Archive of Our Own ^beta

“There’s something weird about the new girls downstairs,” Beca said.
She made a final couple of passes with the spatula through the stir-fry, took it off the heat and turned her attention to the rice. She was pretty sure it was done, but it never paid to assume. Always check. That was one of the things she’d learned at Barden, and had had reinforced after. That she liked to cook, that she had found out entirely after she graduated and moved to Los Angeles.
“Weird how?” Chloe said.
She was sitting at their kitchen table, leaned back on her chair, knees propped up against the table and a huge anatomy textbook leaning on her thighs. She was wearing an oversize t-shirt left over from the marketing campaign of the most recent album Beca had worked on. Her legs were bare. Beca suspected that the t-shirt was the only thing her girlfriend was wearing, which was more than a little bit distracting. Good thing she’d chosen to cook something that didn’t require her full attention.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s just something strange about them. They don’t feel right.”
The rice was done. She took that too off the heat, fluffed it up a bit with a spoon and put it on the table. The stir-fry tofu followed.
“Beer or wine?” she said.
Which sounded like a simple question, but was one of those code things that had developed between them over time. Beer meant that Chloe really had to study and didn’t want to get at all drunk, wine meant that she was done for the day. Which in turn meant a good chance for Beca to find out if Chloe was wearing anything other than the t-shirt shortly after they were done eating.
Chloe closed her book and put it aside with a grunt.
“Wine,” she said. “Preferably white, cheap and plentiful.”
Hel-lo nookie, Beca thought.
“Coming right up,” she said.
She dove into the cupboard to get the bag-in-box that had been sitting there for ages. It was unopened, so it should still be good.
“So how do they feel?” Chloe said.
“I don’t know,” Beca said. “Like they’re on guard? Keeping lookout for something?”
Chloe opened the bag-in-box and poured them each a generous glass. Beca put food into bowls for them both.
“You said that about the girls upstairs too,” Chloe said.
“And it turned out that they are using the apartment as a love-nest while hiding their relationship from their friends and relatives,” Beca said. “So I was right.”
“Maybe downstairs girls are lesbians too,” Chloe said, in between mouthfuls of stir-fry. “And also hiding.”
Beca shook her head.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, if they were they’d know they don’t need to hide that here. Like, they live on top of a gay bar and they have both caught us two making out in the stairwell more than once.”
“If there is something weird about them,” Chloe said. “I guess we’ll find out in time.”

Having a nightclub in the basement of the building was sometimes real nice, and sometimes less so. When on the way home from a much too long session in the studio because the artist just would not stop trying for the “perfect” sound, it was less nice. The street outside their entrance was full of people, most of them gay men. The majority were drunk, and like drunk people tend to be they were very noisy and some of them were spoiling for a fight. Beca didn’t feel like making her way through them, so she headed for the back entrance.
Which meant going through a narrow alley and across a back yard before she got to the locked door to their stairwell. And of course, when she was right in the middle of the alley, someone stepped out of the shadows behind her.
“Hey there, pretty,” he said.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, dude,” Beca said.
She felt around in her pocket for her mace can, trying not to be obvious about it. The guy was much taller than her, by easily a head and a half. He was wide, clad in dirty and torn leathers and his face was all bumpy and weird.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said. “I can smell all your nice, tasty blood from way over here.”
Right. The dude was stoned all right. Beca just hoped a faceful of mace would stop him.
“Back off,” she said. “Or you’ll hurt for it.”
He chuckled, a low threatening sound.
“Will I now,” he said.
Suddenly, there was a sound like a large tree hitting a rock and the guy flew to the side. He hit the wall maybe ten feet up and fell to the ground behind a dumpster. A dark shape followed him with amazing speed. A few more whacks, bangs and thumps came from the darkness, finally punctuated by a whooshing sound.
“Hey, are you OK?”
The voice came from right next to Beca. She whipped her head around from staring in the direction of the noises behind the dumpster so fast that she stumbled.
“Whoa!” the voice said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
It was one of the downstairs neighbors. The blonde one. She was holding her hands up and smiling at Beca, obviously doing her best not to appear threatening.
“Um, er, yeah, I’m fine,” Beca said. “What happened to that guy?”
“Oh, he ran off,” the blonde said. “Hey, you live upstairs from us, don’t you? Hi, I’m Buffy!”
She held out her hand. Beca shook it, still feeling more than a little confused.
“Er, hi,” she said. “I’m Beca.”
“That’s Faith,” Buffy said, pointing at the dark-haired girl who had just appeared from behind the dumpster. “We’re roommates.”
“Roommates?” the one called Faith said. “All right, let’s go with that. You good, cutie? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“Er, no, he didn’t touch me,” Beca said.
The dark-haired girl was taller than her, but that went for most people. Both of the downstairs girls seemed to be about the same height as Chloe, with about the same build. Except that Faith had significantly larger breasts.
“How did you scare him off?” Beca said. “He was much bigger than either of you guys.”
“Oh, we’re seriously into self-defense,” Buffy said. “We exercise a lot.”
Beca looked at the wall. There was a mark where the guy had hit it.
“He hit the wall, like, way up there,” she said. “And there was something wrong with his face.”
“He jumped,” Faith said. “And he was in a gang. They wear masks.”
“Jumped?” Beca said. “Up there?”
Faith shrugged.
“He was high,” she said. “PCP. Makes people do the weirdest things.”
Beca looked from one of them to the other.
“I think I’ll go home now,” she said.
“That’s an excellent idea,” Buffy said. “You’ll be safe now.”
“Hey, don’t you sometimes DJ at the club here?” Faith said. “I think I’ve seen you there.”
“Yeah,” Beca said. “I’ll be playing this Friday.”
“Cool,” Faith said. “See you then!”
Beca left, looking over her shoulder more than at where she was going. As soon as she rounded the corner, she heard the two of them talk.
“Gang-related?” she heard Buffy said. “PCP? Seriously?”
“Hey, it works,” Faith said. “Look, there’s a reason it’s a classic, right?”
Oh yeah. There was definitely something weird about those two.

Nothing more happened for a week or so. Beca’s suspiciousness abated somewhat, but her conviction that something was going on remained. Also, the fact that she couldn’t even guess what was going on bugged her.
Entirely apart from that, she totally did not buy Buffy’s claim that she and Faith were just roommates. The two of them had shown up at the club’s Ladies’ Night when Beca was DJ:ing, and she’d seen them on the dance floor. And them dancing? Was not two straight girls dancing. At all. The sexual tension between them could’ve have been scooped up with a spoon. If they weren’t actually fucking, they totally should be.
And if she hadn’t already been crazy in love with Chloe, Beca would gladly have hit on both of them. Separately or together.
“Jesus,” Chloe had said later that night.
It was some time after Beca had come home and more or less started tearing Chloe’s clothes off the moment she stepped inside the door. Chloe was panting and sweaty, hair glued to her drop-pebbled forehead. She was lying on her back, legs still spread wide with Beca on her knees between them.
“What brought that on?” She said. “And that is not a complaint, I just want to know so I can make it happen again!”
So Beca told her about Buffy and Faith, their downstairs “roommates”, and how Beca found them both insanely hot, although she would of course never do anything about that, except make crazy love to her own gorgeous girlfriend on the kitchen floor.
“If that’s going to be a regular thing,” Chloe said, “I vote we get a rug. A thick one.”

“Hey, you remember the blonde hottie downstairs?” Chloe said a bunch of days later, while she was watering the plants.
“How could I forget?” Beca said. “She and Faith are getting to be Ladies’ Night regulars.”
“Well, I met her sister,” Chloe said. “Yesterday when I was down getting the mail.”
“OK?” Beca said.
Chloe turned to Beca and winked.
“Hotness seems to run in the family,” she said.
Beca felt herself stiffen a little. Which annoyed her. She thought she was getting over her doubts about Chloe really wanting to be with her.
“Oh,” she said. “I see.”
Chloe immediately put down the watering can.
“No, not like that,” she said.
She came over to the couch where Beca had been reading the manual for a new mixer board. She straddled Beca’s thighs and planted a quick kiss at the tip of her nose.
“I love you,” she said. “Nobody in the world is hot enough to make me not want you more than them. Nobody. Do you hear that?”
“Sorry,” Beca said. “I just…”
“Hush,” Chloe said. “Don’t be sorry. We’ve talked about this. You’re allowed to feel whatever you feel, OK? I just want you to know that I will not leave you for someone else, no matter how attractive they are.”
She stroked Beca’s hair.
“If I say it often enough, maybe one day you’ll actually believe it.”
Beca put her arms around Chloe and hugged her hard.
“You’re far too good for me, do you know that?” she said.
“No I’m not,” Chloe said. “I’m lucky you want to be with me, miss hot-shot producer DJ.”
They sat there holding each other for a little while before Chloe spoke again.
“Oh, right,” she said. “Buffy’s sister told me something. Also, her name’s Dawn.”
“What?” Beca said. “I mean, what did she tell you?”
“Apparently she and some friends of hers are going to be staying with Buffy and Faith off and on for a while,” Chloe said. “And the lot of them practice some sort of neopaganism. So if we smell incense, hear chanting or hear shamanic drums, it’s probably just them.”
“Neopagans,” Beca said.
Chloe nodded.
“She asked us to let the others who live here know too,” she said.
“I’ll tell upstairs girls next time I see them,” Beca said.

The next time Beca saw the upstairs girls was later that week. Or at least saw one of them. She was down in the back yard taking out trash, when the blonde upstairs came down to do the same. Except her trash seemed to be mostly wine bottles.
“Hey,” Beca said, nodding at her.
“Hi,” the blonde said.
She made an effort not to look at Beca.
“Er, I’m supposed to tell you,” Beca said.
The blonde looked suspiciously at her.
“Tell me what?” she said. “And who asked you to?”
“The girls living under us,” Beca said. “Buffy and Faith. They have some friends and relatives over who are neopagans, so there may be incense and chanting and drums and shit. Just so you know.”
“Oh,” the blonde said, clearly looking relieved. “That’s good to know, I guess. Thanks.”
She started to leave.
“Hey!” Beca said.
The blonde stopped.
“Do you have a name?” Beca said. “Or a codename or alias or something? Just referring to you as the blonde upstairs gets kind of weird after a while, and you’ve had the apartment for over a year now.”
The blonde smiled.
“Hanna,” she said. “My name’s Hanna. My friend… my girlfriend is Spencer.”
“Pleased to meet you, Hanna,” Beca said. “My girlfriend is Chloe. Downstairs of us the blonde is Buffy and the brunette is Faith. They claim to be roommates, and if that’s true they’re both really, really deep in the closet.”
Hanna’s smiled turned more genuine.
“Pleased to meet you too,” she said. “And I believe there’s a gay bar in the basement.”
“Sure is,” Beca said. “Tuesdays and Fridays are ladies only. I DJ most of those nights. I’ll put your names on the list so you can get in for free.”
“Maybe we will,” Hanna said.

Later that night there was a knock on Chloe’s and Beca’s door. Chloe had a late lecture and hadn’t made it home yet, so Beca made sure all three door chains were securely fastened and the mace was within easy reach before she opened the door. A tall, slender woman with dark hair was standing outside. Beca recognized her as one of the girls upstairs. So, apparently, Spencer.
“Hi?” Beca said. “Can I help you?”
“Er, maybe?” Spencer said. “I’m Spencer, from upstairs? Hanna said that you know the girls in the first-floor apartment?”
“We’re on speaking terms,” Beca said. “Know may be putting it strongly. Why?”
“Hanna said something about them being neopagan,” Spencer said. “And, uh, we may have hurt one of their friends.”
Beca’s eyebrows rose.
“Excuse me?” she said, suddenly glad for the door chains.
“We didn’t mean to,” Spencer said. “But he was standing in the back yard, in a long black robe with symbols on it, no hair, bright red skin, weird tattoos, waving a book around and chanting loudly. And, um, both Hanna and I have had kind of bad experiences in the past, so we reacted kind of aggressively.”
“Aggressively how?” Beca asked, fascinated in spite of herself.
“I emptied my keyring mace can in his face and Hanna gave him about thirty seconds with her hopped-up Taser,” Spencer said. “He was really tough, because even after that he managed to run away.”
“I see,” Beca lied. “And you want me to do what with this?”
Spencer held out a book. It was huge, and she needed both hands to hold it up. Its cover was made of thick black leather, embossed with symbols that made Beca’s eyes water when she looked at them.
“He dropped this,” Spencer said. “And we thought maybe you could pass it on to the downstairs girls. So they can give it back to their friend.”
“Oh,” Beca said. “Sure.”

“Beca,” Faith said when she opened the door. “It’s really not a good time. Can whatever it is wait?”
Apparently the seriously into self-defense girls didn’t bother with things like door chains, because Faith had just opened the door wide. Through it, Beca could see about a dozen young women hanging around their living room, together with an old guy in a tweed suit and a younger gaunt guy with bleached-blonde hair and a black leather duster. All of them were silent and looking at her.
“Er,” Beca said. “Spencer, you know, up on the third floor, wanted me to give you this. Apparently some friend of yours dropped it in the back yard when she and Hanna accidentally maced and tasered him.”
She held out the big black book. It was much heavier even than it looked, and it felt disturbingly warm to the touch. Faith stared at it. There were running steps, and suddenly a long-haired head appeared between Faith’s face and the book.
“Oh my God,” the new head, and the tall and slim yet curvy person it was attached to, said. “It’s the book!”
“What?” the old guy in the tweed suit said. “Dawn, are you certain?”
“Yes!” the long-haired girl, who was apparently Dawn, said. “Totally! Get me the insulating gloves, quick!”
People started moving inside.
“You should probably put that down,” Faith said.
Beca slowly and carefully lowered the book to the floor. Moments later, Dawn were given a pair of very thick-looking leather gloves. She put them on, carefully picked the book up and vanished into the apartment.
“Wait,” Beca heard Buffy said inside. “We have the book? Just like that? No research, no fighting, no nothing?”
“Looks like, sugartits,” a male voice with a British accent said.
“Call me that again and there will be fighting.”
Faith stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind her.
“Er, thanks,” she said. “You can tell upstairs girls that the guy really wasn’t our friend, and they totally did the right thing. We owe them a big one.”
Beca was feeling somewhere in between scared witless and like she was dreaming.
“Gang-related?” she said. “PCP?”
Faith smiled.
“Something like that,” she said. “Look, er, if you’re talking to upstairs girls, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to them about. In the line of friends who may not be so friendly.”
“Er, OK?” Beca said.
“Maybe you could pass along the basics?” Faith said. “And they can come down talk to me if they feel the need?”
Beca couldn’t think clearly. It felt like her brain had decided that things were just too strange, so it was going to focus on the nearest pretty thing, which turned out to be Faith’s ample cleavage.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll pass along.”
“There’s this guy in a black hoodie who’s been stalking them,” Faith said. “At first I thought he was spying on me and Buffy, so I kept an eye on him. He kept at it, so one night I confronted him and let him know he wasn’t welcome. Which was when I found that he was carrying pictures of third-floor girls.”
“Spencer and Hanna,” Beca said. “Spencer is the tense brunette, Hanna the runway-pretty blonde.”
“Anyway,” Faith went on, “he kept coming back. So eventually I may have accidentally broken both his arms and told him that if I ever see him again I’ll put his testicles where his eyeballs used to be and he’ll need major surgery to get the telephoto lens out of his colon.”
Beca tore her gaze away from Faith’s chest.
“That’s quite the accident,” she said.
“Yeah,” Faith said. “So, uh, if he really was a friend of theirs and not a total creep, oops?”
“Sure,” Beca said. “I’ll tell them.”
“Thanks,” Faith said. “He left some papers behind that they can have if they want to.”
She arched her back a bit.
“And if you want a closer look at these, just say when,” she added. “Provided you’re ready to return the favor, of course.”
Beca blushed.
“I’m in a committed relationship,” she said. “But thanks for the offer.”
“So bring her along,” Faith said. “She’s hot, and I’m totally up for a threesome.”
Beca intended to tell her that that was totally out of the question, and they were not the kind of girls who did that sort of thing.
“I’ll see what she says,” was what came out of her mouth.
Faith leered at her.
“You do that,” she said.

Beca wasn’t actually all that interested in having sex with Faith. Sure, the woman was very sexy and had made it abundantly clear that she was interested, but the truth was that Beca was perfectly happy with just Chloe. Happier than she’d thought she’d ever be with anyone, before she came to Barden and joined the Bellas. When a naked girl walked into her shower stall, she’d never in a million years have guessed that it would totally change both their lives. Sure, her dad had said college would be an experience that she’d remember for the rest of her life, but she doubted that he’d been thinking of that when he said it.
She and Chloe were lying in bed, having just made love. Beca had her head on Chloe’s shoulder, and she was idly stroking Chloe’s chest.
“Chloe?” she said.
“Hmm?” Chloe said.
“Do you ever think about having sex with someone other than me?”
“Not seriously,” Chloe said. “Although I’d be lying if I said I don’t occasionally fantasize about Kristen Stewart. Why? Do you?”
“Not really,” Beca said. “Faith kind of invited us to a threesome with her.”
“Faith?” Chloe said. “Faith who lives downstairs?”
“Just her.”
There was a long silence.
“Do you want to?” Chloe finally said.
“She’s very sexy,” Beca said. “So kind of. But absolutely not in any way if it would make you feel at all bad ever.”
She snuggled up harder to Chloe to emphasize her point. Chloe tightened her arm around Beca in return.
“It could be fun,” Chloe said. “As long as you’re there and having a good time. But can I think about it? Also, what about Buffy? We don’t want to cause a soap opera drama in the building.”
“I assumed Faith wouldn’t have asked if Buffy was a problem,” Beca said. “But maybe I should try to check before we make up our minds.”
Chloe kissed the top of Beca’s head.
“And if it doesn’t work out with Faith but you still want a threesome,” she said, “we can always call Stacie and tell her she has a chance to add another couple of Bellas to her score card.”
Beca laughed a little.
“I suppose we could,” she said.

The next morning there was an unexpected eclipse of the sun. Beca was just about to leave for the studio at the crack of noon when everything suddenly went dark. She stopped dead, holding the building’s front door half open.
“Why is it so dark?” someone said from behind her.
Beca turned her head and looked. It was Spencer, wearing a long coat, wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses.
“I think there’s an eclipse,” Beca said.
“What?” Spencer said. “It can’t be, there’s not a solar eclipse due in Los Angeles until the summer of 2017, and that’ll be a partial. It’ll be nowhere near as dark as this.”
Beca didn’t respond, she just pointed up at the black disk where the sun should have been.
“Ok, seriously,” Spencer said. “That’s impossible. That can’t be. We’re hallucinating.”
“Why would we both be hallucinating an eclipse?” Beca said.
“Do you have a better explanation?”
“Someone put PCP in the ventilation system.”
Spencer took her sunglasses off and gave Beca a long look.
“Why would someone put PCP in the ventilation system?”
“I hear there’s a lot of gang activity involving PCP around here at the moment,” Beca said.
There was a long pause.
“Are you serious?” Spencer finally said.
“No,” Beca said. “But I think it might be a good idea to go ask Faith and Buffy if they have an idea what’s going on.”

“Oh, hi!” the tall long-haired girl said. “You’re Beca and Spencer, right? You must be here for the papers Faith said you might want. Hang on a moment and I’ll get them. I’m Dawn, by the way, Buffy’s sister.”
She vanished into the apartment.
“Papers?” Spencer said.
“Oh, right, I didn’t have a chance to tell you yet,” Beca said.
Quickly, she repeated what Faith had told her. When she was done, Spencer was staring it her like she’d grown an extra head. She had just opened her mouth to say something when Dawn returned.
“Here!” she said, holding out a thick envelope. Spencer took it, handling it like it was made out of a sensitive high explosive. She gingerly opened it and looked through the contents. Suddenly she pulled out a paper, looked at it with an expression somewhere between horror and triumph.
“Son of a bitch!” she said.
She put it back in the envelope, closed it and smiled at Beca and Dawn.
“I have to go,” she said.
Then she turned and almost ran up the stairs. Beca and Dawn looked after her until she’d vanished from sight.
“We weren’t actually here for that,” Beca said. “Although I suppose we should have been.”
“Oh,” Dawn said. “Sorry, I assumed. Why were you here?”
Beca gestured in the direction of the front door.
“There’s an unexpected eclipse going on,” she said.
“Don’t be silly,” Dawn said. “Eclipses are highly regular astronomical events that can be predicted down to the second centuries in advance. They don’t just happen.”
“Well, something is blocking the sun,” Beca said.
“Right,” Dawn said. “Uh, this might be a good day to call in sick and stay home from work.”
Beca stared at her.
“Chloe is out there,” she said. “At her day job.”
“Where is that, exactly?”
“A school a few blocks west of here.”
Dawn nodded.
“I know the one,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ll send someone to get her home safe.”
Beca frowned. Suddenly Dawn was talking a lot less like an overenthusiastic twenty-something and a lot more like a… commander of some sort?
“Uh, thanks,” Beca said.
“No problem,” Dawn said. “Just stay home, OK?”
Beca nodded, then went upstairs to call in sick.

Chloe came home exactly when she usually did, which was late enough that Beca was half crazy from worry. She threw herself at Chloe and hugged her hard the moment she came through the door.
“You’re safe!” Beca said.
“Ooof,” Chloe said. “Yes, Buffy came and met me at the school. It was a bit scary out there, what with the odd weather and all.”
“Odd weather?” Beca said, looking up at her love’s face.
“Yeah, they talked about it on the radio,” Chloe said. “Some weird phenomenon that made it almost look like the sun was eclipsed.”
But the sun was eclipsed, Beca thought. I saw it happen!
“Right,” she said. “That.”
“We saw lots of scary-looking people on the streets,” Chloe said. “But they all seemed to stay far away from Buffy. It was kind of weird, actually. I mean, she’s not exactly big or scary-looking.”
“Told you they’re weird,” Beca said. “Are you hungry? I made a salad, since I didn’t know exactly when you’d be home. It’s in the fridge. We could try to order Chinese if you don’t feel like salad, but it doesn’t feel fair to force some poor delivery person to go out in this.”
Chloe laughed and gave Beca a quick kiss.
“Salad’s fine,” she said.
They got the salad out, together with bread and wine, and sat down on their living room couch.
“I tried to ask Buffy about her relationship with Faith,” Chloe said. “Discreetly, of course.”
“What did she say?” Beca said, while pouring the wine.
“That they have a lot of complicated history,” Chloe said. “She didn’t want to get too far into what kind of history or how it was complicated, but I gathered that once upon a time they were really at odds. Like, trading violence at odds.”
“Seriously?” Beca said. “You really wouldn’t guess that now. I mean, have you seen those two dance?”
Chloe shook her head.
“I really should get down to the Ladies’ Nights more often,” she said. “I think you mentioned that they got some sort of prize?”
“Yeah, you should,” Beca said. “And, yes, the bar staff had them share the Queen of the Closet title three weeks running.”
She chewed down on a slice of mushroom.
“The winners don’t get told about that one,” she said. “And apart from the obvious-to-everyone-else attraction they show each other, they move like two synchronized panthers. It’s really something to see.”
Chloe tilted her head, obviously thinking.
“You’ve spent more time with Faith than I have,” she said. “How does she strike you, Kinsey-scale-wise? If she didn’t have Buffy there, would she be in the closet?”
Beca looked at her.
“She invited us for a threesome, remember?” she said. “And she was not joking. I don’t know how she feels about guys, but there’s no question that she’s into women, and she’s not hiding it. Like, at all. Unless Buffy’s around, I guess.”
“So it’s Buffy who’s the problem,” Chloe said.
“I guess so,” Beca said. “You want to meddle, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” Chloe said. “But first I want to eat this delicious salad, drink this nice wine and make love to my gorgeous girlfriend.”

Beca woke up. It was still dark. She was lying on the floor in front of their couch, the table pushed away and Chloe pressed against her. A blanket was haphazardly pulled down over them. She was the best kind of tired and slightly sore in suggestive places. Also, something outside was making a terrible racket.
“What’s that noise?” Chloe groaned. “Please make it stop, I want to sleep!”
“I don’t know,” Beca said. “Sounds like it’s coming from the yard.”
She crawled out from under the blanket and slipped into Chloe’s oversize plaid shirt.
“I’ll check,” she whispered.
The sound reminded her of an overblown fight scene from some blockbuster movie. There were thuds and screams and slashing sounds and, oddly, drum beats and the sound of pipes. Occasional flashes of multicolored light lit up their ceiling from below.
Beca carefully stalked to the window and looked down.
The whole back yard was chaos. There were a dozen or so young women with swords and axes, Buffy and Faith at the front of them. They were fighting, of all possible things, huge tentacles coming up from cracks in the ground. The cracks in the ground were also the source of the technicolor flashes of light. Behind the armed women a circle had been drawn on the ground. It might have been drawn with chalk or something, but it was hard to tell due to the actinic blue light coming from the lines. Inside the circle were many symbols, also shining, and at the middle two naked women. One of them was clearly Dawn, the other one a redhead Beca had seen in Buffy and Faith’s apartment. The two were kneeling facing each other, and the book Beca had delivered to them was floating in the air between them. That, too, was emitting harsh blue light.
Beca turned to Chloe, who was looking at her from under the blanket.
“Did Dawn tell you what kind of neopagan they are?” Beca said. “Because Josie at work is a Reclaiming Wiccan, and that down there in the yard is nothing like the public ritual she dragged me to once.”
“Should we help them?” Chloe said, looking worried. “Call the police, maybe?”
Beca looked down at the yard again. As she watched, Buffy cut off three tentacles with a single swing of her weird-looking axe. Most of her was drenched in gore, but from the color none of it was hers. Unless she bled jade green.
“I think they’re doing fine on their own,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
Beca nodded.
“Then get back here,” Chloe said. “If I’m not going to sleep, I need cuddles.”
Beca slowly and teasingly let the plaid shirt slide down her shoulders and arms. She stopped and held on to it just as it was about to reveal her breasts.
“Only cuddles?” she said.
Chloe smiled at her.
“When did you turn into such a seductress?” she said. “OK then, come here and fuck me silly. Again!”
Beca did.

The next day the sun was back. Beca decided to “work” from home anyway, since she hadn’t slept all that much during the night. Chloe pretended to be cross at her, since she didn’t have to option to work from home. Or claim to work but not actually do so, as the case might be. When Chloe had left, Beca went back to bed. Around noon she got up, dressed, made a huge mug of coffee and went down to see if there was any interesting mail. As she was fishing through the junk mail for anything worth keeping, someone cleared their throat next to her.
“Excuse me?” a female voice said.
Beca looked up. A cute girl in a no-nonsense dark business dress was smiling at her.
“Hi,” the girl said. “I’m Mona. I’m looking for Hanna and Spencer’s place?”
“Top floor,” Beca said. “But I don’t think they’re home right now.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” the girl said. “I’ll let myself in to wait. I have some good news for them that I want to deliver in person.”
“Does it have to do with whatever was in those papers that made Spencer curse?” Beca said. “Not that I know her very well or anything, but she’s struck me as the kind of woman who doesn’t do that a lot.”
“I’m sorry,” Mona said, “but I don’t think it’s my place to talk about that. You can ask Spencer herself later, right?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Beca said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Mona smiled.
“That’s OK,” she said. “We’re all curious.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Say,” she said. “Are you Beca Mitchell? Music producer? DJ?”
“Er, yeah,” Beca said. “I am. How…?”
She was not used to being recognized. There really was no reason for anyone to recognize her. She’d produced some relatively successful stuff, but not nearly enough to make her famous, and her DJ:ing had so far been limited to lesbian clubs and events in or close to Los Angeles.
“I saw you play at a club a couple of months ago,” Mona said. “I liked it, so I remembered your name.”
Her eyes flickered up and down Beca’s body.
“And of course,” she said, “beautiful women are always easier to remember.”
“I live here with my girlfriend,” Beca said, somewhat defensively.
“That certainly doesn’t make you any less beautiful,” Mona said. “But I get your point. Say, Spencer and Hanna may want to celebrate tonight. If we go to the club downstairs, is there a chance we could convince you to play?”
“Uh, I guess,” Beca said, taken aback by the whiplashing subjects of the conversation. “I don’t have anything else planned and I can always use a bit of extra cash. Although I think you’ll have to make it a private event, which is not cheap.”
“Excellent!” Mona said. “Who do I talk to to arrange it?”
“There’s a phone number on the web site,” Beca said.
Mona smiled at her.
“Then I guess I’ll see you there,” she said. “Oh, and feel free to invite anyone you want. It’d be silly if I, Hanna, Spencer and our friends were the only ones there.”
She vanished up the stairs. Beca remained looking after her, mail in hand, feeling like she’d just missed something important. She was still standing there when the front door opened and closed behind her.
“Oh, hi,” she heard Buffy say. “Nice day, isn’t it?”
Beca turned around. Buffy was smiling at her, looking really happy.
“Er, I guess,” Beca said. “We didn’t sleep so much. I’m a bit tired.”
Buffy’s face fell.
“Oh,” she said. “I guess we made quite a bit of noise, huh?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I’m sorry,” Buffy said. “At least I can promise you it won’t happen again. Unless you live here for another two hundred years.”
Beca frowned.
“Oh, good?” she said.
“Never mind,” Buffy said. “Bad joke. I make them sometimes. Or, a lot of the time, actually.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t get it.”
“See? That’s why it’s a bad joke.”
“Right,” Beca said. “Er, may I ask you something kind of personal?”
Buffy’s smile turned kind of nervous.
“I guess,” she said.
“How do you actually feel about Faith?” Beca said.
Buffy’s smile widened and she took a step back.
“Wow,” she said. “You don’t go for the easy questions, do you?”
Beca gestured vaguely with her handful of mail.
“You don’t have to answer,” she said. “I’m just curious. I see you two on the dance floor, and, well… friends isn’t really the word that springs to mind.”
“Yeah,” Buffy said. “Faith can get a bit…”
“It’s not just Faith,” Beca interrupted. “If it was just her, she’d have given up already, wouldn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” Buffy said. “Maybe.”
“When I was talking to Faith,” Beca said, “and she saw me look at her chest, she flirted with me. No hesitation, no hiding. Just… flirting. Playful.”
Beca hesitated.
“Also very… clear,” she said. “Anyway, it looks to me like she’s not like that with you. But the dance floor says she wants you. Wants you badly. So I’m curious what you feel. Because the dance floor says you’re interested, but outside you claim not to be.”
Buffy looked away from her.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s… We have history, Faith and I. It makes things complicated, OK?”
“All right,” Beca said. “But…”
Buffy looked her.
“But what?”
“If that history hadn’t been there, would you be interested then?”
Buffy looked away again. Bit her lower lip a little.
“I’ve got to go,” she said.
She turned and left, fast. But before that last sentence, there had been the tiniest little nod.

When Beca heard the apartment’s front door open later that day, she rushed to it and started talking before she even got into the hallway.
“Hi, sweetie, I have a plan and you have to…”
Her voice trailed off when she looked at the door and saw not only Chloe, but also Aubrey. Chloe was looking nervous.
“Hi, love!” she said. “I may have forgotten to tell you that Aubrey is in town for a conference and I said she could stay with us instead of getting a hotel?”
“Oh,” Beca said. “Er. Ok.”
“I can still get a hotel, if this is a bother,” Aubrey said. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“No, no!” Beca said. “Of course you should stay here! I just got a bit surprised.”
Chloe looked abashed.
“Sorry,” she said.
“You were saying that Chloe has to something?” Aubrey said. “And you have some sort of plan?”
“Right,” Beca said. “We’re going to meddle in our neighbors’ love life. I have a plan for how. And Chloe has to come down to the club tonight. So I hope you don’t mind either also going, or staying here on your own.”
“Tonight?” Chloe said. “But that’s a normal, full of hairy guys in leather night, isn’t it?”
Beca shook her head.
“The girls upstairs will be having a private event. They’re hiring me to DJ. And they’re letting us invite anyone we want to come, so we’re inviting all the girls from downstairs.”
“Are we going right now,” Aubrey said, “or can I put down my suitcase somewhere first?”
Beca drew a deep breath and tried to gather her thoughts.
“Of course you can,” she said. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking about this and it all wanted out. Sorry. Er, we don’t have a guest room or anything so you’ll have to make do with the couch. Unless Chloe was planning on giving you our bed and have us sleep on the floor.”
“Eh,” Chloe said, putting an arm around Aubrey’s shoulders. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Aubrey frowned.
“Why would you sleep on the floor?” she asked.
“Beca gets eager sometimes,” Chloe said. “And won’t stop until we’re both exhausted.”
“Right,” Aubrey said. “I don’t need the details of your no doubt very exciting sex life. The couch will be fine, thank you.”
“Chloe just likes to rile you up,” Beca said. “Here, let me take your bag. Are you hungry?”
She was, so while she and Chloe got her settled Beca called and ordered pizza. It wasn’t until she hung up that she realized that she’d ordered their exact favorites from their Barden days without even asking first. Fortunately it turned out to be all right. Or if it wasn’t, Aubrey pretended it was.
“So what brings you to town?” Beca said when most of the pizza was gone. “I though you were running that horrible camp where people pay you to get abused.”
“Really, Beca,” Aubrey said. “You make me sound like a dominatrix.”
“No comment,” Beca said. “None.”
Aubrey was sitting in one of their armchairs, while Beca and Chloe were snuggled up on the couch.
“Some sort of conference,” Chloe said. “She told me when she called.”
“Cool,” Beca said. “Some sort of high-power business leader thing, I suppose?”
Aubrey blushed a little.
“Well…,” she said.
“Hey!” Beca said. “Aubrey’s got a secret!”
“Aubrey?” Chloe said. “What’s going on? Come on, you know you can tell us. Even if Becs here likes to tease you. She won’t do anything bad. Below that harsh exterior she’s a softie. Also, she knows I’d be upset if she actually hurt you.”
“I know,” Aubrey said. “It’s just hard to say out loud. Even to you guys.”
Beca frowned.
“She’s right, Aubrey,” she said. “I was just teasing. And now you look like you’re serious, so I’m sorry. I’ll behave. What’s going on? Do you need help? Do you need someone killed? Because if you do, we have Lily’s phone number.”
Aubrey laughed.
“You’re incorrigible,” she said. “You couldn’t stop joking if your life depended on it.”
“Especially if her life depended on it,” Chloe said. “She does it more when she gets nervous.”
“Anyway,” Aubrey said. “I’m here to attend a conference for LGBT business leaders. So, what’s this plan Beca has for tonight? Are we trying to help or hinder those people’s love lives?”
“Whoah!” Beca said. “Hang on there! You’re here to attend what?”
Aubrey sighed, then put on a very professional smile.
“Hi,” she said. “My name is Aubrey Posen, and as it turns out, I am a lesbian.”
“Aubrey!” Chloe said. “Why haven’t you said something before?!”
“Dude!” Beca said at the same time. “You’re one of us?”
“I didn’t say anything before, because I didn’t know before,” Aubrey said. “I only realized a few months ago.”
Her smile had turned more natural, and she looked more relaxed overall.
“What happened?” Chloe said. “You were never with anyone back at Barden.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Aubrey agreed. “For the longest time I thought I was asexual. But I think I only have an extremely low sex drive. And possibly a hangup or two. I’m not sure.”
She looked expectantly at Beca.
“Uh-hu,” Beca said. “I’m not touching that one. I said I’d behave.”
“So you met someone?” Chloe asked.
Aubrey nodded.
“Her name was Dolores,” she said. “I hired her as a seasonal worker, and we… I don’t know, really. It wasn’t like any relationship I’d ever had. It wasn’t emotionally intimate like with you guys, or even the life-long-friend thing with the other Bellas, or… I just couldn’t get enough of being around her. Luckily for me, she felt something similar. I spent three months being an extremely unprofessional boss.”
“And then?” Chloe said. “Where is she now?”
Aubrey shrugged.
“Her contract ran out and she left.”
“What?” Beca said. “Didn’t you ask her to stay?”
“Of course I asked her to stay! She said no, and then… she just left.”
“Dude, harsh,” Beca said, her voice low and for once not at all teasing. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you OK?” Chloe said.
Aubrey shrugged a little.
“It’s been months,” she said. “I’m over it. I still miss something, but I’m not sure if it’s her, the sex, the physical closeness, just having someone around who wanted to be mine or something else entirely. Which is at least partly why I’m going to this thing. I’m…”
She drew a deep breath and blushed a little.
“I’m going to try to find someone to sleep with,” she said. “And I thought a conference for LGBT business leaders might be…”
She fell silent.
“A target-rich environment?” Beca said, some of her sass back.
“Nicely put,” Aubrey said. “Yes, that.”
“You’ll have no problem finding someone,” Chloe said. “Really, you’re so hot.”
Beca suddenly frowned.
“Yeah,” she said. “And athletic, and blonde.”
Chloe looked at her.
“Sweetie?” she said. “You sound like you’ve had an idea.”
Beca broke out in a grin.
“Hey, Aubs,” she said. “How do you feel about athletic brunettes with big tits? And are you up for trying to pull tonight?”

“You said it was only going to be a small gathering of friends!” Aubrey said later that night.
“I thought it would!” Beca said.
The club was packed with women. Young women. Pretty much everyone there seemed to be under thirty, and most no more than twenty. Pretty much everyone was dancing wildly to a Goa trance beat. The air smelled of incense, and some of the women were waving glow sticks around.
“Well, you were wrong!” Aubrey almost shouted. “Are you sure this woman I’m supposed to flirt with is even here?”
Beca scanned the crowd, looking for people she knew. In the back she saw Hanna and Spencer, sitting close, close together around a table with four other women. They all were laughing and looking really happy. And there, a couple of tables over, were Buffy and Faith. Across from each other, the red-headed girl between them on one side and Dawn on the other. They looked, more than anything else, relaxed.
“Oh, I see them!” Chloe said.
She had her arm around Aubrey’s waist, being her usual touchy self. Normally, Chloe being that kind of close with another woman would bother Beca. Which would in turn bother Chloe, since the last thing in the world she wanted to do was to make Beca feel bad. But somehow it never bothered Beca when it was Aubrey Chloe was touchy with. Which, when she thought about it, was a bit weird. Somehow she’d always known that Aubrey was not a romantic rival, even though she had a longer and in some ways more intimate relationship with the woman Beca loved more than anything else than Beca herself had.
“Yeah, me too,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She made her way along the walls with practiced ease. It was the same way she needed to take to get the DJ booth, and she knew it well. She took Aubrey’s hand to help guide her through the darkness and flashing multicolored lights. Aubrey’s hand was moist with sweat. Nervous, Beca guessed. When she got to the table with their downstairs neighbor, she tapped Faith on the shoulder.
“Hey,” she said when Faith turned to look.
Faith broke out into a smile and turned so she was sitting sideways on her chair, facing Beca.
“Hey girl,” she said. “I thought you’d be warming up or some artist shit like that.”
“Later,” Beca said.
She waved at the other people around the table in general.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Beca. And all but one of you already know that.”
Chloe forced her way forward, taking Aubrey along with her in the process.
“And I’m Chloe,” she said. “We live above Faith and Buffy. Hi, Dawn. Who’s your friend?”
“She’s Willow,” Faith said. “She’s sacrificed her voice to the goddess Hecuba for seven nights, so she can’t speak.”
“Hecate!” Dawn said with an exasperated sigh. “Her name is Hecate, not Hecuba! Would you please get it right before you piss her off again?”
“Whatever,” Faith said. “So, Beca, who’s your new friend?”
“Actually, she’s an old friend,” Beca said. “My oldest friend, along with Chloe. I met them both at the same time. And Aubrey here just came out to us earlier today.”
“Hi,” Aubrey said, through only slightly clenched teeth.
Faith gave her a highly unsubtle looking up and down.
“Did she now,” she said. “Welcome to the lady-loving club, Aubrey. I’m Faith, as bi as it gets. Willow here’s a pretty femme lesbo, although you seriously don’t want to get on her bad side. Dawn has been known to dip into the lady pond, and Buffy over there… can speak for herself.”
“Once!” Dawn said. “It happened once. And Bo is a succubus! She could seduce a rock if she wanted to!”
Faith wiggled her eyebrows at Dawn.
“Whatever you say, Dawnie.”
Aubrey bent down and put her lips next to Beca’s ear.
“They’re crazy,” she whispered.
“No, they’re not,” Beca whispered back. “Just ignore the weird stuff.”
“Actually, Faith,” Chloe said. “We want to ask you for a favor.”
“Oh God,” Aubrey whispered under her breath.
“Oh?” Faith said. “What? And what’s in it for me?”
The other three women at the table were watching them curiously.
“Well,” Beca said.
She gave Aubrey’s ass a good slap. Aubrey yelped and glared at her.
“Aubrey here,” Beca continued, “recently had her sense of her own sexuality turned around. She’s not sure any more how her libido works. So she came here to Los Angeles to try and find a woman to help her figure herself out.”
“She’s going to a conference for gay business leaders,” Chloe said. “She thought that’d be a good place to pick someone up. Which is not a bad plan. She’s smart, my Aubrey.”
“But,” Beca said. “We thought it’d be even better if it was someone we knew a little, and who knew what was up. And since you were pretty clear about coming on to us, we thought, hey, we can always ask, right?”
“Oh, you can’t be serious!”
The exclamation came from Buffy. Everyone turned to look at her. She blushed and looked down.
“Sorry,” she said. “Of course you all can do whatever you want.”
“You don’t approve, B?” Faith said.
“I…”
Buffy shook her head and drew a deep breath.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said. “I’m sorry I interrupted. Really.”
Faith gave her a long look, then turned back to Aubrey.
“Are they right?” she said.
Aubrey nodded.
“Pretty much,” she said.
Faith stood up and offered her hand to Aubrey.
“In that case,” she said. “Would you like to dance?”
Aubrey took her hand, smiling.
“Absolutely,” she said.
“Sweet.”
Faith smiled at her, bounced up from her chair and led Aubrey out onto the dance floor. They both started moving to the rhythm the moment they stepped on, in sync with each other. Faith put her arms around Aubrey’s waist, Aubrey hers around Faith’s neck. Beca could see Faith’s lips move as she said something, and Aubrey laugh in response then move closer.
“Well,” Beca said. “That seems to be working out.”
“I’ll say,” Chloe said.
“That’s our Faith,” Dawn said.
Willow nodded. Buffy looked down into her drink.
“I, er, we… should go over and say hi to our other neighbors,” Beca said.

“OK,” Hanna said a while later. “You did tell your friend that if she hooks up with someone, she’s supposed to leave the dance floor before they, you know, do the deed, right?”
Aubrey and Faith were still dancing. Very, very well, to begin with. Aubrey clearly had lost none of the skill she built up while in the Bellas, and Faith had her apparently natural feline grace. The way they moved with, against and in contrast to each other was nearly mesmerizing. Aubrey had dressed in a pale yellow sundress that showed off considerable cleavage and ended not far down her smooth thighs. Faith wore her usual all but painted on leather pants and white tank top.
On top of the amazing dancing, they were being… touchy. Hanna’s comment came as Aubrey was behind Faith, pelvis pressed to ass, moving in perfect sync. She had both arms around Faith, one hand with two fingers in Faith’s mouth, the other having lifted Faith’s tank top so she could stroke the incredibly toned abs below the cloth. Faith had her hands reached back, firmly placed where Aubrey’s thighs met her buttocks.
“Maybe we should remind them,” Chloe said.
She and Beca were sitting on a couch, side by side. Or it would’ve been side by side if they hadn’t both been turned to the dance floor. As it was, Beca could clearly feel Chloe’s left boob against her back. She could also feel Chloe’s hand firmly grip her thigh, which she knew from experience was a sure sign that her girlfriend was seriously turned on.
“Maybe not,” Beca said. “I think it’s working.”
“Working?” Chloe said. “What? Working how?”
“Yeah,” Spencer said. “What’s working?”
They weren’t alone on the couch. They were at the end, closest to the dance floor. Behind them Hanna and Spencer were sitting, placed not that differently from Chloe and Beca. On the other side of the table, on another couch, were four other girls. They way they were sitting was the opposite of the snuggliness across the table. Farthest from the dance floor, up against the wall, was Mona. She smiled and looked nice and friendly all the time. Except, Beca had noticed, when Hanna showed affection for Spencer, when something tense and sad flashed across her features. Next to Mona was a ridiculously beautiful woman Hanna had introduced as Emily. She had a slightly dazed look and had said things along the lines of “I can’t believe it’s actually over” several times. Next to her was another gorgeous one, although tiny, dark-haired and pale where her friend was taller and vaguely oriental-looking. She’d introduced herself as “Aria, token straight friend”. And finally there was a pretty but sour-looking blonde by the name of Alison, who kept giving death glares to anyone who looked too long at Emily. Which kept her busy, given that they were at a party in a gay club full of women and Emily was stunningly attractive.
“They’re trying to provoke the blonde over on that table over there to make a move at white trash princess,” Mona said. “And yes, it’s totally working. Blondie has already broken one glass, and her red-headed friend has been trying to calm her down for the past several minutes.”
Beca gave Mona a surprised look. That was remarkably accurate. Girl was sharp.
“Er, yeah,” she said. “The blonde one is Buffy, the…”
She had to make an effort not to use Mona’s term.
“…One dancing with Aubrey is Faith,” she finished.
“Excuse me,” Mona said. “I just need to nip over to the ladies’ room.”
She clambered out from her inside seat, not-so-accidentally elbowing Alison in the boob on the way. She vanished into the crowd.
“Bitch,” Alison muttered under her breath, rubbing her hurt body part.
“So, you’re doing this why?” Aria asked.
“We learned they’ve been pining for each other for years,” Chloe said. “But Buffy’s been afraid to make a move, because history. So Beca decided we should get ourselves involved.”
Faith had moved one of her hands to the back of Aubrey’s head. While Beca watched, she twisted her torso and neck around until she managed to give Aubrey a long, deep kiss. Aubrey’s hand that had been stroking Faith’s abs vanished up under the tank top and grabbed a bra-clad breast.
“Seriously,” Hanna said. “Get the hose.”
“You want a wet t-shirt contest on top of this?” Alison said.
“If those two go any further, the police will break this whole party up for public indecency,” Hanna said.
“Actually,” Aria said, “the sign when we arrived said it’s a private event. So they can get as naughty as the organizers allow.”
“Who’re the organizers?” Hanna asked. “Are they fine with this?”
“Officially,” Beca said, “your friend Mona. And I think she is.”
“She said you guys had something to celebrate,” Chloe said. “And she asked Beca to DJ.”
“So why aren’t you?” Alison asked.
“I’m on a break,” Beca said. “I loaded up the system in a advance, it’ll be fine.”
“Do your breaks always last all night?” Alison said.
“When I can get away with it, sure,” Beca said.
And that was when Buffy came barging into the cleared circle around Faith and Aubrey. Buffy grabbed hold of Aubrey and shoved her away from Faith with such force that it almost looked like Aubrey flew off the dance floor, stumbled a few panicked steps on her high heels, finally lost her footing and fell… right into the arms of Mona, who happened to be standing in just the right place to catch her.
Beca frowned.
“Didn’t she say she was going to the bathroom?” she said.
“She did,” Hanna said.
“Wow, some luck that she was standing right there,” Beca said.
“No, not really,” Spencer said.
Beca gave her a confused look.
“It’s Mona,” Emily and Aria said in chorus.
“Oh-kay,” Beca said.
She carefully looked away. Partly because of the mildly creepy answer, and partly because Chloe was tugging at her arm and pointing out at the dance floor.
All of the young women that had come with their downstairs neighbors had pulled back and formed a circle around the edges of the floor. In the center, Faith and Buffy were standing face to face. Faith had a strange look of mixed annoyance and hope. Buffy looked at the same time resigned and determined. Beca saw Buffy’s lips move, but not well enough to be able to read her words. Faith answered, something brief and accompanied by an irritated toss of her head. She seemed to be about to turn and leave when Buffy grabbed her shoulders, pulled her close and kissed her. Cheering and applause came from the girls around them.
“Sounds like you two weren’t the only ones who wanted that to happen,” Hanna said. “Let’s hope it turns out for the good.”
Beca watched as Buffy dragged a highly willing Faith off the dance floor and in the direction of the exit. Dancing and general partying resumed.
“Yeah, let’s,” she said.
“It’ll be fine,” Chloe said. “Did you see where Aubrey got to?”
“No,” Beca said. “I suppose we can ask Mona when she gets back. And you’ll all have to excuse me, I need to get back to the DJ booth.”

When Beca finally queued up a whole bunch of very long and mellow trance tracks and left the DJ booth, neither Mona nor Aubrey had returned. On the other hand, champagne bottles had appeared on the table where Chloe, Hanna, Spencer and their friends still sat. Several of them were empty, several were waiting unopened in ice buckets and one was being used by Hanna to fill a glass for Beca.
“Here!” she said. “We’re celebrating, after all. Can’t celebrate without champagne.”
Beca took the glass and sat down next to Chloe.
“Er, cheers?” she said.
A rousing chorus of cheers came from all around the table, except from Alison, who simply lifted her glass and smiled frostily.
“I’m not sure what we’re celebrating,” Beca said. “Or did you already talk about that while I was gone? And should we start worrying about Aubrey and Mona?”
“I texted Aubrey,” Chloe said. “She replied that she’s fine and will tell us tomorrow.”
“And Mona can handle herself,” Spencer said.
“Can she ever,” Aria said. “I’d worry more for the neighborhood.”
“Also, they told me that they’ve been badly harassed for many years,” Chloe said. “The papers from Faith helped them finally find the culprit, together with loads of evidence. So they’re celebrating that being over.”
Hanna playfully threw a champagne cork at Chloe.
“Can you get your girlfriend here to stop dodging the praise you two deserve?” she said. “If you hadn’t insisted on talking to us and to the downstairs girls, we’d never have gotten those papers. So we totally owe you.”
“Really, thank you,” Emily said. “Just let us know if there’s anything we can do for you.”
The baser parts of Beca’s brain instantly came up with several suggestions for that the gorgeous girl could do for them. The less base parts pushed it down. She cleared her throat.
“So,” she said. “What are you guys going to do now? I mean, you got the apartment as a hiding place, didn’t you? And if I understand things right, you don’t need to hide any more? So are you moving out?”
Spencer and Hanna looked at each other.
“No,” Spencer said. “As a matter of fact, we’re moving in.”
“But you already live there,” Chloe said.
“Not really,” Hanna said. “We’ve just kept enough stuff there to be able to easily stay over. Now we’ve decided to move in for real. Together.”
“You’re leaving Rosewood?” Alison said.
“Oh Hell yes,” Spencer said. “And if you guys have any sense, so will you. Even with A gone, that place has bad karma for us.”
Alison shook her head.
“I can’t leave my pupils,” she said, voice smooth as silk.
“Suit yourself,” Hanna said. “Maybe eventually they’ll run out of black hoodies.”
“Maybe I should,” Emily said. “I mean, I do have the swim coach job, which is nice, but Paige asked me to come live with her in California if I ever manage to leave Rosewood and…”
Her voice trailed off as she cast a nervous sideways look at Alison.
“You do as you think is best for you, sweetie,” Alison said, her voice somehow gaining another couple of notches of smoothness.
“I’m moving to Iceland,” Aria blurted out.
“What?” Spencer said. “Seriously?”
Aria nodded.
“I already bought an apartment in Reykjavík,” she said. “I was going to tell you guys tomorrow.”
“Wow, Iceland,” Beca said. “That’s pretty far away. Why there?”
“I once spent a year there with my family,” Aria said. “I liked it. And I got a contract for a book, which I can write anywhere I like, and people in Rosewood look at me kind of weird after everything with Ezra, so…”
“So this is, like, the last night with the gang for you?” Chloe said.
Spencer smiled.
“In a way,” she said. “Although I’m sure we’ll keep in touch.”
“But, girls!” Chloe said, waving her arms. “Last night! We have to celebrate! For real!”
“We already have champagne,” Alison said.
“No, no, no,” Chloe said. “That’s not celebrate, that’s just fancy.”
Beca suddenly got what her girlfriend was thinking. She groaned.
“No, sweetie,” she said. “Not that!”
“Yes that,” Chloe said. “Go get us seven bottles of tequila and the other stuff, will you?”
Beca sighed and extricated herself from Chloe’s arms.
“All right,” she said. “But it’s your fault!”
“OK, now I’m curious,” Hanna said. “What is this celebration? Spill already!”
As she headed to the bar, Beca could almost hear Chloe smile.
“This is a thing we learned from our friend Fat Amy,” Chloe said. “It goes like this…”

The next day Chloe left for work at her usual early hour. Beca had never managed to figure out how Chloe didn’t get hung over, but she didn’t. Not even after one of Amy’s horrible drinking games. Which always had Beca feeling like death warmed over the day after. Even if, like this time, she had made sure to drink plenty of water before she went to bed. Doing that helped, but only to the point where she wanted to spend the whole day sitting still and wearing dark glasses, rather than begging for the sweet release of death. So she called work and said that she’d spend the day at home, sorting through possible new songs for their stable of artists. That was work nobody wanted to do, so she got a relieved approval from her boss. She grabbed a bottle of water, her laptop and headphones and went to sit on the balcony. It was too warm inside the apartment for her pounding head. Anything that still sounded good to her through the headache and misery was sure to be worth pursuing further.
It took her half an hour to find a problem with her plan to spend the day on the balcony. After a certain time, the sun hit it. And, she now remembered, would stay there for the rest of the day. She groaned, picked up her stuff and went down into the back yard. There was an old hammock there that could be pressed into service, if she covered it with a towel or three. That far down between the building walls, the sun never reached. She sat down, opened the laptop next to her, put the headphones on, closed her eyes, pressed play on her evaluation playlist and leaned back with a sigh of relief.
She woke up with a start when someone poked her in the shoulder. She tore her phones off at the same time as she opened her eyes. Hanna was standing in front of her.
“Sorry to wake you,” she said. “But your phone has been beeping for a while now.”
As if on cue, Beca’s phone dinged for an incoming message.
“Oh,” Beca said. “Thanks, I guess.”
She looked at her phone. She had about a dozen messages waiting. All of them were from Aubrey.
“Hey, I just wanted it to shut up,” Hanna said. “My head is killing me. Your girlfriend’s drinking game was the worst I’ve ever tried.”
“So you didn’t have fun?” Beca said. “It looked like you all had fun.”
“Oh, I had fun,” Hanna said. “Loads of fun. Then. Not so much now.”
“Yeah, Fat Amy’s party games tend to be like that,” Beca said.
Hanna sat down in the chair she’d obviously brought with her, and Beca turned to her messages.
The first one asked where she was, and said that the door to their apartment was unlocked. The next one said that their kitchen looked like there had been a fight in there, and really where was she? The next ten or so got increasingly more urgent. While Beca was reading through them, another one arrived. It said “Right, that’s it, I’m calling 911”.
“No, don’t!” Beca replied as fast as she could.
“I’m down in the back yard,” she sent after that.
“Sorry, I fell asleep,” was next.
At most twenty seconds passed, and then Aubrey appeared.
“There you are!” she said. “Why did you leave the door unlocked? Anyone could get in!”
“Please speak less loudly,” Beca said. “I’m way hung over.”
Aubrey sat down at the other end of the hammock from Beca.
“Don’t tell me you tried one of Fat Amy’s stupid drinking games again,” she said.
“Chloe insisted,” Beca said defensively. “You know I can’t say no to Chloe.”
“Well, I guess it didn’t harm any innocents,” Aubrey said. “Who did you play with?”
Hanna removed her sunglasses.
“Us,” she said. “So could you please keep it down? I feel like she looks.”
She pointed at Beca with her glasses.
“Well,” Aubrey said. “I’m sorry they got you into that.”
“I’m not,” Hanna said. “I had a blast.”
A thought that had made its laborious way through Beca’s mind finally reached her consciousness.
“Wait,” she said. “Did you just come home, Aubs?”
Aubrey blushed a little.
“Maybe,” she said. “Kind of.”
Beca grinned.
“Sweet!” she said. “So who did you end up with in the end?”
“Mona,” Aubrey said. “She was… remarkably honest.”
“Mona?” Hanna said. “Remarkably honest?”
“Yes,” Aubrey said. “After she caught me and made sure I was OK, she said that she’d been in unrequited love with her best friend for ages and that she likes to seek temporary forgetfulness between the legs of beautiful women. Then she asked if I was interested in spending the night with her.”
Aubrey shrugged.
“I said yes,” she said. “I mean, I came here to find someone hot to have sex with, and Mona certainly is hot. Your plan to provoke Buffy into making a move on Faith had obviously worked, judging from the way I got thrown across the room. Which, by the way, that girl is seriously strong. I want her workout routine, if you can get her to reveal it. In any case, I saw no reason to turn Mona down. So I didn’t.”
“I’ll try to get Buffy’s routine,” Beca said. “But how did the experiment go? How do you feel about sex?”
Aubrey shrugged.
“It’s nice,” she said. “But no big deal. I won’t mind doing it, if someone I care about wants it. But I don’t see the point of seeking it out.”
Beca looked at her.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s so not how I feel.”
“Mona said she’s in love with her best friend?”
Beca and Aubrey both turned to Hanna.
“Yes,” Aubrey said. “She didn’t go into any detail. I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t need to,” Hanna said.
Her face had a weird expression, somewhere between surprise, elation and dread. She got up from her chair.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I need to go make a call.”
She left without waiting for a reply. Beca and Aubrey looked after her.
“What’s her deal?” Beca said, confused.
Aubrey tilted her head.
“She’s Mona’s friend, right?” she said.
“Yeah, I think so,” Beca said.
“Is she perhaps Mona’s best friend?”
Realization dawned.
“Ooh,” Beca said. “Mona’s in love with her and she didn’t know!”
Aubrey looked at the door Hanna had just vanished through.
“I hope they can work it out,” she said. “Being in love with someone and they not returning it really sucks.”
“I thought you weren’t that interested?” Beca said.
Aubrey turned her head and gave her a long look.
“Love and sex aren’t the same,” she said. “I miss Dolores. A lot. But I don’t miss making love to her.”
She sighed.
“Maybe that’s why she left,” she said. “I guess she could tell that I only had sex with her because she wanted it, not because I wanted it. She always had to take the initiative. I can imagine that would be a problem, if you’re the kind of person who can’t really tell love and sex apart. As it seems most people can’t.”
“I never thought of them as different,” Beca said. “But now that you say it, I can see how they could be.”
“I suppose that’s something I’ll have to make sure to talk about, if I ever meet another partner,” Aubrey said.
“Hey,” Beca said. “When. Not if. You’re an awesome woman, you’ll find someone. Or someone will find you. Yeah, ok, it may be a bit trickier than if you’d been straight and sex-obsessed, but that’ll just make it all the more special when it happens. Note when.”
Aubrey smiled at her.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t think you’re right, but it’s nice that you’re supportive.”
“Hey, Bella sisters, right?” Beca said. “Also, I’m no good at making friends, so I have to take care of the ones I have.”
“I think you’re better at that than you think,” Aubrey said. “Or why did this whole thing with Faith and Buffy happen?”
Beca thought about that for a moment.
“So, what are you going to do now?” she said, since she couldn’t think of a good response to what Aubrey had said.
“Changing the subject, huh?” Aubrey said. “Very well. I’m going to attend the rest of the conference, then go home. I still have a business to run. One where I meet lots of people, so maybe you will turn out to be right some day.”
“Excellent plan,” Beca said. “And not to be dismissive or anything, but does that mean I can go back to slee… er, that is, go back to work now?”
Aubrey stood up and smiled at her.
“Sure,” she said. “You can go back to ‘work’.”

The next time Beca woke up the last rays of the sun were painting the very top of the walls around the back yard golden. Her headphones played nothing but the soft hiss of static, and the chill of night was starting to make itself felt. She removed her phones and sat up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.
“You shouldn’t sleep out here in the dark,” a voice said. “It’s not safe.”
Beca looked around. Buffy was sitting in the chair Hanna had left behind.
“Oh, right,” she said. “You were fighting and stuff the other night.”
“That’s over,” Buffy said. “But there are more normal… gang members. To worry about.”
“Right,” Beca said. “Thanks.”
“Also I wanted to talk to you.”
Beca’s shoulders tensed up.
“Oh?” she said.
“It was your idea, right? To throw your blonde friend at Faith like that, while I was watching?”
“Er, maybe?”
“Because,” Buffy said, “I needed that. So thanks.”
Beca relaxed. After what she’d seen the skinny blonde do, she really didn’t want to get into a fight with her.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “It was a gamble. I’m glad it paid off.”
She frowned.
“I assume it did pay off?”
Buffy smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “I finally got over myself, and now Faith and I are… together. Girlfriends. Lovers.”
She shook her head.
“God, that sounds so strange to say,” she said. “I have a girlfriend. I have Faith as a girlfriend.”
“You look happy,” Beca said.
“I believe I am,” Buffy said. “This has been a long time coming. We already know each other very well, Faith and I. I think this will work out. We were almost inseparable before, the only real difference now is that we’re also fucking like bunnies.”
She laughed a little.
“It feels like Faith is trying to work off several years’ worth of pent-up frustration as fast as possible,” she said. “I’m not exactly complaining.”
Beca couldn’t help smiling back at her.
“Chloe and I spent most of four years circling each other before we finally got together,” she said. “I remember what the first few weeks after were like.”
“I guess I should enjoy it while it lasts,” Buffy said.
“We calmed down some, eventually,” Beca said. “But we never really stopped. Every time I get to make love to her is like a gift from the Universe.”
“Wow,” Buffy said. “I kind of doubt we’ll feel like that in a couple of years. But I guess we’ll see. And I hope you never stop feeling like that.”
“Thanks,” Beca said.
She looked up. The sunlight had entirely moved off the buildings. Soon it’d be getting dark for real.
“I guess we should be getting indoors,” she said.
“You go in,” Buffy said. “I’ve still got some things to take care of out here.”
Beca got a feeling it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask what.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll see you later, then.”
She picked up her laptop, put her headphones around her neck and stood up.
“Are you sure you don’t need any help with whatever it is?” she said.
Buffy smiled at her again.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Give my regards to Chloe.”
“All right,” Beca said.
She looked back at Buffy as she walked in through the door. The blonde girl looked small and vulnerable as she sat there, smiling gently at something and playing with a stick of wood.

Beca had her hand on the doorknob to hers and Chloe’s apartment when something, some small sound, made her turn and look at the stairs up to Hanna and Spencer’s. Someone was sitting there, on one of the steps.
“Hi,” Mona said, giving Beca a little wave.
“Oh,” Beca said. “Hi?”
Mona had a bouquet of roses lying across her lap. She was wearing a really nice red dress, and her hair had been put up in a complicated and pretty hairdo.
“Sorry to startle you,” Mona said.
“No problem,” Beca said. “Are you OK?”
Mona smiled.
“Yeah,” she said. “Just scared.”
Beca sat down at the lowest step.
“Of what?” she said.
“Getting what I’ve wanted since the first year of High School,” Mona said.
“That’s Hanna, right?” Beca asked.
“Yes,” Mona said. “Hanna.”
She sighed and laughed at the same time, then shook her head.
“I don’t even know what to think. After all these years, after all the messed up things I did for and to her and her friends, she just calls me out of the blue and says that she knows that I love her.”
“Um, yeah,” Beca said. “That may have been slightly our fault. That she found out, I mean. Aubrey told me what you’d told her, and Hanna was there to hear it.”
“So that’s how it happened,” Mona said. “I suppose I should’ve figured that out. But I’ve gotten blasé about mentioning it. Or maybe something in my subconscious hoped that what I said would reach Hanna eventually.”
“So, I’m sorry?” Beca said.
“Don’t be,” Mona said. “I should be thanking you.”
Beca glanced at the flowers.
“So, what?” she said. “Hanna is dumping Spencer for you?”
Mona shook her head again.
“Then what?” Beca said. “I don’t get it.”
“It turns out that Hanna has had feelings for me for many years,” Mona said. “Not quite as many as I have for her, but nearly. She said that if I’d come out to her long ago, her entire misguided engagement to some white guy might never have happened, nor her relationship with Spencer.”
“But she’s staying with Spencer?”
Mona nodded.
“And she said that Spencer thinks she might be able to share,” she said. “Share Hanna. With me. Now that it’s all over. So I’m going there so the three of us can talk, and maybe try something more, and we will see if Spencer really can share.”
“Oh,” Beca said.
“There’s a part of me that thinks all this isn’t real,” Mona said. “That expects to wake up back in my room at Radley any moment now. That all this is just a psychotic delusion. Another part thinks it’s real enough, but there’s no way Spencer will actually agree to sharing Hanna with me, and Hanna will reluctantly turn me away, and I don’t know if I can deal with knowing that I could have had her if I just hadn’t been too late.”
She drew a deep breath.
“And then there is the part that can’t stop hoping that it will work,” she said. “All the parts are pulling me in different directions, and I sit here, able neither to go the last few steps to their door nor to turn and leave.”
Beca put down her laptop and got to her feet. She climbed a couple of steps until she could reach Mona.
“I think you will regret it more if you don’t at least try,” she said. “So let’s, all right?”
Mona gave her a long look, then nodded quickly. Beca took her hand.
“Come on,” she said.
She started climbing the stairs, pulling Mona with her. When they got to the landing, she knocked on Hanna’s and Spencer’s door. Running steps came from inside and the door swung open. Hanna came to view, giving Beca an irritated and confused look. Before she could say anything, Beca pulled Mona into her field of view.
“I think this is yours,” she said.
Hanna’s expression changed in a heartbeat, to one of mixed hope and fear. It wasn’t very different from how Mona looked.
“Mona,” she said.
Mona held out her bouquet.
“These are for you,” she said.
Hanna took them, carefully as they were very precious and made from the thinnest and most fragile glass.
“Thank you,” she said. “Come inside?”
Mona briefly turned to Beca.
“Thanks,” she said. “I can make it from here.”
She entered, and Hanna closed the door behind her.

“So who do you think that is?” Chloe said a few ours later. “I vote Spencer.”
She and Beca were lying mostly side by side in their bed, Beca’s head on Chloe’s shoulder. The bedroom window was open, and sounds could enter from outside. Sounds like, for example, a woman moaning and yelling in the throes of passion.
“No, Spencer’s voice is deeper,” Beca said. “I say it’s Mona.”
“I suppose you’ve heard her talk more than I have,” Chloe said.
“The big question is, does tense and controlled in public Spencer translate into quiet and intense or loud and let go Spencer in bed?” Beca said.
“Loud and let go, I think,” Chloe said. “Nobody can be that tightly wound all the time.”
“I think quiet and intense,” Beca said.
Fresh moaning sounds started drifting in from outside.
“Already?” Beca said. “Again?”
“Well, there’s three of them,” Chloe said.
“Wait, I got to…” a voice said from outside.
Beca and Chloe looked at each other.
“Was that Faith?” Chloe said.
“I think it was,” Beca said. “She’s not up there with Hanna, Spencer and Mona, right?”
As if on cue, the hammock down in the yard started to creak rhythmically.
“Nope, she’s not,” Chloe said.
“Oh yes,” Buffy said from down in the yard. “Like that. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
“God, you’re so beautiful,” came from above.
“That’s Mona,” Beca said. “No question.”
“I know, right?” followed. “Like a dream turned real.”
“Spencer,” Chloe said.
“So are you two going to do something about it or just gawk?” a third voice said.
“Hanna,” both Beca and Chloe said in chorus.
From the sounds, the two watchers decided to do something about it.
Beca turned over on her side and slowly ran her finger down the smooth skin between Chloe’s breasts.
“I’m sensing a trend in the building tonight,” she whispered. “We don’t want to be left out, do we?”
Chloe smiled. She moved her arm until she could get her hand on Beca’s ass, then demonstratively spread her legs.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Are we the kind of girls who do that sort of thing?”
Beca smiled at her and placed a kiss on Chloe’s nipple.
“Yes,” she said. “We totally are.”
Accompanied by the sounds of their neighbors’ lovemaking, Beca started licking her way down Chloe’s naked body.
She’d be damned if she couldn’t make her girlfriend’s pleasured screams louder than anyone else’s in the building.