Work Text:
Beca had used to love working late into the night, it was when she did her best work. Some of the greatest Bella mixes had been born at four am on a Red Bull bender. But since she’d gotten married, since Alex and Grace had been born, Beca hated it. Anytime a client email pinged into her inbox and made insane demands or said something supremely stupid that she knew was going to take her hours into the night to fix, she would get so pissed off she’d almost quit on the spot. Hell, she would’ve done, except that was kind of hard to do when you owned the label without having to lay of hundreds of other people with partners and families, and she wasn’t going to be That Guy.
Still, every time she’d had to call Chloe and tell her that she was going to miss dinner and bedtime, saw the disappointment in her daughter’s faces every time via FaceTime, a piece of her heart broke all over again. She hated missing time with them, even when Chloe reassured her that in a year, when the label had really rooted itself, she wouldn’t have to work as much and could be home more. It wouldn’t make up for the moments that she’d missed, like the time Alex had fallen off the back porch and cut her knee pretty badly, crying for Momma Beca because her kisses always worked better for pain than Mama Chloe’s did, or when Grace had taken her first steps, tottering towards the picture of Chloe and Beca on their wedding day, her hands making that grabbing motion as she sought out the mom that was currently ass deep in paperwork in her office.
She’d had a really bad panic attack over it one night, just her and Chloe in their room at 2am, as she sobbed over missing the first time Grace had tried peaches. It was such a small thing, but it was yet another thing Beca hadn’t been able to share with her youngest daughter, and it broke something in her. Chloe had wrapped her in her arms, kissed the top of her head and mumbled reassurances into her hair for hours until Beca finally started to calm a little.
“I’m a terrible mom; I keep missing everything…”
“No you’re not.” Chloe had held her even tighter when the words left her mouth, “You’re doing your best Beca, no-one said that being a mom and building a music label at the same time would be easy.”
“I shouldn’t have done it.” Beca shook her head furiously, “I should’ve just stuck things out with Khaled’s label and–”
“No.” Chloe kissed her cheek, wiping the tears gently from Beca’s face, “No, you were miserable there Becs, they treated you like shit. We made this decision together, we’re raising this family together, if I thought it was hurting us, I would’ve told you by now.”
“You promise?” Beca whispered, “You promise you’ll tell me if I fuck it all up? Because I’ll burn it all down tomorrow if I need to.”
“I promise.” Chloe nodded, “If the girls are getting hurt by it, I’ll tell you immediately. But they’re not, they’re so happy Becs. They love you to death, they know that you’re always home whenever you can be.”
“I just feel so guilty Chlo…” Beca sobbed, “I never wanted to be like my dad, absent all the time, never there for the important things…”
“You’re not.” Chloe shook her head furiously, “You’re not. You are amazing, you still make it to their birthdays and Alex’s soccer matches and Grace’s doctor appointments and every holiday. You do everything you can to be here for your family and build a career that we’re all so proud of you for having. You have nothing to feel guilty about Becs, I love you so much, okay? So do the girls, you’re amazing, I promise you that.”
Beca said nothing, turning into Chloe’s arms and letting her hold her, rock her like she did to their children whenever they were upset as she sobbed into her wife’s chest.
“What if I fuck it all up?” She asked between sobs, “What if I ruin them, if I mess them up by not being here? What if they end up like me and not you?”
“Baby…” Chloe’s fingers ran through her hair, “I would love if they grew up to be just like you. I did fall in love with you and decide to have a family with you after all. I won’t let you fuck them up; you’re not alone in this parenting thing. Do you trust me to tell you if things are truly bad?”
Beca nodded.
“Good. Then try and listen when I tell you that you’re doing an amazing job, let me take on the responsibility of evaluating the prowess of your parenting. I’m a lot more impartial than you are.”
Beca giggled just a little, nodding a little as she snuggled closer into Chloe’s embrace, “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I can ask for.”
She had tried. She’d tried so hard to not overly criticise herself when it came to missing dinners and bedtime routines, game nights and the occasional weekend barbecue, but it was getting more and more difficult with every one that passed.
That night had been no different, Beca huffing out a sigh when she finally walked through the door of their home at two am. She kicked her boots off quietly, hung her jacket on the hook by the door, and after triple checking she’d locked the door behind her, armed the alarm system and went straight up to the bedroom she had shared with Chloe for ten years now.
When she cracked open the door, intending just to grab her pyjamas before heading to the bathroom to change and not wake her sleeping wife, checking on both girls on her way, she spotted a small lump in the covers on her side of the bed. A grin spread across her face as a pair of wide, sleepy eyes met hers, and a beaming smile came from her younger daughter, curled in the blankets in her footy pyjamas.
“Hey Gracie.” Beca whispered, slipping into the bedroom, “Why’re you in my bed?”
“I was waitin’ for you!” Gracie giggled, “But I gots seepy… so did Mama. She snores.”
“Yeah, she kinda does.” Beca chuckled, crouching by the side of the bed so that their eyes were level with each other, reaching out her hand to stroke Grace’s hair, “Why were you waiting for me? I said I’d be late getting home.”
“I know.” Grace rolled her eyes in a way that was so unmistakeably a mark of the Mitchell genes it made Beca’s heart twist, “But I wanted to see you ‘fore tomorrow, cause tomorrow is Al’s birthday and I wanna get her a puppy! Is it too late to go to the puppy store?”
Beca laughed affectionately, even as her heart sank a little. She just wanted to give her daughter’s everything they wanted, without a moment’s hesitation, she hated that her job kept getting in the way of that.
“Yeah kiddo, I think the puppy shop is closed right now, it’s late. All the puppies are probably asleep right now.”
“Aw…” Grace pouted a little, “Okay… can we go tomorrow? Maybe Al can pick her own puppy, and I can buy that one!”
“And how are you paying for this puppy?” Beca arched her eyebrow.
“Um…” Grace’s brow furrowed, deep in thought in a way only a small child could be, “Does the puppy shop man take cookies as payment? Mama and I made some earlier!”
“We can certainly see.” Beca nodded, “As long as that’s what Alex wants to do, okay?”
“Kay!” Grace beamed, clearly delighted with herself for figuring everything out, “Can I have a cuddle now?”
“Always Gracie.”
Beca got onto the bed, pulling Grace tight into her arms, not giving a damn that she was still wearing her office clothes right now. This was all she’d wanted to do all day, hold her kids, hold her wife, have no more responsibilities than that. She hadn’t realised that Chloe had stirred and heard the entire conversation until she felt her wife move in to join them.
“I don’t snore.” Chloe mumbled, grinning as Beca kissed her forehead, “That’s your Momma’s job.”
“You do!” Grace insisted, “Like a helephant Momma!”
Before Chloe could protest, the bedroom door cracked open again, the slightly dishevelled head of Alex peaking around the door.
“Sorry monkey, did we wake you?” Beca winced a little, holding out her arm to encourage her to join them.
“S’okay.” Alex had a sleepy smile on her face as she stumbled into the bedroom, happily crawling into the middle of the bed between her moms, letting Grace have the closest spot to Beca while she curled with her back against Chloe’s front, her half-awake mother easily wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing the crown of her head.
“I missed you Momma, I’m glad I got to see you before tomorrow.”
Beca was pushing back tears as she reached out and brushed a dark lock of hair out of her eyes, “I missed you to Al. All of you. This has been the best part of my day.”
“Ours too.” Chloe took Beca’s hand in her free one, giving it a tight squeeze, “How was work?”
“Same old, same old.” Beca shrugged, “Nothing special.”
“You’re not working tomorrow though, right?”
Alex was a lot like Beca, she didn’t really like to show her emotions readily, but Beca could tell that her daughter was feeling vulnerable, that she was secretly really scared that her mom would miss her birthday. It made her heart hurt, and in that moment a clarity settled on her, cupping Alex’s cheek in her head.
“No monkey, I’m not. In fact, I’m taking a break from work for a while, spending more time at home with you guys. Uncle Theo’s going to take over all the day-to-day stuff for me, so I only have to go in a couple of times a month at most. How does that sound?”
“Really?!”
Alex’s eyes lit up with excitement as Grace yelled “hooray!”, Chloe frowning a little over their heads. She mouthed “are you sure?” over them, nothing but concern in her face. Beca nodded a little, eyes full of reassurance and certainty. This was the most certain she’d been about anything since she’d proposed to Chloe. This was exactly where she wanted to be, where she was needed the most. It was everything she could have ever wanted, and she would never in a million years have imagined it was back at Barden when she and Chloe had first met.
“Yeah. Momma’s gonna be at home a lot more, not just for the big things, but all the dinners and game nights you want, okay?”
“This might be the best birthday present ever!” Alex squealed, wrapping her arms tightly around Beca’s neck as Grace did the same to her waist.
Chloe beamed at her wife, watching adoringly as she held her daughter’s just as tightly back, scootching as close she could to them and kissing Beca’s forehead.
“Are you really sure Becs?”
“Yeah.” Beca nodded, “More sure than I’ve ever been about anything in my whole life. This is where I want to be, and we’re in a really good place at the moment. All I want right now is my wife and kids. Is that okay?”
“Of course it is.” Chloe kissed her again, “I can’t think of anything better.”
They had more to talk about, of course they did, but right now it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the knot of family limbs in this bed embracing each other, and the promise of far more moments like this to come.