Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chloe and Beca's coffee catch up doesn't end up happening until almost exactly a week later. Beca instructs Chloe to meet her in one of her favourite cafés, a small independent place on the corner of two shopping streets, with large, bright windows and a view of the palm trees in the park across the road. Beca herself has been frequenting the café for nearly five years at this point, and it's one of the only places she feels completely confident about recommending to Chloe. ('Consider this the start of your LA education,' Beca's text says.)

Determined not to act like an awkward teenager this time, she turns up to the café thirty minutes early and situates herself in a window booth, spending a little time drinking a coffee, listening to music and secretly giving herself a silent, internal pep talk that mainly involves repeating the phrase I am confident, capable adult over and over. Even so when Chloe enters and waves over at Beca in her booth, she suddenly doesn't know what to do with her arms.

When Chloe eventually slides onto the bench opposite Beca, placing her latte and a brownie down with a clunk, Beca's in the process of opening several sugars (at least two more than she usually requires) to successfully occupy her hands.

“So you come here a lot?” Chloe says, smiling across at Beca as she wraps her hands around her mug, and Beca looks up from where she's been carefully stirring the excessive amount of sugars into her own.

“Yeah, the coffee's great, but mainly they don't mind when Jamie screeches, and it's pretty near to home, so, you know.” Her knee jiggles without her permission underneath the table and she places a steadying hand over it. ('I am a confident, capable adult').

“I can't believe after all this time we've ended up so close together.”

“Oh, so you live near here too? I mean, I know you were in the general vicinity, but-”

“Yeah, our apartment's like, ten minutes sort of in that direction, I think.” Chloe points and waves her arm vaguely over Beca's left shoulder. “I'm not so sure on my way around yet. Remember how I failed maps?”

“You mean Geography?” Beca rolls her eyes at Chloe with a smirk, but nodding all the while. She did remember always being secretly thrilled that model pupil Chloe Beale had a weakness, and one that Beca was actually quite good at to boot. “Anyway, our? Who'd you move here with, if you don't mind me asking?”

“My boyfriend Calvin. We've been together about a year, but never lived together before, so it's been an adjustment, but it's good. We're having fun. He has terrible taste in décor though, apparently.” Chloe grimaces dramatically, laughing as she does so. “He just tried to buy bright yellow curtains for the living room yesterday.”

Beca chuckles at Chloe's horrified face. “Ew. I don't even know how you can live with another human being. I would end up wanting to claw their eyes out after a week. So you're doing good if you still like each other, I reckon.”

“So you don't live with James' father?” Chloe's voice surprised sounding, and eyes wide. Beca nervously taps her teaspoon on the top of her coffee mug for a second whilst she considers her response. “Wow, I'm sorry, that was really inappropriate, ignore me, please. I know I'm like way too invasive sometimes. I’m sorry, really, you don’t have to answer that.”

“Dude no, it's okay. I remember your knack of invading people's personal bubbles-”

“Sometimes I get too interested-”

“But really it's fine, Chloe. I forget he's even a thing, you know. That's why your question caught me off guard. No, we're definitely not together- haven't been since before James was born- and he's never even met him. Actually I think he lives in Boston now. To say he freaked the fuck out at the prospect of having to care for another human being is an understatement. But it's fine. We get by well, just Jamie and I.”

“Wow, that sucks though, I'm so sorry Beca.”

“Don't be, it's okay. We're used to it. I mean there's a point where you just have to get on with life you know? And we have, and we're doing pretty great without him. We don't miss him.” Beca's never really discussed this with anyone else before, and she almost surprises herself with the vehemence of her words. Beca knows without question it's the total truth, and she tries to express as much to Chloe in the way she arranges her face, to be sure she doesn't feel guilty for asking. Beca's not totally sure what the expression looks like, but it seems to work regardless.

“I'm glad. So is James a good room mate, then?” Chloe smiles sincerely, despite the lightness of the question, and Beca immediately wrinkles her nose-

“Oh God no, he's an awful room mate. He never clears up after himself, doesn't do any washing up, makes lots of noise in the middle of the night. And he's a terrible conversationalist, but we're working on that one. We currently have far more chats about anthropomorphic trains that I am really comfortable with. But you know, if you ever want to know anything at all about Thomas and his friends, I'm your girl.”

She raises her eyebrows and spreads her arms out, smirking, as though waiting for Chloe to actually ask something about trains, and Chloe giggles softly at the gesture.

“No I'll pass on that, actually, thanks. Um, I'd love to hear more about him though, if you don't mind telling me.” Beca's usually cautious about talking about her son- she's aware that sometimes he's so much her focus that it spills out even when she's not around him (and she doesn't want to become that parent.) But Chloe seems so genuinely interested Beca relents easily.

“Sure, okay. Um. Well, he's three next month, and he's pretty great. I mean, he's turning into such a little person at the moment and he tells me all these insane stories. Uh, he has great taste in television- barring the train thing- so I have an excuse to watch Adventure Time every day, that's pretty cool. He's so sweet and charming sometimes I don't know how he can possibly be related to me.”

“I don't know, I think you can be sweet and charming when you want to be.” Chloe props her head on her hand, elbows rested on the edge of the table as she leans her whole body in towards Beca with her words.

Beca grins, leans back against her bench unconsciously, foot tapping a rhythm on the floor. “But I don't want to be.”

“Exactly. But Jamie's still untainted by the torturous realities of life and, ugh, high school.” Chloe rolls her eyes and leans even further forward across the table, pulling a disgusted look that mimics one Beca imagines she used a lot in her teenage years, before bursting into a contagious spurt of laughter.

“Yeah, well he has a pretty sweet life. He just plays and naps, and has a slave to cater to his every whim, I'd probably be sweet and charming then too.”

“Yeah, I guess that would help.” Chloe nods, a dreamy quality to her eyes as though she's genuinely considering that prospect for herself.

“All he does is go to preschool a few times a week, when I go to work, then I have Thursday mornings solo, to catch up on boring life shit usually.” There are definitely weeks where Beca has unabashedly lived for her Grown-Up Thursdays, as she likes to call them, and she's not ashamed to say she has spent some of them zoning out in this very café from drop-off to pick-up.

“Shit, and I'm totally taking up your one kid-free morning, I'm sorry.” Chloe's eyes widen with genuine concern, and she sits up a little straighter in her seat.

“No, really, don't be. Like, this is great. It's nice to talk to an adult about something other than work or Jamie. It doesn't happen very often any more, I'm grateful. Recalibrating my brain definitely falls under the 'boring life shit' category. Dude, you're like, my therapy right now. ” Chloe's grin is beaming as she relaxes again.

“Well in that case, glad to be of service.” She says with a wink. “Though I'm a little disappointed you consider me 'boring life shit'” Beca's jaw falls open and her cheeks immediately colour.

“Beca. Kidding.” Chloe says firmly, eyes crinkling at the corners.

They chat about the city (Beca's recommendations for supermarkets, parks and beaches, which roads to avoid when Chloe starts commuting to work the next week), until their coffees are long finished, and Chloe goes up for another round (“No really, my treat, I insist, to thank you for teaching me about so much boring LA shit.”) and when she returns she places the two drinks on the table carefully, Beca's eyes following her the whole time. She starts talking again before Chloe's even had a chance to sit back down in the booth.

“So, I can't believe I didn't ask yet, how did you end up in LA?”

“Well, Cal got this amazing offer for grad school at UCLA, and I had no real reason to stay in Georgia- that's where we went to college. So when he asked me to come with him, I just went with it. Because it sounded fun, and I'd never been to California. I mean, when you're young that's the time to just have adventures and do things just because you can, you know?”

“So I hear.”

Chloe's jaw drops. “Shit. Sorry, that was like, really insensitive. Wow, Beca, I am terrible today.”

“No, no, dude, it's okay. I've reconciled that a long time ago. I mean. It's tough, sure. It's not the youth I imagined for myself, but it's hard to have regrets about what might have been, or should have been, when what I have instead is pretty awesome.” She looks intently at Chloe, trying to show her the sincerity in the statement despite the rising blush on her neck. She doesn't know where all this earnestness is coming from today, because it's certainly not something she's used to. “Sure, life involves a hell of a lot less sleeping than I envisioned or, you know, need. But I'm happy.”

“That's really great Beca. I'm glad. I mean, if it's not inappropriate for me to say, you never seemed particularly happy when we were in school.”

“Oh shit, no. I hated almost every second of it.” They both laugh at the fervour in Beca's voice. “I just wasn't the type to do that kind of thing very well. Not like you.”

Chloe looks oddly guilty at this, for some reason. As if she thinks it's unfair that she breezed through high school education and social interaction like she was born for it. She suddenly wants to apologize to Beca for this, but chooses to say the second thing that comes into her head instead.

“You've changed a lot, you know.”

“Yeah I have. And you're exactly the same.” Beca's aware once again of how infectious Chloe's grin can be as they just take each other in for a moment, contemplating.

“Yeah I suppose I am. Well I guess some of us just take longer to get comfortable in our skins and know who we are than others.”

“Yeah, and somehow you sorted that all out kinda freakishly early.”

“I did. And I'm aware of how lucky that makes me, by the way”

“Good. You should be.”

They arrange to meet up again soon, (“Please, you'd be doing me a favour, I'm going to need another break from train talk.”) and once again Beca is struck with how simple life is when you just ask for what you want when Chloe responds positively straight away.

If that's what Chloe has know all along, Beca thinks, no wonder she was so cheerful in high school.