Work Text:
“We lie back, a beautiful, beautiful ti-”
The radio cuts off with a turn of the key, silence filling the car as Beca stares ahead at Chloe’s house. Off-white with light green shutters, a wraparound porch with a swing, a warm yellow light glowing beside the front door.
Beca leaves the key in the ignition and sits back in her seat, pondering on whether she should turn around and drive back to Seattle.
This is a mistake, right? A colossal, invasive mistake.
She and Chloe haven’t spoken in years, not since before Chloe’s wedding. Not properly anyway. There’d been brief birthday texts, occasional Bella group chat reactions and one painfully polite condolence after Chloe’s divorce announcement six months ago.
And now here she is, sitting outside of her house like a freaking idiot. Or stalker, you choose.
She doesn’t even know what she’s expecting, coming here. Comfort and safety, maybe, because Chloe has always been the only person in her life who could provide that.
And right now, she really, really needs it. Everything has pretty much gone to shit, not in any way that made sense.
The life she had thrived for all these years had suddenly become her worst nightmare. Not music itself, but everything that being globally successful has triggered: the constant cameras, the endless pressure to be interesting, grateful, marketable, consumable.
At one point, it just snapped.
BECA MITCHELL DISAPPEARS AFTER WALKING OFF TOUR
It’s been two weeks. Two weeks of ignoring calls from her publicist, of doom scrolling on her phone on her mom’s pullout couch, of steadily falling further into a depressive state. The truth is, she had been unraveling for longer than anyone realized, including herself – forgetting lyrics onstage, panic attacks in hotel rooms, waking up every morning already exhausted.
She’d stood backstage in Denver, listening to thousands of people chanting her name and suddenly thought: I can’t do this anymore.
So here she is; sitting outside her former best friend’s house because she didn’t know where else to go.
Five minutes pass before Beca can summon the courage to go up to the door. Halfway there, she digs her nails into her palms and swivels on her feet to head back to the car, berating herself for even entertaining the idea that Chloe would be okay with this.
But then, the front door opens. “Can I help you?”
Beca falters, cursing under her breath. Tentatively, she turns back around. “H-hey.”
Chloe blinks twice in slow succession. “Oh. Hi.” She takes one step forward, folds her arms over her chest. “What um– what are you doing here?”
Beca slams her eyes shut. A humorless laugh barrels past her lips. “I–I shouldn’t have come. It’s late. I’m sorry.”
“Bec.” That nickname makes her stop in her tracks. “It’s— yeah. It’s okay. Wanna come in?”
Beca takes a deep, grounding breath that makes her chest physically hurt. She nods, attempting to shake off the awkwardness suffocating that first interaction.
Chloe moves aside to let her through, shutting the door behind her before leading her towards the living-room. Beca scans her new surroundings: framed photo of Chloe’s family and the Bellas, scattered books, music sheets splayed out across the dining table.
Evidence of a quiet life, one that Beca has been yearning for for more time than she’d like to admit.
Soft music is playing through the speaker tucked in one of the corners of the kitchen counter.
Leon Bridges, one of Chloe’s favorites.
“Um, coffee or beer?” Chloe asks as she pads to the kitchen.
Beca clears her throat, her focus snapping back towards Chloe. “Beer if you’re joining me, otherwise coffee is good.”
Chloe nods and opens her fridge, grabbing two beer bottles. She opens a drawer to retrieve a bottle opener, shutting it with a bump of her hip. “You can have a seat, you know.”
“Right, sorry.”
Chloe hands Beca one of the cool beers and settles down across from her, observing her for a beat. “You look exhausted.”
Beca swallows. “Yeah um– the past few weeks haven’t been great.”
“You disappeared.”
Beca looks up from the beer bottle label. “You know?”
A nod. “Yeah. Stacie told me. She was concerned, asked me if I had heard from you at all.”
“Why would I…” Beca shakes her head faintly, because that’s exactly what she did.
“I don’t know. You and I have always… worked differently from the rest of the Bellas, I guess?”
Guilt coils in Beca’s stomach over not reaching out at all for so much time. Her thumb moves back and forth over the corner of the label that’s slowly peeling off from the condensation. “I didn’t really plan this. I just… I needed to drive somewhere and clear my head.”
“I figured.” Chloe meets her eyes. “Does anyone know where you are?”
“I told my mom.”
Chloe nods. “Have you eaten at all?”
“Does bad gas station coffee count?” She asks with a barely-there snicker.
Chloe is on her feet before she can object. “I’ll heat up something.” She heads back to the fridge and opens it, scanning its contents. “You still hate tomato soup?”
“You remember that?”
Chloe glances back at her like she’s personally offended Beca would ask that. “I made you one when you were sick once.”
“It tastes like warm ketchup.”
“You’re exhausting.”
The fondness slips out so naturally that both of them notice it, twin chuckles echoing in the kitchen.
“I’ll heat up a frozen pizza.”
“Much more up my alley,” Beca quips, the semblance of a smile curving her lips. Its unfamiliarity feels odd. “My food habits haven’t changed much since college.”
Chloe bends down, tugging open her freezer and fishing out a boxed pizza. She laughs shortly. “Clearly.”
After popping the pizza in the warming oven, Chloe sits back down, tucking one knee under her chin. Beca is momentarily distracted by how beautiful she looks, even in pajamas and make-up free, hair up in a messy bun with a few strands framing her face.
“Wanna tell me what happened?”
Beca inhales through her nose as emotion starts to climb up her throat. “It um— it all got too much, I guess? I love making music but… being famous is a bitch.”
Chloe hums. “Especially for someone as private as you.”
“Yeah. Everything felt loud. All the fucking time.” Beca feels the familiar sting of tears filling her eyes and reaches out to press both her palms to her closed lids. “Fuck. Sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize for crying,” Chloe murmurs. “Especially not with me.”
Beca shakes her head, sniffling. “You’re not even a little mad that I showed up here out of the blue, one random Thursday night after not speaking to you for over three years?”
Chloe glances down at the table, falling silent for a moment. “Why did you come here if you thought I would be mad at you?”
Chloe’s question doesn’t come across as accusatory, just curious.
“I…” A tiny shrug follows, barely visible. Her throat bobs in a painful swallow. “I missed you.”
The open honesty nearly startles her; she’s used to talking about her feelings in songs, not this. There is so much more she wants to say, but refrains.
If Chloe looks briefly surprised too, she doesn’t mention it.
“Me too.” She takes a swig from her beer, letting the admission linger in the air.
Beca’s gaze flickers to the many drawings stuck to Chloe’s fridge, mostly to distract herself from her spiraling thoughts. “Are those drawings from your patients?”
Chloe glances over her shoulder, humming. “Yeah. I have dozens more in my office.”
“Being a music therapist really suits you,” Beca murmurs, meaning every bit of it. She always knew Chloe would pick a job that helped people and be amazing at it. “Those kids are really lucky.”
A soft smile touches Chloe’s lips. “Thanks, Bec.”
Beca’s phone going off cuts through their tiny bubble. Beca glances at it, then flips the device face down.
“Is that work?”
Beca grunts in reply, blowing out a breath. “I’m waiting until tomorrow to face the storm.”
“What’s your plan of action?”
“I dunno. I still want to make music, I think?” Beca says. The fact that she isn’t even sure about that shows her how low she’s gotten. “Just… privately. No tours, no press. Just me and my studio.”
“That feels like a good compromise.”
“Not sure my label sees it that way. If they drop me, I guess I’ll just end up uploading YouTube videos of my songs for free.”
Chloe lets out a giggle. The sound makes Beca’s heart flutter briefly. “Hopefully it doesn’t reach that stage. Maybe you can create your own label with other artists you trust?”
Beca’s shoulder lifts in a shrug. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.” She puffs out another breath in an attempt to loosen the tension in her chest. “Right now I just need a break.”
“Yeah,” Chloe whispers. The oven going off startles them both. Chloe chuckles and stands to retrieve the pizza, grabbing a plate. After cutting it quickly, she sets the plate in the middle of the table, along with paper napkins. “Sorry, all of my other plates are in the dishwasher.”
“No need to apologize,” Beca tells her as she helps herself to a piece. “It’s not like you were expecting a visitor.”
“I wasn’t, no,” Chloe replies. A smile curves her lips. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
Beca smiles back tentatively; it’s genuine and almost feels foreign to her. She takes a bite and chews, then washes it down with a swig of beer. “I was sorry to hear about your divorce.”
Chloe glances down. “Thanks.”
“Sorry, I… we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t feel like it. I just wanted to say that.”
“No, no. It’s fine,” Chloe murmurs, eyes sliding back up to meet Beca’s. “It wasn’t meant to be, I guess? I realized that about a year into our marriage, which really sucked… Chicago and I shouldn’t have jumped the gun so quick, but him being in the military and all…” She falters with a shrug. “Yeah.”
“Are you… how are you now?” Beca finds herself asking. She doesn’t need the details, only to know whether Chloe is okay.
Chloe takes a few seconds to answer. “You know what the weirdest part was?”
“About the divorce?”
Chloe nods. “The relief.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “For months I felt guilty about it. Everyone warns you about the heartbreak after relationships end, but no one talks about what happens when you feel relieved instead.” Chloe licks her lips, glancing away. “It took me a while to get past that.”
“I can only imagine,” Beca muses aloud. “Easier said than done, but I don’t think you should feel guilty about choosing your happiness.”
“Thanks,” Chloe whispers, then shakes her head. “Anyway, enough about that. What about you? Anything on the horizon?”
“God, no.” A snicker barrels past Beca’s teeth. “Unless one-night stands count… but nothing serious, no.”
“Gotcha.”
“Stacie just got engaged, though.”
Chloe’s eyes pop wide. “Seriously? Stacie? She called and didn’t even mention it!”
“Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either,” Beca admits with a soft laugh. “He seems cool. Steady. Which is probably what she needs.”
Chloe nods. “Is Stacie the one you’ve kept in touch the most out of all the Bellas?”
“Um, yeah. Amy and I have random conversations once in a while, in between her disappearing off the face of the earth for weeks on end.”
The evening stretches out as they reminisce about their friends and good times from college. By eleven, the pizza is long gone and they’ve moved to the living room to nurse a second beer.
“Can I ask you something?” Chloe asks when Beca comes back from using the bathroom.
Beca nods, sinking back into the couch, tucking a leg under her. “Yeah, of course.”
“Why didn’t you come to the wedding? You’d RSVP’d yes, but you never showed up.”
Beca feels every muscle in her body tense. She clears her throat, debating whether she should tell Chloe the truth; how she had driven down to the venue, set on telling Chloe how she really felt. Set on telling her not to marry Chicago.
She had stepped out of her car, heart hammering into her ears, when she spotted Chloe and Chicago having a moment by the side of the building. They stood close, sharing soft words and kisses. The joy on Chloe’s face made Beca falter in her step and determination.
She came to a stop and watched her friend for a moment, realizing how happy Chloe seemed to be and how selfish she was acting. The words Beca had been rehearsing during the entire drive here suddenly died on her tongue.
She’d turned around, knowing damn well she couldn’t watch the love of her life marry someone else.
“A work thing came up at the last minute,” Beca eventually says. She doesn’t know if her lie is believable, as Chloe always had this ability to tell when Beca wasn’t being honest.
Chloe nods slowly, gaze dropping down. “Right…”
“You did receive my gift, right?”
“Yeah. The expensive coffee maker. I managed to keep it in the divorce,” Chloe tells her, snickering.
“Oh, good.”
“Want another beer?” Chloe asks, nodding towards Beca’s empty bottle.
“Trying to get me drunk, Beale?” Beca lets out a snort. “I shouldn’t, I’m driving.”
“Back to Seattle?”
“No um, I was thinking I’d get a hotel in the area.”
Chloe rolls her eyes as she pushes to her feet, grabbing both empty bottles. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re staying here. I have a guest bedroom.”
Beca stares after her. “You, um, you sure?”
“Positive.”
A gush of breeze travels through the room, pulling a shiver from Beca.
“You cold?”
“Just a little.”
Chloe disappears upstairs for a moment, leaving Beca alone with her thoughts. The alcohol has managed to dull them some. When she comes back, she’s holding Beca’s sweatshirt from back in college.
“Oh wow, you kept that?”
Chloe chuckles, shrugging. “It’s comfy. Here.”
Beca gives her a half-hearted smile as she takes the maroon hoodie. “Thanks. I can’t believe I forgot it behind.”
Truth is, she knew how much Chloe loved it. Still does, apparently.
“You’ve always been pretty scatterbrained.”
Beca snorts. “Yeah. Thank god you were the mom of the group. We would have fallen apart without you.”
“Nah, I needed you, too,” Chloe says. “We made a good team, you and I.”
Old feelings start clawing at Beca’s chest. All the almosts and what-ifs start spiralling in her mind.
Chloe observes her for a beat. “Are you okay?”
Beca glances up. “What makes you say that?”
“You twist your ring when you’re nervous.”
Beca puffs out a humorless laugh. “It’s pretty crazy how well you still know me.”
“I don’t, though.” The answer comes so quickly it makes them both pause. “I don’t know you anymore, Beca. I know what your publicist wants people to know. I know what Amy tells me.” Her voice grows softer over the next words. “But I don’t know you. Not like I did before, at least. And that…” Chloe pauses to draw some oxygen into her lungs. “That makes me really sad.”
Beca feels something twist sharply within her. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah… me too.”
“I…” Beca pauses, battling against the inner voice inside her head. She has been fleeing that conversation for years. But sitting there, exhausted and hollowed out and thirty-two years old, she suddenly doesn’t have the energy to keep up with the lie anymore. “I was there.”
That makes Chloe look up. A frown creases her forehead. “Where?”
Beca is well aware there will be no going back from this as soon as those words are out. “At your wedding. I came.”
Confusion dances in Chloe’s expression. “What?”
“I came because…” Now or never. “I came because I was going to stop it.”
Across from her, Chloe goes completely motionless. Silence settles between them, the suffocating kind. “What?” Chloe eventually croaks out.
Beca laughs almost miserably. “Yeah.”
“What um…” Chloe shakes her head, briefly shutting her eyes. “What do you mean, stop it?”
Beca notices how shaky her hand is as she raises it to take a sip of beer. She steels herself, gathering her wits before continuing. “I was in love with you, Chlo.”
The sentence hangs in the air, late by a handful of years. The rest unravels before Beca can stop it, now that the dam has been torn up.
“It took me a few years to realize, because I’m a fucking idiot,” Beca murmurs. “And I didn’t know what to do with it. And then you got with Chicago… so I walked away. I couldn’t be in your life if we weren’t together. So I learned how to survive without you altogether.”
Beca only pauses to take a breath.
“But when I got your wedding invitation, I… I don’t even know what happened. I wasn’t myself at the time, I think. I was ready to tell you I loved you and ask you not to marry him. But then… I saw you and how happy you looked.” Her voice dangerously wavers, but Beca keeps going. She needs to. “And I realized then that if I loved you, then I couldn’t be the person who took that away.”
The confession leaves her feeling lighter than she has in years. Years of carrying that crushing weight, years of wondering about the might-have-beens.
Just like that, it’s gone.
It takes her half-a-minute to find the courage to look up. When she does, Chloe’s expression is unreadable. The room suddenly feels too small as panic rushes through Beca’s bloodstream.
“Okay, I um– That was obviously a terrible thing to say.” She lets out a self-depricating laugh in a weak attempt not to cry and sets her beer down.
“Beca–”
“No it’s uh, it’s fine.” She pushes to her feet, glancing around for her keys. She can feel the build-up of emotions about to take over, tears blurring her vision.
What the hell had she been thinking? Showing up in the middle of the night after years apart, confessing she loved (loves) Chloe, admitting she had almost tried to stop her wedding–
Fucking moron.
“Beca.”
“I should go.” Finally setting eyes on her keys, Beca snatches them from the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry.”
She needs to get out of here before Chloe can say the thing she has clearly been struggling to say and stomp on her heart in the process.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she continues, shoving her feet into her shoes. “I was tired and having some kind of existential crisis and—”
“Beca.”
“I’ll just go.”
She heads down the hall, hearing Chloe’s footsteps close behind her.
“Beca, stop.”
Fingers gently wrapped around her wrist, stilling her movements. The contact feels so impossibly familiar, it makes Beca’s heart stutter.
Against her better judgement, Beca turns around to face Chloe. “Chlo–”
The rest of the sentence dies on her lips as soon as Chloe’s are pressed against them. So does any coherent thought, and for one entire second she just stands there, unable to process what is unfolding.
Until Chloe’s hand slides gently up to her jaw, anchoring her into reality. The room tilts as Beca melts into the kiss, a soft sound leaving her throat.
The years of longing and regret and grief dissolve instantly.
When they eventually part, Beca feels dizzy with a type of emotion she can’t quite pinpoint.
Happiness, maybe.
Chloe rests her forehead against Beca’s as they both catch their breath. “You’re so annoying.”
Beca blinks. “What?”
“I’ve been in love with you since my second senior year.” Beca feels her mouth gape. “You drive across two states, show up at my house late at night, tell me you almost stopped my wedding and then try to leave before I can even answer.”
Beca lets out a sound that’s between a laugh and a sob. “I’m an idiot, we’ve established that years ago.”
Chloe laughs, possibly the first real one Beca’s heard all evening. Her stomach flutters hard over the sound. Chloe tilts her head when she notices Beca’s longing expression. “What?”
“Nothing. I just—” She shrugs sheepishly, threading her fingers through Chloe’s. “I missed hearing you laugh. I missed…” She takes a deep breath, because confessing anything remotely linked to her heart is still met with some form of resistance. “I missed everything about you, Chlo.”
Chloe’s eyes soften as she raises their linked hands and brushes a kiss to Beca’s knuckles. “I’m here now.”
The next morning, Beca wakes up to an empty bed. She blinks as she takes in her unfamiliar surroundings, a soft, sleepy smile pulling at the corners of her lips when memories from the night before settle in her mind.
She heads downstairs, hoping to find Chloe in the kitchen. Instead, she sees a note waiting on the table.
Beca,
I left for work. I didn’t want to wake you.
There’s fresh coffee in the pot. Please drink some before talking to your manager/publicist.
Also, please don’t leave. I’m serious. Last night was… a lot. In a really good way, but I also think we need to talk about it. About us, and where we go from here.
Stay? I’ll be home around lunch time.
P.S.: I really, really enjoyed all the kissing last night ;)
Beca sat down and re-read the notes a few times.
Stay.
Such a simple and ordinary word. Yet something about it settles directly into the hollow place she’s been carrying around for years.
And for the first time in a long time, the future doesn’t seem so scary.