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“Okay, so you’re good with laying out the schedule for the year if I handle the opening introductions?”
“Yes, Chloe.”
“And you’re okay with assigning parts and deciding who should solo?”
“Yes, Chloe.”
“And you’re all set to-”
“Chloe,” Beca cuts off Chloe’s last minute check-ins with a chuckle and a hand on her arm. “I promise that everything is going to be alright in there. This isn’t exactly my first time being in charge of a group of people,” she adds on with a smirk.
It was the first Bellas rehearsal of the new school year, the first step in their path to claiming the National title for the second year in a row. Their group was essentially the same from last year, aside from the fact that they’d lost Aubrey due to her graduating and all that.
Unfortunately, Chloe was not able to move on to the real world with her friend, instead staying behind another year in order to pass all of her classes this time around.
Despite her constant ramblings during her and Beca’s journey to their rehearsal space, Chloe isn’t necessarily nervous to run this rehearsal. She feels a little anxious to see how it all turns out, seeing as this is the first Bellas rehearsal that she is in charge of without the tyrannical force known as Aubrey Posen by her side, but all-around Chloe is feeling fairly positive that everything will play out quite nicely.
Besides, it’s not like Chloe has to do it completely alone. After taking some time to think it over (with lots of bribery and convincing on Chloe’s part), Beca had agreed to co-captain the Bellas with Chloe. They had spent the whole summer brainstorming set ideas and rehearsal strategies, discussing what kind of group dynamic they wanted to shape in the upcoming year.
Chloe felt fairly positive walking in to this first rehearsal.
Nevertheless, this new information comes as a shock. Chloe’s eyebrows lift in surprise. “Really? You have leadership experience?”
And it’s not that Chloe is super surprised by the fact, it’s just that… actually, yeah, she is super surprised by the fact. Beca wasn’t exactly, how do you say, fond of people or the activities that people partake in, so Chloe didn’t think she was wrong to be a little hesitant of Beca’s ability to run a rehearsal.
Beca crosses her arms confidently (smugly?). “Yes, I have leadership experience. I’ll have you know that I was in charge of my school radio in high school.”
Chloe chokes back the laugh threatening to let loose and tampers down her amused smile. She clears her throat. “You were in charge of the radio at your school?”
Beca nods and hums in the affirmative. “Yep, it was called Tiger Talk and it would have been nothing without me there.”
Chloe bites her lip and studies the proud expression on Beca’s face. “Tiger Talk?”
“Yeah, our mascot was a tiger,” Beca says, her eyebrows crinkling adorably together when she notices the look on Chloe’s face. “Hey, why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing, I’m just glad you’re so experienced with leadership, is all,” Chloe tells her, pressing her lips together to hide her smile.
Beca looks at her suspiciously for another moment before deciding that she’s telling the truth. “Good. I promise that you don’t really need to worry about a thing in there. I’ve got it all covered.”
Chloe chuckles lightly and pats her friend on the back. “Good to know. I feel totally comforted now.”
“Good.” Beca stops just before the doors to the rehearsal hall. She puts a hand on the handle and turns to face Chloe one more time. “It’ll be fine, babe. Piece of cake.”
She winks, pulling open the doors and ducking inside before Chloe can respond, and if Chloe wasn’t so amused by Beca’s confidence going into this rehearsal, maybe she would notice the way her heart has started racing from Beca’s easy flirtation.
* * *
“Hey, guys! I’m Beca- well, I mean, I guess you all already knew that from last year… Uh, welcome back! I hope you all had a good summer, which I guess I know you all did because I’ve been talking to you guys all summer in the group chat… Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that I think this is going to be a good year for us, and that we can really take a cappella to the next level if we work hard, you know?”
Beca’s opening speech is met with blank stares and blinking from the rest of the Bellas. It takes everything in Chloe to not full-on facepalm then and there, but she figures the action wouldn’t portray her as a very supportive co-captain.
Chloe watches as Beca stumbles her way through more introductory formalities in amusement for a couple more minutes before deciding to save her friend.
“Okay! I think that’s enough of that,” Chloe cuts in, stepping up next to Beca. The shorter girl snaps her mouth shut, looking a bit miffed. Chloe tries to inject her tone with enough positivity and energy as possible. “I’m not too worried about this year, if I’m being honest. We’ve got a good group to work with, and I am certain that we’ll be able to make it to the ICCA’s easy.”
A few of the girls let out little cheers, looking much more at ease now than they had when Beca was talking. Chloe glances over at Beca with a smile, to which the other girl simply rolls her eyes. Chloe’s grin only widens.
“On that note, we’re going to just get started on some stretching before doing some cardio-” the announcement is met with groans from around the room- “Hush, we’re going to stretch before getting into some light cardio, and we’ll go from there.” Chloe glances between the girls. “Does anyone want to volunteer to lead stretch-”
“I got it,” Beca jumps in loudly beside her. Chloe blinks at her, images flashing through her mind of Beca half-heartedly stretching during rehearsals last year, never really doing them like she should have done.
“You sure about that, Bec?” Chloe questions hesitantly.
Beca scoffs. “It’s just stretching, Beale. I got this.”
Beca, as it turns out, decidedly did not “get it,” based on the fact that she only knew about two real stretches and half a dozen unhelpful ones.
(“Bec, I don’t know if this is actually stretching anything.”
“What do you mean? It’s stretching me.”
“That’s because you haven’t moved your body in three months.”
“Shut up, it’s a stretch.”)
The rest of practice follows in much of the same fashion. Whether it’s running around doing laps, learning choreography, or leading vocal warm-ups, Beca always insists that she can handle it before proving herself entirely wrong.
And Chloe, for her part, lets Beca try. She really does do her best to just let Beca run things, opting instead to stand by and watch it all happen while attempting to keep the amused expression off her face. Chloe supposes that she could be a little irked by the fact that Beca is trying to run the whole rehearsal – after all, that’s exactly what Aubrey did all of last year – but for the most part Chloe is content to watch Beca go about each task with more blind confidence than any one person ought to have.
By the time the end of rehearsal arrives, they’ve only covered about a third of what they had planned for the day, falling behind between Beca struggling to articulate her thoughts, the rest of the girls teasing Beca whenever an opportunity would present itself (which was often), and Chloe being supremely unhelpful to the whole process.
Chloe wraps up her conversation with Cynthia Rose, waving at the other girl as she exits the rehearsal hall before making her way over to where her discouraged co-captain is slowly putting things away in her bag. She bites her lip and studies Beca’s pout (and she knows Beca will claim she wasn’t pouting later) for a moment, noting just how adorable the small girl can be without trying.
“A little different than Tiger Talk, wouldn’t you say?” Chloe muses breezily as she sidles up next to Beca at the piano.
Beca shoots her a glare. “Not in the mood for teasing, Beale,” she sighs, shoving her portable speaker in her bag.
“It really wasn’t all that bad,” Chloe says innocently. “I really liked the part where you tried to have everyone spin in circles to loosen up. I’ve never seen that technique before.”
“Ha-ha, very funny. Can we be done here so I can go wallow in my own self-loathing?” Beca moves to grab her water bottle.
Chloe softens a bit. “You can’t beat yourself up too badly about this, Bec. Nobody is perfect on their first day in charge.”
“Aubrey seemed pretty damn perfect on her first day,” Beca grumbles, mostly under her breath.
Chloe chuckles. “Aubrey kicked someone out and almost threw up multiple times during that first rehearsal last year. Believe me when I say that she was far from perfect.”
Beca looks at her sheepishly. “She also didn’t let you do anything, which I guess we have in common, unfortunately.” Beca turns to face Chloe fully, an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you do anything today. I just… I guess I just wanted to show you that I knew what I was doing, you know? So you wouldn’t have to worry about anything.”
Chloe feels her heart swell at the words. “It’s alright, Beca. I’m just glad you’re acknowledging it now. Besides-” Chloe reaches across the piano top and slides Beca’s still open laptop closer to them, tapping the space bar and letting the arrangement that they never got around to today play- “this is what you know how to do. Music is what you do, and that’s the most important part of all this.” Beca looks shyly up at her, and Chloe smiles in response. “Maybe if you focus on the music, I can handle everything else. We’re co-captains for a reason.”
Beca starts to smile before schooling her features to be ‘professional’ looking. “I think that sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan, Captain Beale.”
Chloe giggles. “Glad to hear it, Captain Mitchell.”
They pack up the rest of their things and make their way out of the rehearsal hall, Beca in a much better mood than before. As Beca locks up the doors behind them, Chloe bites her lip thoughtfully and builds up the needed confidence for what she’s about to do next.
“Hey, Bec,” she says, prompting Beca to turn around to face her. Chloe doesn’t give her a chance to respond before gently gripping the material of Beca’s t-shirt in her hand and pulling her forward until their lips are pressed together.
Beca’s little yelp of surprise changes into a content sigh as she sinks into the kiss, bringing her hand up to cradle Chloe’s jaw as she deepens it, much to Chloe’s satisfaction.
The kiss doesn’t last long, and soon enough Chloe is pulling away, her hooded eyes locked on to Beca’s confused ones.
“What was that for?” Beca asks breathily.
Chloe grins coyly. “I just wanted to see if there was something else you were good at.” She winks. “Now I know that you are a much better kisser than you are dancer.”
She walks away from Beca then, her smile widening when she hears the other girl scrambling to catch up, her protest of okay, I’m not that bad of a dancer, though ringing out from her as she goes.
Maybe blind confidence wasn’t totally a bad thing after all.