempt to scan it for paranormal activity, Beca rides off into the night.

****

“Seriously, do not touch that shit,” Beca warns Lilly as she hands over the bag. “It gave me a travel size migraine from hell.”

Lilly brings the Ziploc bag under a lamp with a gloved hand. “Mold?”

“If it is, the spores are able to perform a light show.”

“Curious,” Lilly mumbles. She walks over to the hood of her lab and begins prepping slide samples.

Beca leans against the wall of the room as she watches Lilly work. She’s used to the soft, short, barely audible speech of her friend. What Lilly lacks in volume, she makes up for in a wealth of biochemistry and inorganic chemistry knowledge. The woman runs her own lab, leading and organizing a variety of experiments and research projects. She’s come a long way from “accidentally” setting fires off in chemistry class from their high school days.

“PPE, please,” Lilly gestures to Beca before walking over to one of the microscopes on the bench.

“Shit, sorry,” Beca apologizes and puts on a lab coat from a rack and safety glasses.

There’s a few moments of silence as Lilly snaps the slide into place and starts adjusting a few knobs of the microscope to find a proper focus.

“Anything?”

“It’s interesting.”

“Can I see?” Beca steps next to Lilly. Lilly indicates which knobs raise and lower the stage and moves aside. Beca peers through the lens and closes an eye.

There’s a scattering of thin gray lines, crisscrossing randomly across Beca’s field of vision. “It’s...kinda anticlimactic?”

“Switch the magnification,” says Lilly, and she rotates the nosepiece to a higher strength lens.

Beca peers into the eyepiece again and turns one knob a bit. “Are those little circles?”

“Yes,” Lilly answers. “Some strands of the material have them, some do not. There doesn’t appear to be any sort of pattern or structure to it.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Not necessarily,” Lilly says, crossing her arms. She looks at the slide intently like it’s a particularly formidable brain teaser. “But let me see something.”

Beca steps aside as Lilly changes something out on the microscope and looks into it again. She frowns and gently removes the slide, now spinning it slowly, observing the effect. “This is…”

“What?” Beca asks, her gaze bouncing between Lilly and the slide. The look of utter shock on her friend’s face strikes a feeling of unease in the pit of Beca’s stomach. But suddenly Lilly looks positively gleeful.

“This is impossible!”

“Why do you sound so happy saying that?”

Lilly motions for Beca to examine the material again, and Beca obliges. This time through the lens, the circles are shimmering, almost rainbow like. “Damn, what is that?”

“That isn’t the strange part. I made the light polarized this time, which enables you to see details that you usually can’t with a regular light microscope. Now keep looking as I rotate it,” Lilly explains. Beca can hear her writing energetically on a notebook before her hands go to the slide.

“Okay,” says Beca, trying to keep up. She watches as Lilly carefully spins  the slide. The refracting light continues to shimmer, the rainbow colors in the circles shifting as they change position, and then-

Beca blinks, thinking she missed something. She straightens up to look at Lilly. “Um...where did they go? The circles?”

“I have no idea! The reflected light in the material of the circular objects shift under the polarization and then...the structure disappears,” Lilly says, her face lighting up like Beca has just given her a puppy. Beca looks back into the microscope again. The dull gray lines remain, but the rainbow bubbles are completely gone. It’s like they were never there in the first place.

“And you’ve never seen anything like this before?”

Lilly shakes her head and her voice is barely audible, quivering with glee. She has the odd tendency of becoming even quieter when excited. Beca needs to lean in just to hear her. “I’d have to look into a few things. But the phenomenon is strange...it’s like it achieves a certain degree of rotation and then becomes completely transparent or vanishes. But perhaps it could leave traces, an echo of where it once was…”

Beca’s jaw tightens. “Kinda like a ghost.”

****

Beca hears keys turn in the door and hurries over just in time to see a completely worn out Chloe walk into their apartment.

“Hey, you,” Beca says with a relieved smile. “Everything ok?”

Chloe nods and starts setting her things down on the small kitchen table. “Yeah, just super tired. The last two hours were crazy busy.”

“Busy from normal stuff right?” Beca asks as she puts the plate she made for Chloe in the microwave.

“All normal stuff,” reassures Chloe. She walks down the hallway to their bedroom as she continues talking. “Any luck with Lilly?”

“Yeah, kind of?” Beca calls from the kitchen. “She confirmed that dusty crap was super weird.”

“Like, weird in what way?”

Beca can hear their dresser drawer open and Chloe rummaging around for pajamas. “Weird in a...science way? She showed me what it looked like under a microscope, and there were these bubbles-”

Chloe reappears in the kitchen as she finishes pulling on one of Beca’s old shirts. She winks at Beca, knowing full well that she loses her train of thought at the sight of Chloe in her clothes. The shirt is a bit too small and shows off a decent portion of Chloe’s toned abdomen. “What about the bubbles, babe?”

“You’re terrible.”

The microwave dings, and Beca’s grateful for the opportunity to hide her blush by retrieving Chloe’s dinner. “The substance had these bubbles in it, they were colorful until Lilly rotated the sample they eventually disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Chloe takes the plate and leans forward to kiss Beca’s cheek before sitting down.

“Yeah, Lilly’s never seen that happen before. Said she wasn’t sure if the circles vanished or became totally transparent. She was looking at me like I told her Christmas was coming early,” says Beca, sitting across from Chloe. She turns her attention to her laptop and notes on the table. “She’s gonna investigate further.”

“Find anything else out?”

“Umm,” Beca pulls up a few tabs. “I started looking into the hospital’s history. Malpractices, deaths, any potential of weird stuff.”

“Any connections to 3127?” asks Chloe as she eats.

“Not so far,” replies Beca with a sigh. “Like, I don’t know what it could even mean. It’s obviously not a year-”

“Time traveling ghosts from the year 3127,” grins Chloe.

Beca laughs. “Okay, now let’s just follow that thread a bit more, because that’s definitely what it is.”

“Oooo, you guys messed up real bad!” wails Chloe, putting down her fork to wiggle her fingers.

Beca smiles crookedly and drops her voice a dramatic octave. “We’re here to warn you from the future, climate change is super bad, it killed all of us! We wanna make sure you’re doing everything you can to stop- wait! You guys already know this and you’re not doing shit?”

“What dumbasses, we’re screwedddd,” Chloe turns the last word into a ghostly moan. The two of them burst into much needed laughter.

Still giggling, Beca looks at her laptop again. A comfortable silence falls in the room for awhile as Chloe finishes her dinner and washes her dish. Beca scribbles a few notes down before two long arms wrap around her.

“Hey, Sherlock.”

“What’s up, Watson?” Beca asks, tracing Chloe’s arm absentmindedly as she remains focused on the screen.

Chloe kisses Beca’s shoulder. “Thanks for dinner. I’m gonna head to bed now, I’m beat.”

“No problem,” Beca says. Chloe doesn’t move. “Hey, are you sure you’re ok from tonight?”

Chloe’s muscles tense up for the briefest fraction of a second. “Yeah, totally.”

“Babe.”

“Just...when are you coming to bed?”

“I’ll be there in a few,” promises Beca, kissing Chloe’s knuckles. “I’m just gonna finish reading this and then I’ll be right in.”

“Okay,” says Chloe, and Beca can feel Chloe’s reluctance to let go of her.

“You can leave the light on, yeah? If it helps,” Beca offers.

Chloe lets out a hollow laugh. “You probably think I’m a wuss.”

“What?” Beca asks incredulously, turning around to look at her girlfriend. “Of course you’re not, look at what you did tonight! And last night! Not to mention figuring out this spooktastic voice pattern in the first place. Chloe, you went through two terrifying things back to back just the past two days alone. You could have left early tonight. You didn’t. Hell, I even wanted to make you leave but you didn’t. You stayed and helped people in need. And most people wouldn’t think twice about running away. You’re amazing. And the total opposite of a wuss.”

Chloe gives Beca a shy smile and a shrug. “I’m just doing my job.”

Beca shakes her head and laughs a bit. She looks at Chloe with an intense, soft expression that nearly takes Chloe’s breath away. “It has nothing to do with your job. You’d do it anyway, job or no job. You’re just that awesome of a person.”

Chloe stares at Beca for a moment. It almost looks like she’s going to tear up before she cups Beca’s face with her hands and kisses her. Beca kisses her back, and breaks away gently. She touches Chloe’s nose with hers.

“Now get that cute butt to bed. I know you’re exhausted,” Beca mumbles, taking a moment to linger in Chloe’s soft perfume.

“I love you,” Chloe whispers, tracing Beca’s jaw gently.

“I love you too. I’ll be there before you know it,” reassures Beca. Chloe touches her forehead briefly to Beca’s before leaving.

Beca turns around and resumes skimming an article she opened. Lanes Mill Hospital, constructed in 1982, owner is Olivia Zimmerman, a wealthy business man donated money to build it, blah blah, renowned reputation, blah blah…

Beca closes her laptop and rubs her eyes. She doesn’t want to keep Chloe waiting too long, and it’s not exactly riveting material either. Yawning, Beca gets up and turns off the kitchen light.

She’s about to take a step into the hallway when a sudden, primal fear jolts through her stomach. Indescribable, totally random, and all consuming, a thought enters Beca’s mind that something is in the darkness of the kitchen with her. Something...else. Something lacking definition, or perhaps beyond explanation. Behind her. Watching. The hairs stand up on the back of Beca’s neck, sending waves of electricity down her spine, waking every cell in her body. Seconds, possibly minutes go by. Time is suddenly rendered hopelessly irrelevant, almost archaic in this kind of darkness. Something useless in the presence of this unknown. It is old. Ancient. Waiting. Beca can only comprehend that she is terrified. She forces air into her lungs, and it takes all of her willpower to fight through her paralyzation to flick the light on again. Beca whips around.

Blood pounding in her ears, she surveys the room. Nothing. Whatever it was is no longer here, and it took that overpowering feeling with it. Her heartbeat returns to normal. The sickening fear is gone so fast and so efficiently that Beca almost wonders if she imagined it. Did she?

She leaves the kitchen light on and goes to bed.

Chapter Text

Chloe finishes making her usual patient rounds the next morning, tired but feeling better than yesterday. An idea comes to her, and she changes direction to head towards Aubrey’s office. She knocks on the door.

“Come in.”

Chloe enters and gives Aubrey a smile. “Hey, Aubrey. How are you today?”

“Oh, just the usual stress,” Aubrey’s typing away on her computer. She glances briefly at Chloe. “What do you need?”

“I finished my rounds kind of early this morning, and I was wondering if I could swing by Hall E for a few minutes to check on everyone there.”

Aubrey stops typing and looks at Chloe with a raised brow. “Hall E? You’re not scheduled there. Specifically by your request.”

“Yeah, I know,” Chloe replies, smoothing her hair back. “But I keep thinking about how many patients were upset last night. I thought maybe if they saw a familiar face from yesterday checking in on them, they might be comforted and ensured that we are devoted to giving them individualized attention.”

Aubrey analyzes Chloe for a few seconds before responding. “Sure, go ahead. But know that your break isn’t going to be rescheduled for this. This is on your own time.”

“Got it. Thanks, Aubrey,” Chloe nods.

“Anything else?” Aubrey says, her attention already back at her screen.

“No...wait! Actually yes,” Chloe’s eyes widen as she remembers. “I was wondering if I could leave early next week on the 25th? It’s Beca and I’s anniversary and she made dinner reservations-”

Chloe’s sentence trails off as she sees Aubrey’s expression. She has a strong feeling she’s really pushing Aubrey’s patience.

“Listen, I’ll do anything, Aubrey. I’ll come in earlier that day, I’ll work extra hours for the rest of the week if you want.”

Chloe swears she can see Aubrey’s expression soften the slightest degree. “Fine. Write it on the calendar. We’ll adjust your schedule next week.”

“Gosh, thank you Aubrey! You’re the best, thank you!” Chloe says, unable to stop beaming.

Aubrey smiles the tiniest bit. “You’re welcome.”

Chloe thanks her again and practically skips out the door.

****

Chloe grows steadily frustrated as she visits the patients from Hall E. She’s indiscreetly brought up the night before to all of them, and none have said anything out of the ordinary. She thought that once the chaos died down, someone might feel comfortable saying something, especially because Chloe was there last night. She enters the last room in the hall.

“Mr. Bellows, how are you this morning?” Chloe asks as she sits next to the elderly man.

“Aside from being old and falling apart?” Mr. Bellows laughs hoarsely.

“Oh come on, that’s not true! I’m looking at your charts right now and you’re making huge improvements!”

“I think they pay you to say that,” he says, pointing a gnarled finger at Chloe.

Chloe puts on a patient smile. “Mr. Bellows, you know that’s not true. And remember, healing is best accompanied with a positive attitude!”

Mr. Bellows scoffs and shakes his bald head. “Don’t know what good a positive attitude is gonna do when I’m so messed up I even break the machines in this goddamn place.”

“What do you mean?” Chloe leans forward, interested.

“The stupid heart monitor broke last night. Showed crazy numbers! They replaced it late last night. I told them this damn fancy technology isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!” Mr. Bellows says animatedly.

“Crazy numbers?” Chloe asks, already standing.

“Yeah. Numbers didn’t make any sense, they said.”

Chloe diverts the topic smoothly to another subject for a few minutes, her heart starting to race. This could be something. She wishes Mr. Bellows well and leaves Hall E.

****

Shoving a granola bar into her mouth, Chloe practically speed walks to the elevator. She has about three minutes remaining on her break, and she’s going to use them to visit the electronics storage room on floor four.

Hoping that the recycling company visits the hospital towards the end of the week, Chloe unlocks the storage door and enters. She flips the switch and takes a look around the small room.

“Bingo,” she says as her eyes settle on a heart monitor resting on a box of electronics marked for recycling. Chloe pulls on gloves and picks it up.

Nervous and a little excited to see small patches of the now recognizable glimmering substance covering it, Chloe walks over to an outlet and plugs it in.

The screen blinks to life. She holds her breath as the screen boots up. The numbers on the monitor are flickering faintly, but remain stable despite not having any source to read.

The numbers for every vital are messed up, that’s for sure. But the impossibility of these being valid heart readings isn’t what Chloe is interested about. The heart rate reads 3. Below it, the blood pressure reads 12/7. And after that, the body temperature glows softly at 196.7.

“Holy crap,” Chloe whispers. She scrambles to remove a glove and starts taking photos.

****

Beca sits surrounded by her notes, laptop, and a microfiche in the Barden City Public Library. She’s been scanning newspaper articles from 1982 for several hours now.

“Ughhh I need more coffee for this shit,” Beca drags her hands down her face. It’s hard to focus on dull articles this long, with or without some creeptastic entity from last night weighing on her mind. You imagined it, Mitchell, pull yourself together, she thinks to herself. She rubs her eyes and wills herself to scan through more headlines. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to find a few old newspaper clippings about a hospital opening in the city. Healing and curing people would be a big deal, wouldn’t it? 

She takes a break from the microfiche and looks at her notes instead. Beca’s written out countless ideas of what sort of number 3127 could be- identification, room number, half of a social security number, a code, the possibilities are seemingly endless. A position on some sort of list? A patient number on a list? Patient records...are protected by HIPAA. Damn.

Beca files that thought away for the time being and returns to the microfiche. Resting her cheek in her hand, more time passes and she’s just about to give up when she sees the headline ‘New Hospital Opens, Brings Hope to Barden’ written by Robert Zimmerman.

“Zimmerman, huh?” Beca mumbles to herself. Sitting up, now feeling more awake, she double checks her notes and grins when she confirms that Olivia Zimmerman owns the hospital. “Husband? Brother? Talkin’ up your girl or sis, huh? That’s a little bit of biased reporting.”

Beca reads the full article, and is disappointed to find nothing else out of the ordinary. At least the name connection is a start. She can follow up on Robert Zimmerman. But the number 3127 remains a mystery that eats away at Beca. If it is a patient identification number or any sort of patient information, there’s no way she could have access to that. Legally.

Beca grins and dials Jesse Swanson’s number as she leaves the library.

****

“I am NOT helping you hack into hospital records, Beca!” Jesse exclaims over the phone.

“Oh, come on, Jesse,” whines Beca. “You’ve helped me hack shit before, what’s the difference?”

“The difference is that was years ago! We were dumb twenty year old kids!”

“You’re absolutely right. Now we’re dumb twenty seven year old adults,” says Beca sagely.

“Exactly! But I’m not dumb enough to-” Jesse lowers his voice. “-hack into a hospital’s mainframe or whatever you’re looking for.”

“Just a few patient records.”

Beca can practically picture Jesse leaning forward dramatically at his work desk as he stage whispers into the phone. “Just a- do you even know what you’re looking for?? There’s thousands and thousands of records floating around-”

“Stuff from 1982? A patient ID number 3127? Or maybe something else. I’ll know it when I see it,” Beca adds more vagueness than necessary just to poke at Jesse's nerves.

“Well, sorry I can’t help you,” says Jesse, sounding relieved at the thought and not the least bit sorry. “Hospitals didn’t even start keeping electronic medical records until the 90s for the most part. And there’s probably no point in entering files from the 80s into the system when there’s a million other things they’re handling.”

“Damn,” Beca curses. How did she forget that there was a time that existed without modern technology? “Wait...there’s gotta be something else. They’ve gotta store the physical copies somewhere, right? That’d be on site.”

“I guess so. If they’ve even kept them that long.”

“Aren’t they supposed to?”

“Yeah…” Jesse’s voice drifts off as he tries to predict where Beca is going with this.

“So what if you help me get in there? Dude, that would be even better. My hands are tied with all of this as an outsider. I can’t just go walking around in the hospital all willy nilly when I’m claiming to see Chloe on her break. That’s not enough time for me to look around,” says Beca. “But if I was authorized to be there…”

“Nope.”

“Jesse, come on, man. Just create a security job posting on Indeed for Lanes Mill Hospital and make sure I’m the only applicant. Hell, if you can approve me for the position too that’d make it even easier. This way you’re not doing any hacking into the hospital matrix and it’s all on me! Boom done! Like you said, a hospital already has a ton of stuff going on. Surely they’d forget that they had an ad open for a lowly security job. Who’s gonna really look into it?”

There’s silence on Jesse’s end. If Beca had to guess, he’s currently facepalming and considering his life choices. She presses further. “Isn’t coding for Microsoft getting a bit dull anyway? What do they have you doing now, making some new fonts? Dramatic Sans?”

Jesse sighs. “I’m not even coding yet, they still have me doing customer calls.”

Beca tsks and shakes her head. “All of your talent is being totally wasted, dude.”

A long pause permeates the line. “I’ll do it. But this is gonna be the last time.”

“Yes! Dude, thank you,” Beca pumps the air with her fist. “Seriously, man. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. Something weird is going on and I need to make sure Chloe is safe. And this is huge, dude. Not only will this help with the records, but I can move around freely in there without being questioned or thrown out. Really opens the doors for me. Literally and figuratively.”

Jesse groans. “Are you sure you’re not my half sister or something? You give me a headache just like the rest of my siblings.”

“That’ll be my next case,” laughs Beca. She hangs up the phone.

****

“You couldn’t have made it a little less Ghostbustery?” Beca asks, staring at the device in Stacie’s hand she just retrieved from her car. The two of them are in the mall parking lot after Stacie’s shift at Sephora.

“Oh, I very much made it this way on purpose,” grins Stacie as she shuts the trunk of her car. “It looks a little haphazardly put together right now, but it’s the fastest way I could do it.”

“Well, I’d say a few days to create a functioning instrument is pretty impressive no matter what it looks like,” says Beca. She gestures to the device. “And what it looks like is a gun with a phone on it.”

Stacie rolls her eyes and holds it out for Beca to inspect. “It’s the typical temperature gun thingy that ghost hunters use. But like, it’s actually what you need it to be now. I took one of those things, did a bit of wiring and programming work, some electric warning lights, created a live graph feed of the temperature…”

“Damn, does it do my taxes too?”

“You point it at yourself and it reduces the amount of eyeliner you wear by 60%,” Stacie quips right back.

“That is hurtful.”

“So you hold it like this,” Stacie demonstrates. “Now this screen here will tell you the ambient temperature. If the temp is stable, this light will stay green. If things start fluctuating or dropping fast, the light will turn red. Then, that kicks on this screen- yeah it’s my old phone I rigged in here- and this will start recording a nice little graph of your live temp mapping session. The reading only has a delay of 0.2 seconds, so it’s gonna pick up on sharp and sudden temperature drops that it wasn’t able to before.”

“Holy shit, dude. That’s awesome.”

“I know,” smiles Stacie. “It’ll stop recording the graph once the temp stabilizes again along with the green light turning back on. Then you can save it as a pdf.”

“Stace, thank you. Seriously,” Beca says. She checks her watch. If she books it to the hospital now, she can give this thing a test run at 9:26. “I owe you one-”

Beca grimaces as soon as the words leave her mouth.

“Make over timeee!” Stacie starts singing, her eyes sparkling with delight.

“Ugh, fuck me.”

“I’m pretty sure Chloe has that covered.”

“You’re the worst.”

****

“Hey there, do you make house calls?” Beca calls out to Chloe, who’s waiting for her outside the hospital.

“Only if you’re a lesbian private detective,” Chloe shouts back with a grin.

“Oh my god, that’s so great! That’s weirdly, specifically me!” Beca greets Chloe with a kiss, a coffee, and the quinoa salad bowl she requested.

They step inside, and Chloe shows Beca the photos she took earlier that morning. Beca lets out a low whistle.

“You didn’t touch this stuff, right?” asks Beca concerned. “I told you it kicked my ass.”

“Nope, I wore gloves,” says Chloe. “Sorry, I wanted to send this to you way earlier but we had so many emergencies this afternoon.”

“Hey, no worries,” Beca waves away Chloe’s apology. Beca looks at the photo again, blowing it up with her fingers. “Well, there’s our friendly number 3127. But that’s new, 1967. That’s easier to figure out, that’s gotta be a year.”

“Maybe 3127 is connected to that year somehow?” Chloe suggests.

“Maybe...but let’s figure that out later. I have a new toy.”

Beca whips out Stacie’s device and poses with it like she’s James Bond.

Chloe laughs. “What is that? A price checker?”

“How dare you!” Beca scoffs. “Can’t you see that this is clearly the iGhost Thermometer 3000 SE?”

“I can see that its purpose isn’t for creating catchy names,” replies Chloe with a grin. She takes it from Beca’s hand and looks it over.

“Wow, Stacie’s a genius.”

“Yeah, pretty cool right?” Beca agrees. “Can’t wait to try it out tonight.”

Chloe chews her lip and hands the device back to Beca. “I mean, do we really need to? It’s pretty clear that it’s paranormal stuff now.”

“Well...maybe, but wouldn’t you feel a little bit better if we confirmed it with the power of science?” asks Beca, waving the apparatus around a bit.

“I don’t know, maybe?”

“Chlo, I don’t know where this weird shit is taking us. I don’t like it as much as you don’t like it. But what I do know is I need you to be working somewhere safe. If something fucked up is going on, and if we can get concrete evidence that things are fucked up, we have a better chance of stopping whatever is happening. Or putting this place under proper, less spooky management. Whatever the case may be,” Beca explains. “You just started your residency here close to half a year now. You don’t wanna make waves and jeopardize what you’ve worked so hard for. So let me make the waves, okay?”

Chloe looks at her girlfriend with concern and holds Beca’s hand. “What if I’m worried about you making waves?”

“I’ll be fine,” Beca squeezes Chloe’s hand. “I’m small but unbreakable. Remember when I fell down those stairs in college? Not a scratch.”

“You were very drunk. And the mattress you were surfing on was very soft.”

“Minor details!” Beca says airily.

Chloe remains unconvinced. “Bec, that’s not a great example.”

“Maybe so,” concedes Beca. “Listen, I promise nothing is gonna happen. If anyone asks, I’m just heading to the bathroom after visiting you. At 9:26 I’ll pop into Hall E and stay right by the exit door. I’ll test out this crazy thing-” she wiggles the temp detector “-see if it works, then I’m right back out.”

“I don’t like this.”

“That’s why I’m in and out fast.”

Chloe stares at Beca and her mouth twitches upward slightly.

Beca swats at Chloe’s arm, her ears turning red. “Okay, well you can’t be too upset about it since your mind is in the effing gutter !”

The couple share a laugh to break their nerves before Chloe takes Beca by the jacket and pulls her in for a kiss.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” mumbles Chloe against Beca's lips. “Take the dumb temperature and get out of there. And just leave if something starts to happen.”

“Yes ma’am.”

****

Beca presses herself to the corner outside Hall E. She hears the door to the hall open and a nurse emerges, turns away from Beca’s location, and sets off in the opposition direction. Show time. Beca waits for a split second before darting around the corner and jams her foot in front of the Hall E door just before it closes. She slips into the corridor just as her watch ticks to 9:26.

Booting up the detector just as Stacie showed her, Beca holds it out a bit in front of her, now feeling a little foolish. She checks the screen and confirms that everything is perfectly normal. The hallway is totally void of people.

9:27.

“Come on, do ghosts not care about punctuality or what?” Beca mutters, tapping the handle of the instrument nervously.

9:28.

“Listen, if you decide to show up, I’m gonna need something a little bit more to go off of than 3127. That could be anything-” Beca’s voice catches in her throat with a croak as cold air intensifies around her. The red light of Stacie’s machine blips on, and Beca can see a red line on the screen start plummeting downward. “F-fashionably late.”

The sound of low, crescendoing hissing starts to travel down the hallway. Beca fights the urge to wrap her arms around herself, and her hand holding the device is shaking from the icy cold. The light at the end of the corridor blinks out. The next one follows suit, and the next, the hissing growing louder in volume as the light in the room fades panel by panel.

Soon the only light left in the hall is one directly over Beca. Fear grips her, but it’s nothing compared to what she had felt in her kitchen. Or what she thought she felt.

“Yeah, yeah, 3127, don’t waste your b-breath. Give me s-something to work with,” stammers Beca. The quips she uses as armor don’t quite work the same for something she can’t see. The hissing noise is all around her now, filling her ears and rattling her bones.

“ Touchhhhhh… ” a voice hisses. Or...is it multiple voices?

“W-what?” Beca’s teeth clatter together from the cold flooding her veins. She looks around, scared but curious. Then she sees it- the smallest patch of the odd, dusty, shimmery substance starts materializing on the wall to her left. When it ceases growing, it reminds Beca of the twisted shadow of a hand.

Beca raises her free hand, trembling and pale. Before her mind can comprehend anything, before her judgement kicks in, her fingers touch the shadow. A warm tingling sensation takes over her hand.

She blinks and she can no longer see. Beca stumbles backward in shock, and her hand on the wall does not come with her. She pulls her hand, desperately trying to remove it from whatever force is keeping it there, but it remains unmoving. She panics, blinking furiously, willing her vision to come back. No, no, no, no…

She hears the sound of a gurney being wheeled down the hall. Beca calls for help, her throat dry and frozen from the cold. She tries to yell a second time, vocal chords tearing from the effort. Her eyes are open but they are unseeing.

Beca leans her head against the wall and tries not to cry. The sound of the gurney is getting louder. How can this person not see her? How can they not help?

She’s about to shout again but stops herself. Beca cocks her head to the side and listens. The gurney noise...it’s too loud, and staying loud. Rattling right next to her ear. That doesn’t make any sense, it should have reached her by now...unless... she is on the gurney. But that is impossible.

Heart hammering, Beca strains her ears to listen. The gurney noise stops, and then there’s a sound of a door opening.

“We have the next one,” a male voice says. It sounds like he’s directly above Beca.

“Alright, bring her in,” a second voice. He sounds almost bored.

The sound of the gurney resumes for a few seconds and then stops again. There’s a soft clatter of something on metal.

“Name?”

“Why do we even keep track anymore? Who gives a shit.”

“I know. But it’s protocol.”

“Betty Jones.”

The sound of a quick scribble on a clipboard.

“Ok, let’s get this over with. Make it quick. I’m not staying late for these freaks.”

And then Beca is abruptly thrown back from the wall, hand no longer stuck. She reels backward and slams into the opposite wall. Her vision surges back violently and painfully, and she’s overwhelmed by the sudden rush of light and color. She somehow manages to keep a hold of Stacie’s device, which displays a green light. Stabilized.

Beca clambers to her feet, nearly falling over again in the process. She rests her back on the wall. Closing her eyes tight, Beca takes a ragged breath and opens them again. Her watch reads 9:29.

She scans the room, still blinking rapidly as her eyes adjust. Completely normal. Her eyes drift to the wall opposite her. Unblemished. Her ears hear nothing but the usual sounds of the hospital.

Still with her back on the wall, Beca halfheartedly slides herself over next to the Purell dispenser on the wall and cleans her hands of the dusty material.

“Ghost podcasts suck,” she mumbles to herself weakly.

****

Chloe straightens up after spitting her toothpaste in the sink. Her shoulders are taught with tension, and her eyes are shining when she turns to face Beca. “God, Beca, I specifically told you not to do anything stupid!”

“I didn’t mean to! Before I knew it, my hand was on the wall!” Beca says defensively. She flops onto their bed. “It was like I couldn’t control it.”

“You should have left when you saw that crap on the wall! It’s too dangerous!”

“I know, it was stupid!” Beca sits up, looking imploringly at Chloe. “But look, I got another lead, this Betty Jones, something must have happened to her!”

Chloe marches over to Beca and grips her shoulders. “I couldn’t give a shit about Betty Jones right now!”

Beca opens her mouth, but words fail her. “Chloe-”

“I don’t care about Betty Jones,” Chloe’s voice is soft, and it breaks a little as tears well up in her eyes. Her hands slide up from Beca’s shoulders to cup Beca’s cheeks. “I care about my girlfriend, Beca Mitchell.”

Beca’s hands reflexively come up to trace Chloe’s upper arms down to her elbows. “I’m sorry.”

Chloe closes her eyes for a second. “You keep talking about keeping me safe. But I want to keep you safe too. I need you safe.”

“I need you safe too,” says Beca softly. She leans into Chloe’s hands and practically melts into them. She closes her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Chloe sighs and wraps her arms around Beca tightly and doesn’t let go for a long time. “We’ll talk more about this in the morning, okay? Let’s get some sleep.”

****

Chloe falls asleep fast before Beca, as she always does. Beca can tell her girlfriend is still annoyed with her. She’s doing her signature ‘I’m irritated at you but still want to be by you’ pose- she faces away from Beca and curled on her side, five inches away, but her foot is touching Beca’s calf. Beca sighs. She knows Chloe has every right to be annoyed, neither of them know what they’re dealing with. It still doesn’t make any of it easier.

Beca falls asleep relatively easily. The episode at the hospital totally tired her out, and she falls into a dreamless sleep.

****

Beca wakes up with a jolt hours later. The very same dark, bottomless fear from the night in the kitchen is coursing through every fiber of her being. Her stomach clenches. She tries to move her arms and becomes even more petrified when she realizes she can’t.

There’s a slow, deep scraping sound emerging from down the hallway that leads to Beca and Chloe’s bedroom. Beca finds herself struggling to breathe. It feels like there’s something stuck in her throat. Or like her throat is being constricted, she’s not sure which. It’s hard to focus on anything but the noise coming from down the hall.

Beca strains her ears through the blood pounding in them to try to identify the sound. It sounded like scraping...but now is it...squelching? Scratching? Thudding? She can’t decide. Maybe it doesn’t want her to decide. Beca doesn’t like that thought.

She tries to turn her head to check on Chloe, but it’s like something is keeping Beca pressed down into the mattress. Some indescribable, heavy, dark force is sinking down on her. A primal part of her knows she cannot fight this. Cannot resist this. This is how it has always been. This is how it shall always be. It is old. Ancient.

The amorphous sound is getting louder, louder still, faster but slow all at the same time. Cruelly, the rhythm of its movement is timed with the wild thudding of Beca’s heart. It is everything and nothing. And it is coming.

Thoughts and feelings are spinning around in Beca’s mind like a cyclone. She can’t grab any thought fast enough to focus on. Beca swears whatever is coming is right outside their bedroom door. Watching. Waiting. She doesn’t know what to do.

And then Chloe shifts in bed. She scoots close to Beca, mercifully still sound asleep. Chloe wraps an arm around Beca’s waist, and it is like a spell has been broken. The heavy weight pressing down on every surface of Beca’s skin is lifted and she gasps for air. Shaking and feeling her body gain the ability to move once again, the menacing, agonizing fear instantaneously leaves Beca as if it had never existed, as does the presence at the door.

Beca stares at the ceiling. She doesn’t fall asleep again.

Chapter Text

Chloe turns her alarm off at 6am and reflexively rolls over to hug Beca before she gets up. She frowns as her arm hits nothing but cool sheets. Still sleepy and unwilling to open her eyes so early, Chloe feels around the bed blindly. Still nothing. Chloe opens her eyes and pouts at the sight of an empty bed. Beca is not a morning person, and she never leaves their bed until she has to force herself up for work.

With a yawn and a puzzled expression, Chloe gets up and opens the door to the hall.

“ Beca? ” Chloe asks incredulously.

Beca is sitting just outside their bedroom at the end of the hall, her back against the wall so she can see the entirety of the hallway. Her knees are pulled to her chest, and both her gun and Stacie’s device are by her side. There’s dark rings under her eyes. Beca looks completely exhausted, like she has been fighting to stay awake all night.

“Honey, what-” Chloe bends down in front of Beca, gently reaching for her face.

“Don’t!” Beca’s voice cracks, and she flinches away from Chloe. Her eyes are filled with panic. “Don’t...touch me. Please.”

Chloe’s face fills with worry. “Why can’t I touch you?”

“I-” Beca looks fearful and her voice shakes slightly. “I think there’s something wrong with me. I don’t know if it’s contagious or not, or what it even is. Or if there’s something wrong with our apartment. But in case it’s me, keep yourself safe and don’t touch me.”

A single tear rolls down Beca’s cheek. She hates this. She debates on what is worse, having some unexplainable illness or the thought of Chloe never touching her again. Beca knows it’s the latter.

“Baby,” Chloe’s voice is the softest it’s ever been. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Chloe-” Beca nearly chokes on the word as she fights back more tears. She’s unsuccessful as a few escape from her eyes.

Chloe reaches again for Beca’s cheek, and Beca scoots away into the corner of the hall. There’s nowhere else for her to go.

“Chloe, don’t, I can’t let whatever this is get to you, I-” Beca begs.

Chloe ignores her and cups Beca’s cheeks with both hands, using her thumbs to wipe away Beca’s tears.

“We are in this together. Where you go, I go.”

Something snaps inside of Beca. Sheer relief from Chloe’s touch, the existential dread and fear from two nights in a row, the uncertainty of what is haunting her, or all of the above send uncontrollable, racking sobs through Beca. She folds into Chloe, pressing her face into her shirt and wetting it thoroughly with her tears. Chloe holds her through it, warm and comforting.

“I’m here, I’m here,” Chloe repeats softly, rubbing slow circles on Beca’s back.

After quite some time, Beca’s shoulders stop shaking. She sits up and wipes her eyes, trying to collect herself.

“Bec, please tell me what’s going on. What happened last night, baby?” asks Chloe, her eyes full of concern. She brushes back Beca’s hair behind her ears.

Beca exhales and begins telling her everything about the darkness in the kitchen and the hall.

****

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Chloe sets down a cup of coffee in front of Beca. Beca traces her fingers lightly on Chloe’s hand in thanks before her girlfriend lets go of the cup.

The two of them decided it would be best to leave their apartment for awhile. And so, once Chloe helped Beca clean herself up, and Chloe got ready herself, they headed to the local coffee shop.

“The first night, it was over so fast I thought I had imagined it. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but this fear, this knowledge that something was there was so intense and then it was like I blinked and both that feeling and the darkness were gone,” Beca explains.

“I think we’re past the point of things making sense, babe,” Chloe says. “I believe what you’re telling me.”

“Thanks,” Beca takes a sip of her coffee and closes her eyes for a second to relish it. “And last night, it sounded like the same thing was making its way down our hallway. I don’t know how I knew, but I had that same gut feeling that it was the same...darkness. The same all consuming fear. I didn’t wake you up because I couldn’t move.”

Chloe looks worried. “How long did it last for?”

“I have no idea. Looking back on both times...it’s like it could have been anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. This is gonna sound weird- well all this shit is weird- but this darkness, it’s like...indescribable in every way. Nonconforming to literally everything. The sound kept shifting, changing constantly. Like, it sounded fast and slow at the same time. I have a feeling if I’m ever gonna see this thing, its image would keep shifting too. It’s like...rules don’t apply to it or something. Hell, maybe it existed before rules or something, I don’t know,” Beca lets out a trembling breath as she runs a ringed hand through her hair.

Chloe shudders at the thought and drinks some of her latte for comfort. She stares at her cup for a few moments, lost in thought.

“Chlo?”

“The thing is…” Chloe begins, still thinking. “Look at when this stuff happened. The first time in the kitchen, that was the same day you got a headache from that gray stuff. Last night, you touched it again. And this thing came back. Maybe whatever this...darkness is...it’s connected to that gray ectoplasm?”

“Aw man, we’re going with the Ghostbusters term?”

“Do you have a better one?”

Beca squints in thought. “Ghost snot?”

Chloe rolls her eyes but smiles a little. “Gross. I’m sure when you get some sleep you’ll think of a good one. Right now, let’s focus, Bec.”

“Right. Sorry,” Beca reaches for Chloe’s hand to play with her girlfriend’s fingers as she processes Chloe’s idea. “If this ectoplasm is connected to the darkness...do you think this darkness shows up only when I come into contact with that gray stuff?”

“Maybe,” says Chloe, tracing Beca’s palm. “Maybe this thing is coming from that substance?”

“I don’t know,” Beca replies slowly. “I mean, it’s possible. But I don’t think so. The ectoplasm and this darkness thing do not give off the same vibe at all. Both are scary shit but...the darkness is something else. I think it’s...powerful. Dangerous. The ghost snot doesn’t feel like that. In fact, I think it listened to me? When I was in Hall E last night, I was being a dumbass and saying to the ghosts that I needed some new info because 3127 wasn’t cutting it.”

Chloe raises an eyebrow briefly and looks like she’s going to ask if Beca really did taunt ghosts, thinks of course she did, and shuts her mouth.

Beca continues. “And then they did show me something else. Or made me hear something else. I think I heard a memory of some kind, from Betty Jones. Like, I was her, hearing what she heard. There were at least two men in this room, and they said that she was next. They sounded like real assholes. Something really bad happened, I can feel it. What if this gray shit is trying to tell me something? And I need to put together the pieces and figure it out. And the darkness-”

“-is trying to scare you off before you do. A warning,” finishes Chloe.

****

Beca arrives at the hospital later that morning, only surviving on three cups of coffee and a bagel. This isn’t the best first impression she’s made on the first day of a job, but it’s a job that was quite literally made for her, so she’s not too concerned.

“Hey Jessica,” says Beca as she walks into the hospital and to the front desk.

“Hey Beca,” replies Jessica. “You know the drill. You have to wait here until Chloe comes down for a visit.”

“I’m actually not here for a visit. I’m here for work.”

Jessica raises an eyebrow. “You?”

“The fact that you look so surprised wounds me, Jess,” Beca says. She waves her Indeed job confirmation that Jesse had emailed her last night. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to be a surgeon or anything. I was just hired for a security position here.”

“We had a position open? I totally forgot, it feels like I can’t keep track anymore especially with temps and stuff…” Jessica trails off as she searches on her computer with a few clicks. “Huh. Yeah, here it is. Ok, just go to HR down the hall and they’ll set you up with everything.”

“Jess, you’re the best. Thanks, dude,” grins Beca, amazed at how smoothly this is going. She turns and heads down the hall.

“Beca?”

Shit. Beca stops so abruptly her boots squeak on the floor. Well, so much for that. She puts on a neutral expression and turns around. “Yeah?”

Jessica leans forward conspiratorially. “The best place for a quick hookup is the second floor utility closet. It used to be the old break room, so it’s pretty roomy.”

“Chloe and I appreciate your fountain of naughty, useful knowledge, Jess,” Beca gives her a crooked grin in both amusement and relief. She resumes her walk to HR.

****

Beca masterfully talks circles around Human Resources without them even prodding into who approved Beca’s application. She can’t believe her luck when HR confides in her that one of the security guards broke his leg a few days ago and they were currently short staffed, so the timing couldn’t have been better. Beca’s never been so happy about a failed keg stand in her life, poor Greg. His sacrifice will not be made in vain. Beca’s smooth talking becomes infinitely easier, and it helps that everyone already knows her from being Chloe’s date to every social event.

In barely fifteen minutes, Beca’s walking out of the office with a few new uniforms and the week’s first schedule in hand.

“Time to scope the ghostly shit out of this place,” Beca mutters, amusing herself by flicking on a pair of aviators. After spending the morning with Chloe and completing a con well done, she’s feeling more like herself by the minute.

****

Chloe can’t stop thinking about hers and Beca’s realization when she arrives at work later that morning. As much as Chloe doesn’t want Beca looking into this anymore, her gut tells her that Beca is right, and whatever is going on needs to be stopped. Something very wrong had happened here, and by the looks of things, it has gone completely untouched. Buried, even.

Tapping her pen in thought, Chloe’s mind travels to Hall E and the mystery it holds instead of her next patient summary. Both Beca and Chloe had settled on two conditions in order for them to continue their investigation over breakfast that morning. First, no more touching any ectoplasm. Chloe had reminded Beca that she’s solved countless cases without help from the paranormal, so she can do the same with this one. Plus, if touching it led to this terrible darkness visiting her at night, it’s best to sever ties with it all together. Second, no more being on the same floor as Hall E after 9pm. Chloe hopes their hypothesis that whatever spookiness residing there is localized to that floor alone.

Hall E...Chloe wonders if the ghosts have left any other cryptic message behind last night. She finally got some new information from the heart monitor. What if there’s another failed instrument somewhere with their next clue? The monitor yesterday was almost thrown out before she could get to it. If there is anything new, the window of opportunity is narrow and closing.

With the worry of missing something important weighing on her mind, Chloe uses her morning break to visit Hall E.

****

Chloe pushes through the Hall E doors and immediately looks at both walls. No gray substance. Her shoulders shudder slightly at the thought of Beca standing right here last night, alone and scared. Unseeing. Chloe takes a breath to reset herself. She makes her way down the corridor, looking for anything out of place or missing. Nothing.

Knowing she can’t disguise questions as easily without the cover of a power outage, Chloe visits each patient briefly and politely. Everyone seems normal.

Slightly disappointed, Chloe pokes her head into the last room of the hall. “Good morning, Mr. Bellows!”

The next part of her greeting stops in her throat as she frowns at an empty hospital bed. Chloe steps into the room, looking for any evidence that Mr. Bellows still resided here. It’s almost as if he was never there.

Chloe walks out of the room to one of the stationed nurses at the desk.

“Hey there…” Chloe squints at the nurse’s badge. Amanda Sterling. “Amanda?”

Amanda’s eyes flick up to Chloe’s face from a chart she’s reading. She looks bored and slightly annoyed. “Yeah?”

“Hi, I’m Chloe,” Chloe begins. “When there was that power outage the other day, I swung by to visit everyone here. Just wanted to do a final pass through today to make sure everyone is happy. Well, you know Mr. Bellows is always his usual grumpy self and can be a little difficult. I know he’s picky about things so I wanted to be sure to check up on him, but I noticed his room is empty. Was he transferred to a different wing?”

Amanda now looks more annoyed that Chloe’s question had so much build up. “Nope. He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yep. Discharged last night.”

“Discharged? But he was still being monitored-”

“Yeah, but when you can’t afford to be here anymore, you can’t be here anymore. It’s sad, but it’s the truth of things. A business is a business. I need to get back to work, excuse me.”

And without a change in expression or backwards glance at Chloe, Amanda takes her chart and leaves the hall.

“Bullshit,” Chloe mumbles at Amanda’s retreating form.

Chloe waits until there’s no sign of Amanda or any nurses before stepping into the cubicle. As quietly and quickly as she can, she shuffles through forms before finding a folder with recent discharges. Chloe glances at the hall one last time before turning her attention to the folder.

She only has to flip through a couple forms to find Bellows, Harold. Chloe’s eyes scan the page and widen at the signature at the bottom. Olivia Zimmerman. What is the owner of the hospital doing signing release forms?

Chloe goes through the remaining discharges, checking the signatures. All by doctors on this floor. None by Zimmerman, except for Bellows.

Knowing she’s absolutely not allowed to, and shouldn’t under any circumstances, Chloe takes a photo of the release form. She has a strong feeling that it won’t be easily accessible much longer.

Chloe leaves Hall E, her stomach in knots over Harold Bellows.

****

Later that night, Chloe fills both Beca and Jesse in about the release form over some take out. Jesse is kind enough to let the two of them stay for a few nights at his place on an air mattress in the living room. Beca had tried to tell Chloe that she had no problem staying at their apartment, but Chloe had caught her lip trembling, and so a call to Jesse had been made.

“Do you know much about this Zimmerman chick?” Beca says before shoving more fried rice in her mouth.

“No,” Chloe shakes her head. “I mean, I’ve seen her a few times but that’s it. Older, graying red hair pulled back. Tall. I’ve only ever seen her walking the hallways. I don’t even know where her office is.”

Beca chews thoughtfully. “You know...I did a quick scope of all the floors today and I didn’t see her office either. Does she even need an office if she’s just the owner?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s possible,” Chloe says, poking at her moo goo gai pan.

“When I was looking up the hospital’s history, she was only ever mentioned as the owner and that’s pretty much it. Used to be a doctor, I think. But that article was written by her husband or brother, Robert Zimmerman. I thought that was weird.”

“Like he wants to brag about her or make sure it’s written exactly how she wants,” adds Jesse.

Beca points a fork at him. “Exactly.”

“If she doesn’t have an office, and isn’t a currently practicing doctor, what is she doing signing release forms?” asks Chloe. “All of the other doctors signed the others.”

“Can you look at Bellows’s file tomorrow?” Beca offers Chloe a bite of rice. “See if he’s home? Or if he has any relatives we can check on?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Cool. I guess my next question is...has Zimmerman signed off on release forms before? And why? Is it just because the other doctors are busy or could there be another reason?” Beca asks, and the question hangs in the air. Then Beca and Chloe turn their heads nearly simultaneously to Jesse.

“What?” he says defensively, setting down his plate.

“Chloe, if only there was a way to look through hundreds, if not thousands of release forms in mere seconds,” Beca says, pouting.

“I know, Bec. Imagine how fast we could find this really important, time sensitive material,” Chloe agrees, joining in on the pout.

“God, stop! The two of your pouts are like, deadly!” Jesse exclaims. “Did you guys really just come here to ask me this? Butter me up with some good food and company?”

“No, actually,” says Beca with a grin. “But it is wildly convenient.”

Jesse sighs in defeat. “ This time is the last time. You’re both assholes who deserve each other.”

“We love you, Jesse,” sings Chloe.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

“So it’s settled. You and Jesse are on Bellows and Zimmerman duty,” Beca says. “And I’m gonna continue on my main quest line with my good good friend 3127. And Betty Jones is my new side quest.”

****

Beca and Chloe get ready for bed later that night before squeezing onto the air mattress together. After getting settled, they face each other.

“Now you have no choice but to cuddle with me,” says Beca victoriously.

“Ha ha, like that’s any different than every night,” smiles Chloe. She pulls a blanket around them both.

“Oh really? I got the classic Beale Shunned Foot Contact cuddle last night,” Beca tries to joke back but her voice falters. “I’m sorry. You had every right to be upset.”

Chloe’s face softens and she gently brushes Beca’s hair back behind her ear. “You did touch a bunch of ghost snot instead of doing what we talked about.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. What matters is that you’re safe.”

“I need you safe too.”

There’s a slight pause as the two of them look at each other. Beca reaches for Chloe’s hand, and Chloe laces their fingers together.

“We figure this out, we stop this. Then we go on a super long vacation. Where there’s like, sun. And no creepy hospitals,” says Beca.

“Sounds like a plan,” replies Chloe as she leans in to kiss Beca. Beca sighs into the kiss and gently grabs fistfuls of Chloe’s shirt, and Chloe kisses her deeper. They break apart, Beca keeping her hold on Chloe.

“You wanna leave the light on?” mumbles Chloe softly. She can feel Beca’s grip tighten briefly.

“I-” Beca chews her lip. “Is it lame if I say yes?”

“Definitely not lame.”

Beca takes a deep breath to try to calm herself. Chloe runs her hands over Beca’s, tracing her knuckles until Beca’s grip finally relaxes.

“I don’t know if this thing is gonna come back,” Beca says quietly. “And I- I can’t let this thing hurt you.”

“Baby, it won’t come back. And besides, I’ve got you protecting me, yeah?” Chloe says with an encouraging smile. “And I’m protecting you. You’re safe.”

“I’m protecting you,” Beca repeats, convincing herself. She squeezes Chloe’s hand.

“And I’m protecting you,” Chloe finishes, closing the gap between them to kiss Beca gently. She pulls Beca closer to her, and Beca instinctively buries her face into Chloe’s chest. Chloe traces soft lines up and down Beca’s back, giving Beca a rhythm to slow her breath to. “Close your eyes, babe. Get some sleep.”

Beca nods, and intertwines their legs before closing her eyes. She focuses on listening to Chloe’s slow, steady heartbeat until she falls into a mercifully sound and uninterrupted sleep.

Chapter Text

Beca wakes up the next morning, feeling Chloe’s fingers running through her hair. 

“Mm hey,” Beca mumbles groggily. She opens her eyes unwillingly and scoots closer to Chloe. 

“Hey,” Chloe has herself propped up on her elbow, looking down at Beca. “Sleep ok?”

“Yeah, actually,” Beca says, surprised. Her hand slides under Chloe’s shirt to trace the warm skin beneath. Chloe hums briefly, leaning into her girlfriend’s touch. “Guess your theory was right about touching ectoplasm. No night terrors.”

“I didn’t go through eight years of school for nothing, then,” smiles Chloe.

“Yup, this is the only helpful thing that has come out of your education. Just the one,” Beca teases sleepily, pulling Chloe closer. “What about you? Sleep?”

“You know I always sleep like a rock.”

“Because you’re saving people every day like a superhero.”

“Shh,” Chloe says, leaning down and biting Beca’s lower lip, tugging her in gently for a slow, sleepy kiss. Beca slides her hands into Chloe’s hair, her fingers burying themselves in the soft red waves as she kisses Chloe back.

Chloe gently breaks away, and Beca’s fingers slide down Chloe’s cheek to her jaw, until Beca’s thumb finds Chloe’s bottom lip and traces it softly.

“You know, I’m gonna get all Hallmark cheesy for a second and say you have no right to be this flawless two seconds after waking up,” Beca says, scanning Chloe’s face with a soft expression. “Ms. Beale, what’s your secret?”

Beca removes her hand from Chloe’s lips and pretends like she’s holding a microphone up for Chloe to speak into.

“Well, Vanity Fair,” Chloe begins, playing along. She taps Beca’s fist as if to check that the mic is working. “I wanna say it’s because I wake up next to the most amazing girlfriend.”

“Fascinating,” Beca replies. “Tell us more about this hot, stunning girlfriend of yours-”

“But really it’s because I have the best skincare routine-”

Beca’s eyes widen and she looks playfully shocked, but a big smirk is trying to twitch through her expression. “Woooooooow.”

“It’s really from this excellent mask I use-”

Chloe starts laughing, and Beca moves on top of her, acting offended as she scatters kisses across Chloe’s neck and shoulders.

“Can your stupid mask do this?” 

“Beca!”

“Exfoliate this, Biore!”

Chloe’s squirming underneath Beca, giggling uncontrollably as Beca kisses all of her ticklish spots she knows so well in between laughing maniacally. Chloe finally manages to collect herself long enough to flip them over, get Beca under her and pin her hands to the air mattress.

“You’re not allowed to use those anymore,” Chloe smiles, her words still slightly breathless from laughing.

Beca grins wickedly up at her, tracing a finger gently on Chloe’s hand. “Then don’t let me use them.”

A flame lights in Chloe’s eyes, and she leans down to kiss Beca deeply. Beca responds with equal enthusiasm, rolling her hips up to meet Chloe’s. The action draws a moan from Chloe that’s muffled against Beca’s mouth.

“Please don’t have sex in my living room,” begs a voice not too far away.

Beca regrettably breaks away from Chloe enough to see Jesse, covering his eyes at the entrance to the room.

“Only because you said please,” replies Chloe, in a tone where both Beca and Jesse aren’t entirely sure if she’s kidding or not. 

“Thank god,” says Jesse with a breath of relief. He walks through the living room and into his small kitchen to start making coffee.

Chloe kisses Beca on the forehead before getting up and collecting her scrubs for the day. “I’ll shower first?”

Beca sits up and brushes her messy hair from her face. “Why not together? I know you get a knot in your shoulder when we don’t sleep at home. I can massage it for you while the hot water hits it. It’ll help.”

The warmest smile spreads across Chloe’s face in response. Beca’s sure she’s never seen a more beautiful sight in her entire life.

****

Chloe finds herself in high spirits at work that morning, despite all of the unexplainable events surrounding her. She feels so much relief that Beca managed to get some uninterrupted sleep. Seeing her girlfriend yesterday morning, totally terrified and curled up in their hallway worried Chloe to her core. Things will be different now, she reassures herself. She believes it for most of the morning, until she has some time to pull up Harold Bellows’s file.

A part of her is surprised it’s still in the hospital database. Chloe bites her lip and tries to shake the feeling. It becomes particularly difficult to do so when she sees what little information is available on the file.

Harold Bellows, seventy four years old. He was feeling unwell, drove himself to the hospital and made it just in time before having a heart attack. Complications afterward caused him to stay with Lanes Mill Hospital for one month before being discharged by Olivia Zimmerman. No emergency contacts. No known relatives listed.

Chloe isn’t shocked in the slightest. Bellows was a stubborn, lone wolf sort of man. It makes sense but it also causes everything to be significantly more complicated. With a heavy heart, she copies his home address into her phone and closes the file.

****

Beca is in the hospital break room eating lunch when a call cuts through the music she’s blaring in her earbuds. She sits up abruptly when she sees Stacie’s name on the screen and swipes to answer.

“Did you look at the graph I sent you the other day?” Beca asks Stacie excitedly, barely finishing her mouthful of food before speaking.

“Yeah, definitely,” Stacie replies. “Hi, by the way. I’ll get right to the point and say I think you’ve got something interesting here, Bec.”

Beca sets her fork down and finishes chewing. “Shit, really? Mind breaking it down for me?”

“Not at all. So you remember what it looks like, right?” Stacie begins.

“Yeah kind of, but I was pretty terrified at the time. Let me pull it up again and look at it with a fresh mind.”

Stacie waits as Beca goes to her email and opens the image.

“Okay, got it.”

“So if you look at the graph in parts, it can be easily rationalized. When you look at it collectively without context, it’s a bit weird but still explainable. But when you know that it’s a graph of temperature over two minutes, it makes no fucking sense,” Stacie explains.

“Uh, okay,” Beca says, her mind starting to race.

“Look at the first part of the graph.”

Beca obliges, playing around with the size of the image a bit. “Yeah, this is the temp drop.”

“Exactly,” Stacie says, and Beca swears she nearly sounds excited over a subject that has bored her for years. “And that shit is dropping fast. Fast, but smooth. Which is weird. Usually temp stuff is all typical line graphs, but with this I can actually fit an exponential decay function to it. It slopes down freaking fast, and yet somehow it holds a curved sharp decline. You go from 70 to 20 degrees in a matter of ten seconds. And then five seconds later it drops to 10 degrees and doesn’t go any lower.”

“Well it’s good to know that my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me and the temperature was actually like how it feels to chew 5 Gum, I guess.”

“Yeah it’s definitely not in your head, Bec. It stays at ten degrees until near the end of the two minutes. Then it shoots back up to 70 like nearly instantly. And it’s still sharply curved as it shoots up, like some spot on winged eyeliner.”

“Damn. That’s exactly what it felt like in the hall that night.”

“And the physics is backing you up,” Stacie confirms.

Beca lets out a low whistle. “Have you seen something like this before with ambient temperature changes?”

Stacie laughs. “Oh hell no. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Gradual temp maps over months, or days even? Yeah. But in the span of two minutes? No way. I wouldn’t have even thought it was possible. Especially this smooth.”

Beca’s lunch holds no interest to her now as she leans back in her chair.

“What the hell does this mean?” Beca wonders aloud. She absentmindedly plays with her retractable security ID holder several times, trying to wrap her head around this information.

“It means you’re right. This is a completely new face for physics. And it has a complexion that we don’t have a color shade for. I’ll see if I can find anything else out. I’ll try talking to Lilly,” Stacie says. Beca hears a scribbling sound on the line as Stacie writes something down.

“Okay. Hey, maybe you owe me one now. Reigniting your interest in physics and all,” grins Beca.

“How about I call off the makeover and we say we’re even?” offers Stacie.

“Fair enough. Talk to you soon, Stace,” Beca says and hangs up. Silence fills the room as the weight of this confirmation fully hits her. She bites a nail in thought, not entirely sure if she likes being proven right on this account.

****

“He has no relatives, no nothing?” Beca asks from Jesse’s kitchen table later that night. She has her laptop open with several public databases she's been combing through for her Betty Jones search. She has the feeling she is finally getting somewhere, but she sidelines it for now. Chloe has just relayed her findings of the day regarding Harold Bellows.

“Absolutely nothing,” repeats Chloe, taking the chicken out of the oven. She had offered to cook dinner tonight for Beca and Jesse, since Jesse had refused payment of any kind for letting them stay for a few days. It’s the least she could do, she had insisted.

“That’s...not great,” Beca replies, stating the obvious. 

“It’s good if you don’t want anybody looking for him,” Jesse says.

Chloe makes a reluctant noise of agreement. She doesn’t like thinking about the fact that her place of employment- where healing and hope should be at the forefront of everyone’s intentions, could be the source of something much more sinister.

Beca looks at her girlfriend’s face and reads her immediately. She offers some reassurance instead. “Or...he could just be home. You said he keeps to himself, he could have just booked it back to his house without a word.”

Jesse throws a doubtful look at Beca. She kicks his leg under the table. 

“Ow, um yeah that could be true,” agrees Jesse bitterly, rubbing his shin.

“Maybe,” says Chloe quietly, wanting to believe their words.

“You have his address now babe. We’ll swing by this weekend and get to the bottom of it,” Beca says. She finds Chloe’s eyes and holds her gaze until her girlfriend’s face softens a bit.

“Thanks, Bec.”

The room falls quiet, all three in deep thought. Chloe serves them all generous helpings of chicken with a mix of roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes. The meal is absolutely delicious, and Jesse mimes bowing down to Chloe, which makes her laugh. Beca smiles, happy to see the tension leave Chloe’s frame. The stress all together manages to leave the apartment as the dinner continues, washed away by the love of good friends and the comfort of a home cooked meal.

****

Beca and Chloe lay together on Jesse’s air mattress later in the evening, full from dinner and content in each other’s arms. Chloe’s head is resting on Beca’s chest as Beca traces circles on her back.

Beca feels Chloe’s breathing slow and she smiles to herself, knowing her girlfriend is seconds away from falling fast asleep. Chloe’s fallen asleep like this countless times- her arm loosely around Beca, her leg pressed lazily between her girlfriend’s. Countless times, but Beca’s heart swells against her chest like the feeling is brand new again.

Fingertips grazing Chloe's shoulders, Beca lets her mind wander yet again to the mystery enveloping them. Betty Jones is the predominant focus of Beca’s thoughts. Her recent findings of the day buzz through her, making her heart race. The feeling of progress in the case exhilarates her, and if she was more selfish she’d wake up Chloe right now and tell her what she found. But there’s no sense in doing so unless it leads to something more substantial. It’s nothing that demands discussion right now.

Since no further headway can be made on the matter until tomorrow, Beca replays what she heard at the hospital the other night over and over again. Beca knows with absolute certainty that something terrible had happened to Betty that night. But did she die that night? Or was it later on? How many others had gone through the same thing Betty did? 

“Stop thinking, babe,” mumbles Chloe in a low sleepy voice.

“Don’t tell me what to do, lady,” quips Beca softly. She runs her fingers through Chloe’s hair. “Get some sleep.”

“You get some sleep,” retorts Chloe with a pout Beca can feel against her chest. “You’re the sleep deprived one.”

“That’s my default status anyway. Why change it now?”

“What are you thinking about?” asks Chloe, tiredly running fingers across Beca’s ribs one by one.

“Betty Jones,” begins Beca. “The way those people were talking in that room, she can’t have been the only one who went through something terrible.”

Chloe nods against Beca’s chest. She listens to her girlfriend’s heartbeat for a few moments. “You found something, didn’t you?”

Beca furrows a brow and gives Chloe a squeeze. “How do you know?”

“Your heart is beating fast,” responds Chloe, giving Beca’s chest a kiss. “And earlier you looked like a kid in a candy store at your laptop.”

“I can’t sneak anything by you.”

“And you shouldn’t dare try.”

Beca laughs. “So you wanna know?”

“Duh,” says Chloe, snuggling closer to her girlfriend.

“Today Jesse told me she’s not in the hospital’s electronic database, so that means she was a patient at the hospital before the 90s. I ran through a few of my own databases when I got home and couldn’t find a Betty Jones in the city of Barden at all. I checked from the 1980s onward and nada. So I don’t think Betty Jones was ever officially admitted to Lanes Mill Hospital.”

“So she was there but they didn’t keep a record of it?”

“That was a possibility I thought at first too,” Beca admits. “But then I got the idea to check another date. 1967.”

Chloe props herself up on an elbow now, suddenly more awake. “The year from the heart monitor.”

“You got it,” Beca replies, winking at her. “And I found something.”

“Hit me, Sherlock.”

“I found an obituary. Betty Jones died in 1967. She was twenty three years old.”

Chloe looks at Beca in stunned silence. “But...the hospital wasn’t built then. It was built in 1982.”

“I know,” Beca holds Chloe’s waist, unable to contain her excitement about this development any longer. 

“What does this mean?” Chloe whispers, resting her hand to cover Beca’s. “You told me it sounded like they were going to perform an operation on her or something. But the hospital wasn’t built yet.”

“I know,” Beca repeats, squeezing Chloe’s waist. “I have no idea what it means. But we’re getting somewhere. There was a list of surviving relatives at the end of the obituary. I’m gonna start seeing which of them I can contact tomorrow.”

Chloe holds Beca’s face with her gaze for a few moments. “You’re amazing.”

Beca begins to brush the compliment off, but Chloe cups her cheek with her hand. 

“Babe, seriously,” says Chloe. She’s looking at Beca with a mixture of love and admiration. “You’re so smart it blows my mind. If anyone is going to figure this out, it’s you.”

“Thanks, Chlo,” replies Beca softly. “I hope so.”

“I know so,” states Chloe. She leans down and kisses Beca to reassure her. “Why didn’t you bring this up earlier?”

“You were worried about Bellows. I wanted to make sure you felt better first,” Beca says, kissing Chloe’s jaw. 

“God, smart and thoughtful. How did I get so lucky?” smiles Chloe, rubbing her thumb across Beca’s skin.

“I ask myself the same question all the time about you, babe.”

****

Grateful that she has an afternoon shift the next day, Beca spends her free time researching the names of Betty Jones’s surviving relatives and making a rough family tree from the information she can find on databases and some digging online. There’s quite a few dead ends for a variety of reasons. Some relatives have passed away already, and others don’t have enough information for Beca to follow through on. Once she has everything organized to her liking, she starts calling and emailing her way down the list of the available Jones relatives. No answers. And there’s no returned calls or messages as the morning drags on either.

Beca types in the last number she hasn’t tried yet, belonging to Denise Jones. Despite it being her last hope, she’s not expecting anything at all. Denise is one of the relatives that she was barely able to find a phone number for. So it’s a complete surprise when a raspy voice answers the call.

“What do you want?”

Beca’s almost too astounded to reply. She sits up abruptly. “Uh, hi.”

“I’m gonna hang up if you don’t start telling me why you called this number.”

“No, no please!” Beca says, standing up so fast she nearly knocks her chair over. “Sorry, I’m Beca Mitchell. I’m a private detective working on a case, and I think your late aunt Betty Jones was a victim in it.”

There’s a long silence on the other line. For a second Beca thinks she missed Denise hang up the phone.

“I didn’t even know my aunt. She died before I was born,” Denise says, followed by a long smoker’s cough. “Goodbye-”

“Wait! Please!” exclaims Beca, determined not to let this lead slip away. Desperation coats her voice as she continues to speak. “This isn’t just any case. Please...my girlfriend works at Lanes Mill Hospital and I’m worried about her safety. Something bad happened there. Please, anything you can tell me would mean the world to me-”

“I’m sorry about your girlfriend,” Denise replies, cutting Beca off. “It’s best that she just goes and works somewhere else.”

“Please-” Beca says imploringly. She’s halfway through trying a less crazed approach to her persuasion efforts when she hears the phone disconnect. Beca dials the number again but there’s no answer.

“Goddammit!” Beca shouts in the empty apartment, throwing her phone angrily onto Jesse’s couch. She leaves it there until she has to go to work, frustrated that the call went so poorly.

****

The rest of the week goes by surprisingly normally for Beca and Chloe. Beca, irritated by her dead end in the form of Denise Jones, turns her attention back to the number 3127. She dedicates her free time to learning the layout of the hospital and the ebb and flow of the security guard shift rotations. Her timing between shifts will have to be near perfect in order for her to slip unnoticed into the storage room containing old paper based patient records. If 3127 is a patient identification number, she would find it there. Beca feels less confident about getting results from this idea than she did about the Jones relatives, but it’s something and she’s determined to keep moving forward. Chloe spends the rest of her week subtly entering Hall E during her morning breaks, hoping to catch anything out of the ordinary before it disappears, but comes up empty. Without their lives being interrupted by anything the least bit paranormal, the couple decide unanimously that it’s safe to return to their apartment by the weekend.

The majority of the weekend passes by in a mercifully standard fashion as well, until Sunday arrives. Beca can tell Chloe wakes up that morning with her a knot in her stomach. She suggests brunch at Chloe’s favorite diner to ease her mind before their trip, which Chloe gratefully accepts. 

Their drive to the outskirts of Barden is filled with a slightly uneasy silence, the uncertainty of what the two of them will find weighing on the two women. Beca keeps her hand on Chloe’s arm, tracing it occasionally to calm her girlfriend down whenever Beca notices her jaw start to clench too tightly.

They finally reach their destination, and Chloe pulls her car over to park in front of the house.

Beca gets out and leans against the car briefly, taking in the residence of Mr. Bellows. It’s small, and its size is almost highlighted by the presence of two giant, newer houses built on either side. The lawn is becoming overrun, and the slight breeze sends ripples along the long blades of grass. As Beca analyzes the house and files the details in her mind, Chloe walks around the car and joins her, their shoulders brushing. Chloe lets Beca work in peace for a few minutes before speaking up.

“You wanna knock?” says Chloe, with the faintest crease in her brow that only Beca would pick up on.

“Nah, I think you should,” Beca nods to the door. “I think he’d respond better to you. You make even the grumpiest people warm up. I’m totally not speaking from experience or anything.”

Chloe smiles at her girlfriend before her face falls again. She studies Beca’s expression. “You don’t think he’s in there, do you?”

Beca bites her lip for a second before settling on telling the truth. “No, I don’t. But I could be wrong.”

“You’re usually never wrong with this stuff.”

“I have a failing business, Chlo. I can’t get too cocky.”

Beca almost waits for Chloe to raise a flirty eyebrow, or to smile, but she doesn’t. It’s proof of what Beca was suspecting- Chloe’s very worried. Beca squeezes her girlfriend’s hand.

“You got this. I’m right here, I’m just gonna check out his mail,” Beca says, walking towards an old metal mailbox on the street.

Chloe walks up the simple stone path to the front steps and rings the doorbell. The sounds of the city are so far away out here, so much so that Chloe can hear the doorbell echo inside of the house. She waits with bated breath. The door does not open. She rings it again.

“Anything?” Beca calls out from the curb. She’s flipping through a stack of mail.

“No,” Chloe says, a sinking feeling in her stomach. She knocks on the door hard, trying not to make it sound desperate. If he’s not here…

“There’s a decent amount of mail here, but not like a huge stack of it. But he also strikes me as the kind of dude that wouldn’t give his address out to people,” Beca says, returning Mr. Bellows’s mail and closing it with a screech.

“Yeah,” Chloe agrees, her worry tainting the word.

Beca joins Chloe at the front door. After guiding Chloe to the side, Beca twists the door knob and pushes. Locked. 

Beca walks across the lawn to the small garage nestled by the side of the house. She stands up on her toes to peer into its slightly grimy windows. An assortment of old tools and workshop items litter the floor and walls, but there’s no car inside. She makes her way back to Chloe.

“He could just be out somewhere, babe. I mean, his car is gone.”

“Yeah maybe,” Chloe says distractedly. She knocks on the door again, louder. No response.

“This is kind of an off the wall question, but do you know what kind of car he has?” Beca asks, partially because she could look for it and partially because she wants to distract Chloe from the inevitable conclusion that Harold Bellows is not here.

“God, I actually do,” Chloe turns to look at Beca and rolls her eyes with a smile. “He’d go on and on about his baby blue 1964 Ford Thunderbird. He never shut up about that car. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had pictures of it in his wallet.”

“Oh boy, that kind of dude, huh?” Beca grins crookedly back at her girlfriend, relieved to see her smile again. “Gollum could just be taking his precious to get washed right now, it’s been a month.”

Chloe laughs again but the light in her eyes doesn’t last too long. “I really hope he is. Or he’s just out at the store right now.”

“Tell me more about him,” Beca says, getting one last idea before starting to scan the unkempt lawn. “Did he like reading the Sunday paper?”

“Of course,” replies Chloe. “He was a stereotypical elderly guy in that way. He loved doing the crossword.”

“So if he came home, he would have picked up the papers he missed?”

“Definitely.”

Beca walks along the yard, a sense of dread starting to crawl under her skin. She unfortunately finds exactly what she’s looking for, and picks them up one at a time. Four weathered Sunday papers. They feel like lead in her hands. A fresh one from this morning is resting a few feet away from Beca. She double checks the dates on each before showing them to Chloe.

“All from last month,” says Beca quietly. “I’m so sorry baby.”

Chloe looks at the newspapers, her eyes starting to get watery. The sight tears at Beca’s heart, and she tosses the papers aside to wrap Chloe in her arms.

“If- if he was released, and he’s never gone home...where is he?” asks Chloe, her voice cracking.

“We’ll find out,” Beca says soothingly as she rubs circles on Chloe’s back. She kisses her neck. “I promise we’ll find out.”

Chloe nods and leans her cheek on her girlfriend’s head. The two of them stand in there for a few moments, holding each other. Chloe begins to collect herself with a deep breath when Beca’s phone rings.

Beca frowns in confusion at the unknown number before swiping to accept the call, her one arm still around Chloe.

“Hello?”

“Beca Mitchell?” a gravelly voice asks on the other end.

“That’s me. Who’s this?” Beca says, and she feels Chloe shift back to look at her with her eyebrows raised.

“You called before. Wanted to know some things.”

“Yeah,” Beca replies slowly as she realizes who this must be. Denise Jones.

“If you wanna talk, we gotta do it my way,” says Denise.

“Is your way gonna be just as cryptic and sketchy as this conversation is right now?”

“There’s a reason I’m bein’ this way. Don’t be an ass, kid,” Denise says hastily.

Beca’s face is torn between irritation and amusement at the woman’s dig. “Okay then. How do we do this?”

“I’ll call again next week. Different number. I’ll give you the time and place then.”

“Ten four good-” Beca’s quip is cut short by a loud click on the other line. She looks at her phone in disbelief.

“Who was that?” Chloe asks incredulously.

Beca pockets her phone and runs her fingers through her hair, finding Chloe's equally bewildered eyes. “That...was Denise Jones, Betty Jones’s niece. She’s either extremely paranoid or she’s plotting to murder me in a forest next week.”

Chapter Text

With the thrill of a promising lead, Beca starts her work week with high hopes and a strong sense of determination. She’s sure that Denise Jones will prove to be an instrumental figure in all of this. Why would she be so secretive if she didn’t have something important to reveal?

To distract herself from the near excruciating wait for Denise’s phone call, Beca decides to keep the momentum going and plans to delve into the contents of the patient records storage room. If she could finally understand what 3127 means and get information on Betty Jones, maybe she could afford to take a breather for the first time in weeks.

Beca triple checks the shift schedule for the day, calculating that she has about a fifteen minute window to slip into the storage room on the third floor and take a look around. Despite being so resolute about her decision when she arrived at work today, doubt starts to creep in. She bites her lip nervously as she looks at her watch. Should today be the day? There’s no time like the present. Unless the present betrays her and she gets caught. If she’s seen coming out of a record storage room, she’s done. Which would be a shame, because she quite likes having this constant opportunity to investigate at her fingertips. And that utility closet Jessica mentioned is also quite nice. Very nice.

Focus, Mitchell, Beca thinks as she shakes her head. She regretfully brings herself out of a particularly heated moment spent with Chloe in that utility room last week. Not the kind of moans you should be thinking about right now. It’s spooky mystery time.

Beca exhales and squares her shoulders. “You’re on a roll, stick to it. Do this today.”

****

Time passes slowly in such a way that anticipation only makes possible. Beca sits at her station, jiggling her foot up and down for what feels like an eternity until finally the moment of action arrives. She takes a breath before standing and begins to make her way towards her destination.

Hardly able to believe her luck, Beca encounters absolutely no one on her route to the storage room. This is a good sign, Beca tells herself, This is it, I’m gonna get something out of this. She turns the last corner and quickly rushes towards the door.

She takes a paranoid glance at her surroundings and twists the cool metal doorknob. It doesn’t budge. Cursing to herself, Beca removes her ID card from its holder and carefully inserts it between the door and its frame. Nearly laughing at the irony of her actions, she slides the card down to the lock. With a practiced motion, she wiggles her ID badge towards the doorknob and back towards the frame. It only takes her two tries before there’s a small click that signals the task is complete.

“Bingo.”

 Beca checks her peripherals one last time before slipping in the room. 

After making sure to close the door as silently as possible, Beca turns on the flashlight from her phone. She wishes she could turn on the light in the room, but she’s too worried about anyone walking by and noticing the glow under the door. She raises her phone slightly above her head to illuminate more of the area around her.

It’s quite a dusty, cramped space, with a forgotten feeling to it. Beca wonders if more recent documents are kept elsewhere, and whatever existed before the internet remains in here. Neglected. The room is certainly not organized in a way that would grant the user easy perusal. There’s an assorted mix of boxes precariously stacked on one side of the room, and several filing cabinets against the other wall. Pushed haphazardly to one corner appears to be blueprints or maps of some kind.

Beca glances at her watch. Eleven minutes left.

“Alrighty, 3127. Let’s do this.”

Making a decision solely based on what would cause the least amount of noise, Beca selects a cardboard box and begins rifling through its contents. It's filled with dozens of manila folders, and she thumbs through them to discover they are organized alphabetically by name. She selects one at random. A patient file for Williams, Coraline from 1985. Beca grins briefly, excited that this is exactly what she was hoping would be in here. She shoves the folder back into the box and hastily searches through the entire box, scanning the records for a patient identification number 3127. Nothing. Worried about the time, Beca steps back a bit to survey the containers. Her face falls when she realizes it would take many perfectly executed trips back to this room to properly search through ten years worth of documents. Shit. Five minutes left. Beca chews the inside of her cheek, irritated at herself for taking so long just to get through one box. It’s time for a change of plan. She decides to use the time she has left to take a quick tour of the room and rule out what she doesn’t need to focus on. At least she could be more efficient next time.

Beca turns her attention to the filing cabinets and tip toes her way over to them, cracking one open as quietly as she can. More folders, this time containing what seems to be old employee files. She closes it with a frown and moves onto the next one. Training folders and miscellaneous documents. She goes down the line of cabinets, swiftly skimming their contents before closing the drawer. 

Beca runs a frustrated hand through her hair, scanning the room again. The only thing that could be a possible source of information would be the blueprints in the corner, but she’s out of time. She has two minutes left to hurry back for the guard rotation.

Her previously optimistic attitude now tarnished by an unfruitful 3127 search, Beca opens the storage room door and locks it behind her before she leaves. She checks the time and starts booking it down the hall.

Maybe I can just say I had to pee, and that’s why I’m late? Or I just got my period, dudes freak out about that kind of shit, Beca thinks, trying out different excuses in her mind. She takes out her phone to text Chloe an update before she rounds a corner and collides into another person that was walking towards her.

“Shit, sorry!” Beca exclaims, stumbling backward and dropping her phone in surprise. She looks up to see an older woman with graying red hair trying her best to not look annoyed at Beca’s clumsiness. Beca’s heart nearly stops as she fully takes in who exactly she’s run into. Olivia Zimmerman.

“It’s quite alright,” Olivia says, making a point to fix her glasses, which had gone slightly askew from the small crash. The way the phrase is so clipped makes it clear that it isn’t quite alright. She turns her attention to Beca once she’s done smoothing down her shirt, her fingers grazing a silver locket with an ornate letter S.

“That’s nice,” Beca says awkwardly, gesturing to the jewelry.

Olivia only sniffs in disapproval and raises a judgmental eyebrow at Beca.

“Sorry, uh,” Beca apologizes. She glances at her phone on the ground and back at the woman. “My bad.”

“Clearly. You’re a security guard here?”

“Yes ma’am,” Beca replies.

“And you’re on your phone during your shift?”

“Uh,” Beca flushes a bit in embarrassment. “Sorry, I was just-”

“-Neglecting your duties?” 

Beca bites her lip. “Texting my girlfriend on my way back from the bathroom. I’m sorry.”

Olivia’s mouth turns into an even finer line. Beca’s seen that kind of look before, and knows every single form it can take. Mysteriously discharging patients and a homophobe. An all around shitty combination. It makes Beca want to rewind the past few minutes and really run into this woman properly.

“I see,” Olivia says coldly. “What’s your name? I’ll speak to your boss about this.”

“Beca Mitchell,” replies Beca with a tight jaw.

“Beca Mitchell,” Olivia repeats. “I hope the next time we meet you’ll be acting more appropriately. As much as someone like you could be.”

The sentence fills Beca with the strong desire to trip Olivia Zimmerman as she resumes her walk, her high heels the only sound in the hallway to accompany Beca’s anger. She bends over to pick up her phone, pockets it, and flips off the empty space where Olivia had been with both hands before making her way back to her shift turn.

****

Didn’t find anything. Zimmerman’s a real asshole btw.

Chloe reads the text from Beca with a small pout. She types a reply before entering Hall E for her now usual location of her ten minute break. Making sure the nurses’ station is empty, she briskly walks behind the desk and locates the discharges folder with ease. Chloe flips through the forms, only interested in the signature at the bottom of the page. All normal signatures by the doctors assigned to Hall E. Nothing by Olivia Zimmerman.

After a long glance at Harold Bellows’s old room, Chloe leaves the ward with worry eating away at her insides.

****

“You almost ready babe?” Beca asks, peering her head down the hallway in their apartment the following evening. Chloe’s been in the bathroom for about twenty minutes now, getting ready for their anniversary dinner.

“I’ll be ready in just a sec!” calls Chloe.

Beca smiles to herself and tucks a thin box into her pocket. “You look beautiful in anything, you don’t have to do all that!”

“Thanks babe, but this is a special occasion!”

Beca laughs and is about to respond again when her phone rings.

“Jesse, hey,” Beca answers. “Listen man, we’re about to go out for our anniversary.”

“Oh crap, sorry!” replies Jesse. “I’ll make it quick. Just wanted to let you know Bellows isn’t the only one discharged by Zimmerman. There’s quite a few files I pulled from the server.”

Beca’s breath catches in her throat. “Shit, really?”

“Yeah,” Jesse says, sounding nervous. “I’ll send over what I have. I’m really sorry Beca, I didn’t mean to interrupt you guys tonight. The shock of it just kind of overcame me-”

“Dude you’re fine, it's freaky shit. Thanks man, seriously. This is huge. I’ll call you back when I look at them.”

Beca hangs up just as Chloe enters the kitchen.

“Jesse?” she asks.

Beca looks up from her phone to see her girlfriend absolutely radiant in a new green dress.

“Who?”

“Jesse?”

“No idea who he is, he doesn’t exist. Right now the only people on this planet are you and me. And you are positively stunning, babe.”

Chloe giggles and does a little twirl to show off her dress before walking up to Beca. The green material is soft and not too shiny, and when the light hits it Chloe looks simply ethereal.

Beca’s eyes are bright and her lopsided smile is taking over her whole face. “Gorgeous. Remind me how I got so lucky again?”

Chloe blushes at Beca’s words, and it’s her turn to admire her girlfriend. Beca’s wearing a fitted dark gray blazer over a deep blue collared shirt, buttoned loosely enough to make Chloe’s eyes fall immediately on her exposed collarbones. Chloe can’t help but grin. Beca knows this is one of Chloe’s weaknesses, and she’s gone the extra mile and topped the ensemble off with an equally loose black tie.

“You did this on purpose,” Chloe says, using the tie to pull Beca closer. “How am I supposed to make it through dinner?”

Beca winks. “Who says we have to wait until we get home?”

“Well if that’s the case,” Chloe says quietly as she advances on Beca. “You’re going to see my anniversary present early.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m wearing it under this.”

Beca lets out a quiet, nearly strangled noise before pretending to dial a number in her phone and presses it to her ear. “Yes, hello? Restaurant whose name is so fancy I probably don’t know how to pronounce it properly? Yeah, I’m gonna have to cancel my reservation because I’m about to have mind blowing sex with my girlfriend. Mind blowing, you heard me. Thank you for understanding-”

Chloe can’t wait any longer and she pulls Beca closer, leaning down to kiss her slow and deep. Beca responds eagerly, tossing her phone onto the counter so her hands can find Chloe’s waist to draw her girlfriend’s hips to hers. Chloe’s stomach jumps at the contact as she pulls Beca’s bottom lip to further close the distance between them.

They finally break apart slowly, and Chloe’s heart flutters as Beca keeps her eyes closed for a fraction of a second longer to revel in it.

“Happy anniversary, Bec,” smiles Chloe, her heart swelling with the words. She feels Beca trace her hips and lower back gently.

“Happy anniversary, Chlo,” Beca replies, her eyes now open and looking at Chloe in such a soft way that she could melt.

Beca slowly untangles herself from Chloe while still holding her hand. “You ready? You wanna take the car? Your hair looks incredible, I don’t want the bike to mess that up.”

Chloe tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and considers the offer for a moment. She grins excitedly. “Nah, let’s take the bike. It gives me an excuse to hold that skinny waist.”

Beca opens her mouth to reply, but squeaks as Chloe lunges forward in an attempt to pinch Beca’s sides. Beca fumbles with the door.

“Chloe, no! If you do that when I’m driving we’re gonna be pancakes on the road, you weirdo!”

“That’s why I’m getting it out of my system now!” Chloe laughs, chasing a squirming Beca out into the night.

****

Chloe holds onto Beca tightly, her cheek pressed onto the cool fabric of Beca’s jacket as they ride to the restaurant. Chloe closes her eyes and cherishes the moment, the feeling of Beca in her arms as everything else whizzes past, completely irrelevant. Life, noise, and whatever else can be all around her, overwhelming, but Beca is always here. The one constant in her life amid the chaos for five years, and Chloe cannot be more grateful.

“Babe, you okay? We’re here,” Beca says, rubbing Chloe’s arm.

Chloe snaps out of her thoughts. “Yeah, just don’t wanna let go of you.”

“Okay, cheeseball, we haven’t even gotten to the dinner and romantic gestures yet,” Beca jokes, but both her expression and touch are soft as she fixes loose strands of Chloe’s elaborate hairdo after she removes her helmet.

The two of them make their way inside the restaurant, Petit Valentien , where they are led to their reserved table. They’ve never been to this place before despite it being very well renowned in Barden for many years now. The price tag on a meal here was never in the couple’s budget. But Beca had secretly been saving up for months and had placed the reservation before Chloe could protest too much. It’s their fifth anniversary, and Beca was determined to make it as special as possible, her wallet be damned. 

Beca orders champagne for the two of them, which Chloe raises an eyebrow at.

“What?” Beca asks innocently. She uses Chloe’s phrase from earlier. “It’s a special occasion.”

The drinks arrive, and Chloe takes the glass in her hand and gives it a bit too conspicuous of a swirl.

Beca can hardly suppress a grin when Chloe tries to pretend like she’s reading the menu instead of looking into her glass.

“Oh god, this is so awkward-” Beca begins, her eyes sparkling. “-Did you think I’d really go for the old school play of the ring in the champagne? Oh, sweetheart.”

Chloe smiles and puts on a poker face. “Oh no, you’re much too original and hipster for that.”

“Definitely,” Beca sits up taller and mimes fixing her tie. “Do you think I wouldn’t listen to what we talked about two years ago?”

“Hmm,” Chloe feigns thinking hard. “Yup. You’re too charmed by me. You’d cave.”

“Oh please, Beale,” Beca rolls her eyes before taking a sip of her drink. She keeps a straight face but Chloe can plainly see the hearts in Beca’s eyes. Chloe takes a sip of her drink.

“Or maybe you’re the one who’s caving,” Beca says, turning the questioning back on her girlfriend. “Is Chloe Beale’s will dissolving?”

Beca leans across the table, squinting playfully like she’s analyzing Chloe.

“Nope, my will is totes fine,” Chloe leans forward too, her bright smile dazzling. “Like we said, after I’m done with my residency. That way I’ll start my job and we’ll have more of an income for the wedding.”

“Ooookay,” Beca says, leaning back, smirking and crossing her arms. “Cuz you were looking like you were caving. The ring is chilling in my old sock drawer as we speak, I can head home right now and pick it up if my irresistible charm is making you change your mind.”

Chloe squints, trying to figure out if Beca’s bluffing. “It’s really in your gross sock drawer?”

“That’s exactly why I put it there. You’d never be brave enough to enter the void,” Beca smirks, eyes shining mischievously.

“You definitely don’t have it yet. There’s no way. We’re too broke.”

“Oh really?” Beca raises an eyebrow. “Would a broke person take you to such a swanky place?”

“I know because you took me here there isn’t a ring in your socks.”

“You know what? Now that I think about it, there’s no way I could’ve gotten a ring because those damn millennials are ruining both marriage and the diamond industry simultaneously.”

“We are those damn millennials babe,” Chloe says with a chuckle.

Beca playfully gasps in horror. “God, no! Betrayed by my own generation!”

Chloe laughs and Beca joins in. Chloe takes Beca’s hand across the table and her face becomes more serious as she finds Beca’s eyes.

“You know I’d say yes in a heartbeat, right?” Chloe looks at Beca imploringly. “I just want to get all this school stuff out of the way first. I want this to be about us and us alone, not us plus dealing with my residency.”

Beca brings Chloe’s hand to her lips for a kiss and looks at Chloe gently. “Hey, of course I know. It made sense when we talked about it then and it still makes sense now. And besides-”

Beca’s heavily pierced ears turn red as she looks down at the salt shakers briefly before gazing back up at Chloe. “Every year that goes by with you just makes me so much more stoked to marry you. And you feel like my wife already. I don’t need a ring to tell me that.”

Chloe squeezes Beca’s hand tightly as she tears up, her heart screaming with joy. She stands up a bit to lean over the table and captures Beca’s mouth with hers. Chloe kisses her intimately, telling Beca without words that she’s everything to her, anything and everything that she could possibly need or want in this life.

After what feels like a simultaneously long and too short of a time, Chloe pulls away slightly, regretting that she has to. Beca makes the smallest, softest noise against Chloe’s lips that causes her to kiss her one last time.

“You already feel like my wife too,” she mumbles breathlessly against Beca’s skin. She’s so close that she can feel Beca’s cheeks heat up at the words.

“Um,” says the waiter, who just arrived to take their order.

Chloe is now acutely aware that she’s leaning over the table and has used Beca’s tie to drag her girlfriend on said table to meet her halfway. Beca’s still coming back to earth after that kiss and doesn’t yet realize or perhaps care that her hand is pressing into the rolls in the bread basket.

Beca finally blinks and takes in the situation. With one of the coolest recoveries Chloe has ever witnessed in her life, Beca smoothly wipes off Chloe’s lipstick from her mouth and somehow turns the motion into selecting a roll. 

“Bread, babe?” Beca holds it out to Chloe innocently, like she’s most definitely not sitting on the table in a fancy restaurant, a little disheveled from the intensity of her girlfriend. It makes Chloe want to leave the restaurant and get Beca in the bedroom as fast as possible.

“Why thank you, dear,” replies Chloe equally sweetly.

The two of them act so nonchalantly as they get back into their seats that the waiter doesn’t know how to process any of this, and is starting to consider if he imagined the whole thing. The couple give their orders and barely hold in their giggles long enough for him to be out of earshot.

****

The dinner goes by blissfully with many smiles and laughs, and it’s the best night the two of them have had in quite a long time. One that they desperately needed as well.

After they finish dessert, Beca pulls out the thin box from her pocket with a flourish and gives it to Chloe. “For you.”

“Beca,” Chloe says with surprise. She runs her thumb along Beca’s hand before picking up the gift. “This is too much, you already brought me here.”

Beca shrugs and presses the box into Chloe’s hands, insisting. “I can’t get you enough.”

Chloe opens the present to reveal a beautiful silver necklace that has a bright gem of sapphire nestled into a swoosh of an infinity symbol.

“Oh my god,” whispers Chloe, her mouth agape. “Beca, this is absolutely gorgeous! I love it so much!”

“You’re welcome,” Beca replies with a blush and big shy smile.

Chloe’s still gushing about the gift as Beca stands up and walks over to put the necklace on her. Beca closes the latch and runs her fingertips along Chloe’s bare shoulders.

“This is seriously way too much, Bec,” Chloe says, turning her head to look back at her girlfriend.

“There’s no such thing as too much when it comes to you,” Beca responds before shushing her with a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Beca kisses Chloe’s forehead before returning to her seat. As they wait for the check, Chloe keeps admiring the necklace and thanking Beca excitedly. Beca can’t help but grin stupidly as she watches her girlfriend talk so animatedly. Good, she thinks to herself, because it matches the very real engagement ring sitting in her sock drawer quite nicely.

****

Still on their high from the perfection that was their anniversary night, Beca and Chloe are home a few nights later, about to find out who will be preparing dinner with one of their classic games. The rules are simple but strict- before Chloe leaves for work, Beca guesses one scenario that Chloe will encounter during the day. If she does face Beca’s situation that day, Chloe cooks. If Beca’s wrong, she tries to pout her way out of making dinner, which doesn’t get her anything but a kiss followed by the words “nice try” mumbled against her lips, and finds herself in the kitchen despite her efforts.

“So? Are you ready to be Rachel Ray tonight?” says Beca. She’s sitting at their kitchen table with her laptop. “Because there’s no way I lost the hospital challenge today.”

“You’ll be the one cooking actually,” Chloe says, walking over to Beca with a grin. “You lost, sorry babe.”

“What? Impossible!”

“No one came into the ER with something stuck up their butt today,” replies Chloe with an eye roll. 

“You’re lying!”

“I’m not,” Chloe argues. “Your guesses are way too specific, Bec.”

“But it’s funny,” pouts Beca.

“Funny doesn’t help you win the game, honey,” replies Chloe, smiling. She kisses Beca’s head before taking a seat next to her. “Go on, Alex Guarnaschelli.”

Beca throws one last playful scowl at Chloe before admitting defeat and walks over to the refrigerator. “I still think you’re fibbing big time, Beale. You’re lucky I’m just going along with this because I have a new pork chop recipe I’ve been wanting to try.”

Chloe laughs and watches Beca work, her hand finding the necklace she gave her at their anniversary. She loves everything about this, this simple, warm moment with just the two of them. She could live in it forever, content with the world. 

Beca’s phone begins vibrating on the table from an incoming call. 

“Babe, can you get that for me?” asks Beca, halfway through cutting vegetables.

“Sure,” replies Chloe, and she answers the phone.

“Hello?”

“Who’s this?” snaps a voice. “You’re not Mitchell.”

“Uh, no,” Chloe says with a frown. “I’m Chloe, her girlfriend.”

Beca freezes chopping the carrots she was working on and turns around. “Denise?” she mouths at Chloe.

“Ah, she mentioned you. You know who I am, I’m sure,” Denise says.

“Yes, I do,” Chloe answers, her eyes wide and locked on Beca.

“Tomorrow night. 7:30. Ralph’s Diner on 42nd Street. Order the meatloaf when you get there.”

The call ends before Chloe can even respond.

“Holy shit.” is all Chloe can manage to say. 

“It was her? Denise?” asks Beca, rushing over to Chloe.

“Yeah.” Chloe slides Beca’s laptop over and hastily googles the diner to get the location. It’s about a twenty minute drive from their apartment, in some rather run down part of Barden most of its citizens don’t bother paying much attention to. She turns the computer around to show Beca. “We have a meeting tomorrow.”

****

The next evening, the couple gets into Chloe’s car, and begin their trip to meet the mysterious Denise Jones.

Beca bounces her leg in the passenger's seat as she bites a nail.

“Nervous?” asks Chloe, reaching over to pat Beca’s leg.

“Yeah,” Beca says honestly. “I don’t know if I’m bringing you into some weird shit or not. I don’t like this. But this is our only lead. Which makes me excited. I’m a mess. I don’t know what to think.”

“It’ll be fine, babe,” reassures Chloe. “You’re protecting me and I’m protecting you, remember?”

Beca nods and fiddles with a ring on her thumb before taking Chloe's hand. “Always.”

****

Chloe pulls the car into a parking space and the couple begins to make their way up the road to Ralph’s Diner. 

They reach the front of a small, dilapidated building that blends so well into its equally shabby surroundings that the two of them almost miss it at first. The paint on the restaurant’s sign is so chipped that the R is nearly faded completely, making it appear more like “alph’s Diner”.

Beca grabs Chloe’s hand and squeezes it. “Okay, so we’re definitely going to get murdered in here. It's worse than I thought.”

Chloe kisses Beca’s temple. “We’ll be fine. We have you, and you can kick a lot of ass.”

“Chloe, seriously,” Beca looks up at her, her eyes filled with concern. “If any shit starts to go down, you get out of here. Please?”

“I’m not going to leave you, don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous, I’m being careful. We have no idea who we’re meeting in there.”

“We’re meeting Denise Jones. And she’s clearly being equally careful with us.”

“That’s true,” concedes Beca. 

“But if we don’t like it, we leave.”

“Agreed.” Beca takes a deep breath. “Shit, okay. Here we go.”

Beca walks up the old concrete steps to the building and opens the door, Chloe following behind her. The two of them feel like they have been instantly transported back to the 1970s, which must have been when the diner was built. And it appears as though it has stubbornly remained in that decade for better or worse. There’s rips in several of the vinyl stools in front of the long serving counter, and the entire place has a distinct musty smell to it.

An older man in his sixties behind the counter looks up at them when they enter, setting down the rag he was using to clean the glassware. Other than him, the diner appears completely empty.

“Hey,” Beca says. “I’m Beca, this is Chloe.”

“Ralph.”

“Yeah, that makes sense I guess,” Beca says, taking a few steps forward. Her eyes give the space a quick scan before finding Ralph’s face again. “Nice place you got here, Ralph. We were told to come here and order your meatloaf. Heard it was spectacular.”

Ralph nods in understanding, and leads the two women past a few booths before stopping at one with a single occupant.

The woman in the booth turns to look at them with sharp eyes, the kind that have been trained to be skeptical of everyone they see. She has a look of someone who has aged too quickly in life.

“Denise Jones?” asks Beca. She extends a hand. “I’m Beca Mitchell.”

There’s a long pause as the woman squints at Beca, like she’s looking for something. What that is, Beca’s not sure. She must find whatever it is, because she finally nods before raising an arthritic hand to complete the handshake. Beca steps to the side so Chloe can introduce herself.

With the awkward introductions over with, Beca and Chloe squeeze together on the other side of the booth. They’re met with a powerful smell of cigarettes that nearly makes Chloe cough.

“So,” Beca begins. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with us.”

“It’s a nice place,” adds Chloe, gesturing to the diner. 

“I’ve known Ralph a long time. His place is the only one I’d trust to do something like this,” says Denise.

“It’s important to have someone in your life like that,” smiles Chloe, taking Beca’s hand on the table. “I’m really glad you have Ralph.”

Denise grunts in reluctant agreement, but Beca can see the woman’s face soften a bit. It’s moments like these where Beca swears her girlfriend is some sort of angel who decided to bless the world with her presence on earth instead of remaining in the heavens. She squeezes Chloe’s hand lightly in appreciation.

“So why do you want to know about Betty?”

This is more of Beca’s style. Straight to the point. She selects her words carefully before speaking. Beca doesn’t exactly want to reveal that they’ve been plagued by supernatural events.

“Chloe works at Lanes Mill Hospital, she’s doing her residency there. She had a patient there who was discharged under mysterious circumstances. I started digging into things, and eventually I stumbled upon Betty’s name. All I know is she died when she was twenty three, and the hospital is connected to it somehow,” explains Beca. That should be enough for now.

“She was never in Lanes Mill Hospital, that place never existed when she was alive,” says Denise. “But my father told me their parents sent her to Barden Asylum back in 1967.”

Beca considers asking Denise if she would mind if the conversation was recorded, thinks better of it, and pulls out a small notebook from her jacket pocket instead. “Barden Asylum? Where was that located, do you know?”

Denise shrugs. “No idea. The place was gone by the time I was born.”

“Okay,” replies Beca. “And Betty was admitted there?”

“Yeah,” Denise says. “My family would never talk about her when I was little. Removed all of her photos from the house, the whole nine yards. But one day I managed to find an old photo of Betty and my father when I was at my grandparents’ house and asked. All they told me was she was sick, and they tried to get her help, but it didn’t work.”

“Shit,” Beca mumbles softly. “And your dad’s name?”

“Richard Jones.”

Beca scribbles it down, her heart starting to pound in her chest. “They never said what Betty was sick from?”

Denise lets out a cold laugh. “There was nothing fucking wrong with Betty.”

Chloe stiffens next to Beca. “What do you mean?”

“It took me a while to figure it out, and it wasn’t easy, with the whole family being so guarded about it and all. But if you tell a kid not to look at something enough times, they’re gonna go and look,” says Denise. “You see, my family was good friends with another snooty family at the time, the Barkers. And Linda Barker was the only person I could find who wanted to talk about Betty Jones.”

Beca’s writing becomes slightly more frantic as she copies all of Denise’s words down. 

“When Betty was twenty two, her parents decided to play matchmaker for their daughter. They were worried about her, didn’t want her to become a spinster or whatever the fuck. So they set her up with their closest friends’ son, Stephen Barker. The Barkers were a well off family with two children, Stephen and Linda. Stephen was a good prospect for the Jones family, he was set to inherit the family business when his father retired. It was a nice family for Betty to settle into, and a profitable one for the Jones family. A win win. But Betty resisted it completely at first, raised all hell about it,” Denise smiles, almost looking proud of her late aunt. “But eventually, she accepted it. In fact, she started to voluntarily go over there all the time after half a year. She seemed happy. She was in love.”

An indescribable sense of dread starts to climb up Beca’s throat. Chloe’s hand finds Beca’s leg and squeezes.

“She didn’t fall in love with Stephen Barker, did she?” asks Chloe quietly.

Denise shakes her head sadly. “No, she didn’t. She fell in love with Linda Barker.”

Chloe’s grip on Beca’s leg becomes tighter. Beca feels like she’s going to be sick.

“One day, the Barkers found a letter addressed to Linda on her nightstand. Excited that Linda had possibly found herself a suitor, they opened and read it. But they weren’t prepared to read a love letter from Betty Jones.” Denise’s story continues, and there’s a deep sympathy in her eyes as she looks at Beca and Chloe. “And they definitely weren’t ready for Linda’s response when they confronted her about it either. Linda told them that they were in love, and that they were planning to run away together, and nothing could change their mind from doing so.”

Beca’s jaw hardens to stone. “They told Betty’s parents.”

“Yes,” Denise responds. “And they heard that Barden Asylum could take care of ‘troubled’ people like Betty.”

“Did...did Betty die there?” asks Chloe, her voice so fragile it sounds like it could break.

“After her operation, yes,” Denise answers. “That’s what the owner of the asylum, Doctor Andrew Sterling, called it anyway- operations. But inhumane torture is what it was.”

“What did they do to her?” says Beca, barely able to form words out of anger.

“She was one of the last patients there to be lobotomized.”

The air leaves Beca’s lungs like she’s been sucker punched. Sound...sound turns to an unintelligible ring, broken only by the blood pounding in her ears. An eternity passes in the span of a few moments as Beca struggles with a revelation. An undeniable, terrible clarity that cannot be undone or forgotten. She stands up so abruptly that she painfully smacks both her legs into the table, but she doesn’t even register it. “I’m...I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”

Beca practically runs to the restroom, barely hearing Chloe’s calls from behind her as she shoves the door open with her shoulder. With shaking hands, she grips either side of the porcelain sink and stares blankly into the drain, not even seeing it.

That sharp pain, that hot, staggering pain she felt from what feels like ages ago, right between her eyes…

“Beca!” Chloe says, her face consumed with worry. She places a gentle hand between Beca’s shoulders. “Honey, talk to me please.”

Beca clutches the sink, willing herself to stop shaking. “Remember...that night I touched the ectoplasm the first time?”

“Yeah,” responds Chloe, slipping her hand underneath Beca’s leather jacket to rub circles on her back.

“I said I got a headache,” Beca starts, her voice shaking a little. “And I thought it was one at the time. But we know now that the ectoplasm shows me stuff right? It wasn’t a headache. I felt...I felt a jolt of pain between my eyes, Chloe. The strongest pain I’ve ever felt. It was so bad I couldn’t see for a few seconds. And that must have been...that was...what Betty-”

Beca can’t even bring herself to finish her sentence. She’s not quite sure if she’s even able to without becoming sick. Chloe wordlessly wraps her arms around Beca, and Beca detaches her hands from the sink long enough to fling them around Chloe’s waist. 

“I’m here baby, I’ve got you,” whispers Chloe, holding Beca close as she breaks down into her sweater. The two of them stay like that, Beca clinging onto Chloe as her girlfriend kisses her head and rubs her back soothingly.

“I’m sorry,” Beca finally says, pulling away from Chloe slightly. “Knowing I felt that...it really freaked me out.”

“Don’t be sorry honey,” Chloe says, gently wiping Beca’s tears away with her thumb. “That’s really scary. I can’t imagine how terrible that must feel. I’m so sorry you went through something so awful.”

Beca nods and lets out a trembling exhale. She leans into Chloe’s hand for a moment before turning to wash her face. As she lets the water relieve her puffy eyes, her sorrow and shock turn into anger. Betty Jones and Linda Barker never got to be themselves, both their identities and relationship were ripped from them. Something beautiful, destroyed. A crime like that cannot be forgotten by time.

“God, it’s not fair,” Beca says, wrenching off the faucet. “We just fucking exist and people treat us like garbage! Betty found true love, finally found where her heart belonged and she got killed for it. It’s all fucking bullshit!”

“It’s horrible. God, beyond horrible,” Chloe agrees, looking completely shaken.

“I’m going to stop this. I’m going to take down everyone involved in all of this shit and whatever the fuck else is going on here. Betty will have justice,” Beca states, setting her jaw. “It’s the least I can do.”

“We’re going to stop this,” Chloe corrects with a small supportive smile.

Beca’s eyes meet Chloe’s, burning with determination. “Damn, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Beca draws a breath to reset herself. 

“You’re okay?” Chloe says, still concerned.

Beca takes Chloe’s hand and kisses it. “I’m okay now, thanks to you. Let’s go.”

The pair return to Denise’s booth, Chloe’s hand never leaving Beca’s back.

“Sorry, Denise,” says Beca as she sits down. “I just...wasn’t expecting that to hit me as hard as it did.”

Denise watches Beca with a gentle sympathetic expression, one that seems foreign to her hardened face. “You’re fine, kid. It’s an upsetting story. I wish it ended differently. I really do.”

Beca nods, composing herself. “And it’s a story you were guarding heavily. What’s with all the secrecy?”

Denise sighs, accompanied by a little shake of her head. “Linda Barker told me all of this when I asked one day. Eventually she became furious that no one was attempting to take down Andrew Sterling and decided to raise a storm about it herself. Held a protest outside of the asylum, hung up posters throughout the city highlighting Sterling’s crimes, things like that. About a week later she went missing. ”

“Fucking hell,” Beca hisses, her hand curling into a fist on the table.

“Mysterious circumstances. But no one ever dared questioned it. The Sterlings were a powerful family, probably still are, wherever they are. I don’t know if there’s been anyone else who’s tried to go against them. If they did, they didn’t last long. So I decided to lie low all these years.”

“Until now,” Chloe says. “Do you mind if I ask what changed your mind? Why risk telling us?”

Denise nods in Beca’s direction, her tone bittersweet. “Your girlfriend. I kept thinking about how concerned she sounded about you. How much she wanted to protect you. It reminded me of talking to Linda all those years ago. I figured if anyone could avenge Betty, it would be someone like that. Someone who had the same fire and love in her.”

Chloe looks at Beca with watery eyes before kissing her temple. “She’s incredible.”

Beca turns pink and holds Chloe’s hand. “You’re the amazing one,” she mumbles.

“And lookin’ at the two of you together now, I know I made the right choice. It’s clear how much you love each other. Pure as anything I’ve ever seen. I’d like to think this is how Linda and Betty were back then,” Denise says with a genuine smile.

“I’m sure they were,” replies Chloe softly.

“Thank you so much, Denise,” says Beca, standing up. “This was a huge help. Seriously.”

Denise waves away the sentiment. “Now you just help Betty, okay? Help her when nobody else could.”

“I promise,” Beca says sincerely. She shakes Denise’s hand again firmly. “I promise you.”

Chloe surprises the older woman by giving her a warm hug goodbye. Beca watches the shock flash across Denise’s face before her eyes close, leaning into Chloe. It looks like she hasn’t been shown affection in years. The sight of it melts Beca’s heart.

“And be careful,” warns Denise, breaking away from Chloe. “Those Sterlings are dangerous.”

“Do you know anything else about them? Any names?” asks Chloe hopefully.

“I’m sorry kid, I have no idea. Tried to keep it that way so I didn’t disappear too.”

With a final thank you and an exchange of goodbyes, Beca and Chloe leave the diner and return to their car.

The two women sit in stunned silence for a moment, still processing everything they just heard. Chloe puts her key in the ignition and is about to start the car when a thought hits her. 

“What’s wrong?” asks Beca, concerned.

“I...think I’ve heard that name before,” Chloe replies, turning to look at Beca with surprise. “Sterling.”

“Holy shit,” Beca says, shocked. “Where? At the hospital?”

Chloe thinks for a few moments, racking her brain for an answer. “Amanda Sterling. I only met her once, she was working in Hall E. Do you think it's a coincidence?”

“I think we’ve passed the point of no return in terms of coincidences.”