Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Beca? Beca Mitchell?”
“Holy shit. Chloe?”
“Yeah. Wow. Hi!”

School's now just a distant, blurry memory for Beca. She wasn't the sort that did well in high school situations- all those confused, loud, hormonal teenagers cooped-up together, being forcibly prodded towards the same goals. So naturally she hadn't exactly flourished, you could say. No- that had come later, once free from the grip of compulsory education, and cliques, and overemotional scaled-up children, and timetables. And so it was something she had easily let slip away from her thoughts, moving on and up as soon as possible.

Until this very moment, where despite the fact that she is simply standing outside a nondescript record store in her local mall, what's staring back at her is a sight straight out of her high school corridors and she's being flung back into those all-consuming, hormone-heady days against her will. Because what she's seeing is a sight that until now, she'd completely forgotten- one of Chloe Beale's giddy, beaming smiles, and it's directed at her.

“I can't believe I bumped into someone from Barden out here, of all places. What are you doing here? How are you? Oh my gosh, it's been so long!”

It's a little overwhelming, like being suddenly thrown back in time without warning, and Beca feels the familiar squirm of her teenage awkwardness twist around her body. Suddenly she's overly aware of the positions of all her limbs. It's something Beca learns she does not miss at all about being a high-schooler, and it making a strange reappearance is entirely unwelcome, actually.

“Wow. Um. I live here, have for, like, six years actually.”

“Oh my goodness. That long? Wow, we're old now, right?” Chloe chuckles.

“Sure feels like it some days.”

“So you moved to LA right after graduation, then?”

“I did, yeah.”

“Wow, brave. I just went off to college you know. Normal stuff.”

“That's cool.”

Beca scratches at the back of her neck, looking at her shoes. She's totally thrown, unsure how to proceed in this conversation, and aware suddenly that Chloe's going to think that she hasn't grown up at all. Chloe doesn't seem perturbed by the behaviour, however.

“Are you free right now? Do you want to go and get a coffee somewhere or something? I would love to hear what you've been up to in LA for 6 years, and I've just moved here, so maybe you could give me some pointers. And we could catch up?” It all comes out in a rush.

“Actually I have to, um...”
She pauses, for just a shade too long. She's not sure why she's suddenly nervous about admitting this part of life. It's not a Beca she recognises any more- being totally unsure of herself- but she puts it down to this gawky high school throwback she's apparently having.

It gets worse when Chloe totally misreads the situation.

“Oh. Oh no, it's okay Beca you don't have to make up an excuse. Really, I know we weren't exactly close at-”

“No! No. I mean. Sorry. I'm just, uh. I don't know what's wrong with me. But, I do actually have a thing.”

“Oh.”

“I...well, I have to go and pick up my son. He's at preschool. It ends in-”

She pulls her phone out her back pocket.

“-shit. Ten minutes.”

“Your...son?”

“Yeah, I, um. James. He's nearly three. He's pretty cool. I mean I know I'm biased, but. He is, so. Yeah.”

She forces herself to stop talking before she verbally flails off a cliff. But still she can't help but smile when she mentions him, so at least that part of her hasn't reverted (fifteen year old Beca would not have allowed her face to form such a happy expression, especially about a toddler, of all things). This Beca lets that smile come so freely she doesn't even really notice it any more.

“Wow. Congratulations, Beca. I had no idea, I bet he is cool, though. I could see that.” Chloe grins at her again, nodding. “Uh, do you want to meet for coffee some other time, then, maybe? I mean, I guess you're pretty busy but it seems we have quite a lot of catching up we could do, and I don't really know anyone here yet...”

She's pulling her mouth into a grimace of sorts, lip askew, and the expression is suddenly so familiar to Beca that she's nodding before she can tell her head to do otherwise.

“Yeah that would be nice. Sure.” She passes the phone in her hand up to Chloe. “Give me your number?”

“Awesome. Okay.” She types it in quickly, bottom lip between her teeth, before passing the phone back.

“So, I'll text you, yeah? Sorry. I really do have to go.” Beca's already taken several cautious steps back away from Chloe.

“No, sure, I get it. See you later.” Chloe nods, hands held in front of her neatly, and Beca tries for a normal-looking smile-and-wave combination before turning to head towards her car.

She can't help but think how weird it is. After spending at least a year of high school kind-of wishing she had Chloe's number, apparently at twenty four all it takes is five minutes (and, you know, just asking).

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.

Chapter Text

It takes a couple of weeks before they get the chance to meet up again, because Chloe's thrown into the deep end of her new job as a classroom assistant at a music school in the city, and suddenly the practicality of that Thursday morning adult time becomes impossible.

Instead Chloe takes the initiative and decides to suggest a Saturday meet-up. (“Beca surely by now you have some new information about talking trains you desperately need to share with another human being?” Chloe texts. “Don't even joke about that. Also Jamie has bat ears for the T-word, so shh or he’ll start on you." “I wouldn't mind that. I mean, you could bring him, if you want? Then we could meet at the weekend?” Immediately followed by- “Sorry if that's not cool, that's ok too.”)

And that's how the two of them end up arranging to meet at the park on Saturday morning, James in tow. If Chloe was surprised by how much Beca has changed just chatting adult to adult, it's nothing on how she feels when she sees her interacting with her child.

James is strikingly similar in looks to his mother, but softer and rounder, all pudgy baby cheeks and scruffy-haired, with a splash of freckles across his nose. His eyes are a much lighter, greyer shade of blue than Beca’s, but their gently curly dark hair is the same. Chloe can’t help but grin at the sight of the pair of them approaching together, Beca’s hand resting lightly on the back of his neck as she guides him in Chloe’s direction.

“This is so weird,” Chloe says by way of a greeting.

“Believe me, I know. It still is for me some days, so.” Beca looks down and gently strokes the hand that was resting on her son’s neck over his mop of hair. “Jamie, are you going to say hello? This is Chloe, she’s gonna come to the park with us.”

Chloe crouches in front of the little boy to greet him properly.

“Hi Jamie.” She gestures to the wooden train toy she’s just noticed is clamped tightly in one of his little fists. “Is this Thomas?”

“Henry,” Beca stage whispers.

“Thomas is blue.” His little face contorts into genuine confusion at Chloe's alarming lack of train knowledge.

“Oh I'm sorry. Well it's lovely to meet you Jamie and Henry.”

Jamie turns his whole body dramatically towards Beca. “Mommy how come Chloe doesn't know trains?”

“I just don't think she likes them as much as you do, bud.” Beca says, reigning in a laugh for the sake of her son’s sincerity.

“Why?”

Both women can’t help but smile at each other before Chloe responds-
“Well maybe you could teach me a bit more about them, Jamie, I might change my mind.”

Beca's mouth falls open in genuine alarm before her whole face softens.
“Now you've gone and done it,” Beca says with an eyeroll as Chloe laughs and Jamie launches into a lengthy, only partially coherent description of his favourite Thomas the Tank Engine episode. Chloe attempts to make affirmative noises in all the right places whilst shushing at Beca, who is cackling with laughter behind them as they continue their walk towards the play park.

James turns to his mother again, stopping suddenly in front of her. “Why are you laughing mommy? Trains are not funny.” At this Chloe loses her composure too.

“Sorry J. Carry on, we're both listening.”

“Now who's encouraging it,” Chloe hits Beca lightly across the arm, eyes wide.

Beca keeps an eye trained on her son the whole time they’re talking, situated on a bench watching Jamie run looping circles around the climbing frame. It’s not distracting- Chloe can tell that she’s still listening and involved in their conversation- but her main focus is always Jamie, as though she’s developed a special sixth parent-sense for watching over him whilst also getting on with her life.

It’s so strange to Chloe, to see Beca care for anything so openly, that it makes her heart feel like it’s being squeezed. Beca, owner of the most perfected and oft-used deep scowl of any teenager she could ever remember meeting, was not someone who expressed care for the world. She doesn't remember ever seeing Beca show any level of passion for anything at school, even music. Beca kept it all wrapped up inside, hidden, wearing indifference like armour.

Chloe can see so clearly now how sad it was that Beca’s attitude made people eventually just leave her be. How wrong it was that everyone, Chloe included, just let her make the quiet, secret way through the world she obviously desired. It makes Chloe ache to think about it now, as she watches Beca smile at her son as he approaches, breathless, to hug his arms around his mom's legs once, hard, before running off again. She doesn't think Beca really wanted any of that at all.

“So you work at a music school? That’s awesome. By the way,” Beca says, pushing a load of hair roughly behind her ear and squinting at Chloe in the sun.

“Yeah. I'm working my way up but one day I’d love to have my own choir class or something. Be like Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2.”

Beca scrunches her face up. “I don’t know what that means.”

Chloe gapes for a second before she pulls it back together. “You know, the nun? She has this class of teenagers that she like, brings together, with the power of music. It’s super 90s, but like, in the best way.”

“I've not seen it. I don’t really like movies.”

Chloe can’t help it, she gapes again. “Huh. Well. Just imagine I am going to change people’s lives and make all their dreams come true, whilst being super down with the kids and also maybe there will be dungarees.”

Beca lets out a quick bark of laughter. “Right. I'm just going to go ahead and pretend that what you said was totally normal.”

“It was.” Chloe nods sagely, lip held between her teeth.

“That’s awesome, though. That’s like...yeah. It’s very you. You’ll be perfect at it.”

Chloe’s thrilled, and she twists her body towards Beca with the force of her joy, touching her hand to Beca’s arm gently and grinning. “Thanks Beca.” She pauses. “Are you still into music too?”

Beca looks momentarily confused, but is distracted when James charges back over and clambers straight into her lap.

“Alright little man?”

James just nods and contentedly snuggles back into her a little.

Eventually Beca looks at Chloe again. “Um, yeah. To your question, I mean. I work in music actually. For a record label.”

Chloe’s eyes widen. “You do?” She looks down at Jamie. “Why didn’t you tell me your mom was so cool Jamie?” He giggles.

“She’s NOT!”

Beca looks down at her son with mock indignation on her face. “Dude.” She tickles him under the chin. “You’re mean.” He squeals, and squirms out of Beca’s grip before running off again to resume his looped circuit, screeching in excitement when another little boy instantly gets the game and chases after him.

“Sorry. You get used to the interruptions eventually. I know it’s a pain.”

“Oh. No, really. It’s totally fine. He is so sweet.”

“Thanks, though. I mean, for coming here. For letting it seem like it’s normal to just have him here too.”

Chloe furrows her brow quizzically. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”

Beca sighs deeply. “No-one from the record label really is into kids. Out of work all the hanging out is done in bars and clubs, so I never really get to participate. I mean, I like most of them. Some of them are really good friends. But none of them would come to the park with me on a Saturday, especially before noon. So like, really. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. Now tell me more about this cool job of yours.”

“I'm an assistant producer at a small label. So mostly I work with another producer, but sometimes I work with smaller artists on my own too. I'm pretty lucky, they let me work from home a lot so the days I'm not in the studio I can do stuff when Jamie’s asleep.”

“Beca that’s amazing. Wow. So you really were working on cool stuff in that little room you lived in at school, huh?”

“You remember that?”

“Of course, I was always in there too, you know.”

“Yeah. I remember.” She blushes lightly. “I mean, I could see you guys practising sometimes.”

Chloe only knew Beca cared deeply about music because she’d always been in the music department too, usually with her glee club, occasionally wondering what Beca could be doing every lunchtime, messing around in the smallest practise room (always deep in concentration, always alone).

That’s exactly how Chloe remembered Beca, she realised now. She had this perfect picture of just the top part of her face that she would see through the high window in the door, headphones swamping her, hair wild, forehead furrowed. She’d tried to ask, she remembered that too. She’d tried to form something more of Beca, beyond the half-image of her through the window. But there was something about the way Beca had shut Chloe’s questions down, so casual and shy and vulnerable- but so sure. And it wasn't Chloe’s usual style, maybe, to give up so easily, but this time Chloe had stuck with the simple option, had moved on to the next interesting thing, and now the thought made her insides squirm heavily with guilt.

Chloe’s silent for some time, both of them quietly consuming their drinks and watching as Jamie rolls his train back and forth over the cafe table, muttering as he does so, narrating an elaborate scenario.

“I'm not the same, you know,” she says eventually, breaking the restful quiet.

“What?”

“I mean, what we were talking about last time. That I haven't changed. Cause I have.”

“Okay-”

“Sorry, I just...wanted to say that. I've grown up, like a lot, since high school. Sure I was happy, but that doesn't mean I didn't need to mature a bit. Or a lot. But I have, or I am. I mean, I guess it’s still in progress, but, well-” She’s animately waving her hands around, trying to force out the true meaning twisted within her rambling words.

“Okay.” Beca draws out the word as if she’s really confused by Chloe’s comments. She furrows her brow. “Sorry. I mean- I guess I just meant- like, your contentedness, with general life. With other people. You've always seemed like you had that down.” She squints at Chloe, contemplating, and Chloe nods along slowly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, like, upset you Chloe. I mean… I don’t really know you any more. I kind of never really did. So, I'm going on what you project on the outside here.” She waves an arm around the general area Chloe’s body is inhabiting. “The bit I did know then, and have met so far now.”

“No, no, you’re right. It’s okay Beca. I’m not upset, like at all. I guess, I just wanted you to know that I've grown up too. I just needed to make sure you knew.” Her jaw opens wide for a moment before she shuts it with a click, rethinking. She looks at Beca, chews her bottom lip for a second, before trying again. “I feel like we could genuinely be friends now. That’s what I think.” She nods, satisfied now that she’s said all that she intended to somewhere within her jumble.

Beca furrows her brow, but this time it’s accompanied by a smile too. “Yeah, me too.”

Their gaze is broken when Chloe feels a prod to the side of the hand she’s resting on the table. Apparently Henry’s route is being obstructed.

“Oh no, danger, the track is gone, Henry, oh no!” It’s Jamie, repeatedly but gently crashing the train into the hand that’s causing the ‘blockage’.

“Make a bridge Chloe,” James whispers loudly, and she looks down at him for a second, smiling, his eyes wide and sincere as he stares back. When he decides she’s taken too long to respond he starts manipulating her fingers with both his hands until they’re forming an arched bridge shape instead of flat against the table, and then contentedly pushes Henry through before the narration begins again.

When Chloe looks up, Beca's eyes are already on her, a small smile forming in the corners of her mouth as she watches Chloe's delighted expression. "Charmed?"

Chloe laughs gently. "How could you not be?"

Chapter Text

Beca’s standing barefoot in the kitchen, trying to get a restless James to eat his breakfast whilst simultaneously packing lunch and plucking her own breakfast from the toaster. There’s a song playing on the radio that she’s humming along to- it’s been in her head all week- and she taps her foot to the beat of the chorus as she spreads jam over toast. Beca never used to be a morning person, and had actively hated every second of having to get up for school, but now with James as company she secretly really enjoys the quiet morning routine they share.

Though she will never like the actual act of having to get out of bed early, and inhales coffee like air, she appreciates these simple moments with him- where it’s always just been him and her, their little family, getting ready for the day. (It hits Beca surprisingly often, the way that having him in her life makes things that before were just things you do to survive, into the things that make her happy.)

Her train of thought’s broken when her phone vibrates loudly, sat over next to her coffee where it’s been abandoned at the table.

“Mama your PHONE!” James exclaims helpfully.

“Yeah I know, little man, thank you. Keep going, you’re nearly there.” She looks over at him pointedly from where she’s stood at the counter, with her breakfast- the distraction has caused him to put down the toast he’d finally begun eating and start trying to squirm in his seat to reach the phone instead.

“Uh, excuse me, is that how we sit on chairs..?” Jamie is now half standing, draping across the table with his little fingers grasping dramatically towards the phone he still can’t reach.

“No Mommy, but phone-”

“Is it Jamie phone time right now?”

He pulls the sweetest, most puppy-dog-eyed face he knows, (the one that Beca has had to physically train herself not to smile at) whilst slowly sliding himself back into the seat forlornly.

“...Yeah?” He sounds so hopeful.

“No, it’s Jamie breakfast time, silly. So eat up. Or I’ll have to leave you behind.” She sings the last word and widens her eyes at him, shoving the toast she’s holding in her mouth before swiping the phone away from Jamie’s reach and looking at the notification. She turns away from James, knowing his stubbornness means he’s much more likely to do as he’s told if she’s not looking. Besides, for whatever reason he adores preschool (at first she was slightly ruffled by this, but now embraces it wholeheartedly), so she knows the simple threat not to take him has an almost one hundred percent success rate.

The notification’s not the text or email she was expecting. Instead it’s from Instagram, something she uses only very occasionally.

chloebee has tagged you in a photo

It’s then that she remembers that Chloe had taken photos on their outing at the weekend, had even asked Beca if it was okay to post them online, but Beca didn’t realise she featured in any of them. Come to think of it, she wasn’t even sure how Chloe knew her Instagram, but Beca felt like this was the kind of unabashed Chloe thing that she should probably come to expect. Beca clicks on it straight away, holding her breath-

It’s fine. It’s just a picture of Jamie, sat in the cafe and pulling his favourite, and cutest, photo-face for Chloe, where he scrunches up his nose and pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. The way he’s sitting properly at the table (for once, Beca thinks) means you can only see from the top of his torso upwards, but he’s leaning forward so he fills most of the frame. It’s an adorable picture, and Beca decides she will save it to her phone once she works out how to make such a thing possible.

Got to make friends with this cute little person this weekend :) @becamitchellmusic

When she looks back over, James has just put the last bite of toast in his mouth and his hands and face are sticky with buttery crumbs. She leans down and kisses him on the head.

“Good job J.”

Later that evening Chloe’s curled up on the sofa in her pyjamas, bowl of pasta in her lap, when she plucks her phone out of her pocket for entertainment. Calvin’s still out, studying at the university library- their tiny apartment didn’t have room for a desk or even a table, hence her current eating arrangement. She throws him a quick text (“hurry home handsome or I’ll eat all the leftovers xxxx ps. did you like my alliteration, your gf is a poet”) and smiles softly as she imagines the wide toothy grin her silly joke will put on his face. The goofy, deliriously happy smile that made her fall for him in the first place when they’d met at a mutual friend’s birthday party. Stacie had suddenly locked eyes with someone over Chloe’s shoulder, changed the direction of her sentence mid flow-

“Yeah, and so then we- woah that guy looks so happy his face is going to crack open. Never thought I’d see someone else out in the wild with a smile as creepy-wide as yours Chlo.” But by the end of that sentence Chloe had already stopped listening, head cranked round to take in the man for herself, and before she knew it the vodka was in control and she was walking over to him to claim him as a friend.

(He never did become a friend, though.)

She pulls open the notifications she’s been ignoring all day at work, eyes drawn first to an apparent flurry of activity on Instagram. Her eyes get wider with each comment she scrolls through, until she reads Beca’s addition and a bubble of laughter breaks free.

aubreygposen Chloe, why have you tagged Beca Mitchell in this…? Is that Beca from school?

aubreygposen And why are you hanging around with a child?

aubreygposen Wait, is it a coincidence that he looks so much like Beca?

aubreygposen ??

becamitchellmusic ...Nice to see you’re as nosy as ever Posen

aubreygposen Nice to see you’re as full of comebacks as ever Mitchell.

becamitchellmusic Thanks. He looks like me because he’s mine. I mean, all I see is cute though, I didn’t realise you thought I was cute???

aubreygposen Ew. Shut up.

Chloe puts down her fork, laughter in her eyes, to quickly tap a response of her own at the bottom.

chloebee Nice to see you 2 know how to push each other’s buttons as well as ever :)

And then she calls Aubrey to update her on her life, knowing that’s what Aubrey’s probably been itching to do all day.

Chloe rings Beca later in the week. It’s the first time they’ve spoken on the phone, ever, and though it doesn’t faze Chloe, Beca sounds cautious and confused, stumbling over her words a little and it makes Chloe smile into the phone.

“I was just wondering what your babysitter situation is like?”

“You were? Just in general, or, like for something in particular?”

“Well, both. But this weekend. Or any weekend?”

“Um.”

Chloe laughs.

“When can you come round and get drunk with me and Cal, that’s where I’m going with this, Beca.”

“Oh. Um. Okay. Well actually my mom is taking him overnight, like a week on Saturday? I think. Grandparent bonding time, you know.”

“Perfect!”

“But I was just going to not get up from my sofa for 24 hours, so…”

“Well you can do that, but at mine. With Pizza and beer and good company? I won’t like, make you go outside or anything even.”

“...um. Yeah. Okay then. Sure. Not that it really feels like you’re giving me much choice here.”

“Oh, I’m not.”

This time Beca laughs.

“Ok. Well text me when and where?”

“Sure. Have a good week Beca. Say hi to Jamie.”

“Will do. You too Chloe.”

It takes Beca a good five minutes of sitting still to process and recover from the phone call.

When that Saturday night rolls around, Beca's greeted at the door of Chloe’s apartment by a freckled face with a wide, cheeky grin and a mess of blond hair that's mostly covered by the cap he's wearing backwards.

“Hey, you must be Beca.” His grin is almost as wide as Chloe's as he moves back to allow her into the cramped hallway, and he does an elaborate 'welcome' gesture with his free arm. The other is occupied by a massive bag of popcorn.

“Come on in. Chloe's in the bathroom but she'll be out in a sec.” He takes a step closer to Beca, voice dropping to a whisper.

“If you give me embarrassing high school stories about her I will make it worth your while.” His eyebrows raise into an overexcited expression and he pops several bits of popcorn into his mouth with a grin before holding the bag out in Beca's direction. She takes a few pieces, already trying to think if she’s got anything good to share. They're moving into the living area when Chloe emerges.

“Oh hey Beca!”

“Hey. I like your apartment. It would be better with a bit more yellow though.” She turns to look back at Chloe with a smirk.

“See Chlo!” Calvin flops back onto the sofa without bending his knees, legs falling messily across it. He stays exactly where he lands, popcorn bag resting on his chest.

“Don't you dare encourage him.”

Beca settles in the armchair, laughing, and Chloe hands out bottles of beer before prodding at Calvin’s legs with her toes, trying to budge him over so she can sit down. Beca notices that Chloe and Cal are each wearing one sock from a matching pair with a pattern of little pandas. For some reason it makes Beca smile.

“Beca how do you feel about video games?”

“I feel good about video games.”

“Perfect.”

He throws an Xbox controller at her, which she fumbles but just about catches.

“Since when are you in charge of our itinerary for this evening Cal?”

“Since Beca says she likes video games.” He’s grinning again.

Beca looks over at Chloe’s pouty face and laughs.

“We’re bonding. Beca’s gonna help me complete a couple of levels of this Portal 2 co-op and then we can watch a cheesy rom-com. Deal?”

“Go on then.”

Chloe spends the whole time they’re playing the game backseat driving, and Beca’s pretty sure she’s having just as much fun as her and Calvin because she doesn’t pester them about watching a film for nearly two hours.

It’s past midnight when Calvin calls it a night, citing the essay he needs be not-hungover enough to finish tomorrow. They’ve drunk every beer the pair had in their fridge, and Chloe, as promised, had provided not only pizza but popcorn and chips and garlic bread and ice cream.

Beca’s flopped across her armchair, feeling overly full, overly tipsy, and like she hadn’t had this much fun in a long time, when Chloe emerges from behind an open cupboard door with a whisky bottle in her hand.

“Wanna move on to the good stuff?” Beca only has the energy to laugh.

“Sure. You’ll have to bring it to me though, I think I’ve eaten so much I’ve lost the use of my limbs.”

“There you go drunky.”

Beca can tell from the slightly clumsy edge to all of Chloe’s movements that she’s pretty drunk herself too.

“I’m kind of a lightweight these days. Out of practise. Kid cramps my style.”

“How were you ever not a lightweight? You’re tiny.” Chloe hands Beca a tumbler with a good couple of inches of whisky in it and Beca eyes it and then Chloe suspiciously.

“I was better. Now though, If I drink this you’ll get me to reveal all my secrets.”

Chloe just grins even wider than before. Somehow it’s more intense than when she’s sober, and between her and Cal’s infectious smiles this evening, Beca can feel her cheeks start to ache.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you.” Chloe says, tucking her legs underneath her on the sofa.

“It’s got to that portion of the evening has it?” Beca can just picture teenaged Chloe, Aubrey and the rest of her little gang pyjama clad, playing truth or dare, having midnight snacks and talking about boys. The thought makes her smile grow gradually as she looks over at Chloe, awaiting her answer.

“I just want to get to know you better. I mean, it’s weird. It’s like I sort-of know you, because we go way back, but I don’t actually have much to go on. Other than, like, James, and music, and your general teenage angst.”

Beca lets out a bark of laughter and looks at Chloe, taking a sip of her drink as she thinks. “Okay. Um. So literally anything? I have no idea. God. Uh, I don’t know, gimme an easier question?”

“Sure okay. What’s your favourite song?”

Beca sits up properly in her chair and swivels so she’s fully facing Chloe. “You think that’s easier? I have to pick just one song? Nope. Not possible.” She shakes her head forcefully.

“You’re such a spoilsport.”

“It’s not possible! There are about a million different songs that I love for different reasons. Like there are my favourite songs to dance to, and for mornings, or evenings, or my favourite songs to listen to in the different seasons, or-”

“Okay, okay, what’s your favourite...winter song? Or songs?”

“Right. Let me think. Okay, I can do this.” Her forehead’s crinkled with concentration. “Okay. Angels by The XX. Wolves by Bon Iver, or Blood Bank, or anything by him I suppose. Something by Sigur Ros, but I can’t say any of the song names. Shit now you’ve got me thinking about it I’ll keep thinking of better answers for weeks. Oh God. Uh, Winter Song. I can’t remember the band-”

“Beca you can’t pick a song called Winter Song. That’s definitely cheating.”

“What, it’s an accurate name! This is stressful. I’ll feel like I’m letting the other songs down, you know, if I miss a really important one.” Chloe laughs loudly at Beca’s genuinely distressed expression.

“Beca I’m sure the songs will forgive you,” Chloe says with an exaggerated sincerity.

“Fuck off,” Beca responds, laughter on the tip of her tongue.

“Also I don’t know any of those songs.” They just look at each other for a second, before Beca’s laugh breaks free with a snort, making Chloe sputter into her drink. Before they know it, there are hysterical cackles reverberating off the walls.

“Well that was a fail of a question.” Beca says when they’ve calmed down, dabbing at the tears in the corner of her eyes, belly aching. “Music questions kind of overwhelm me. It’s like, I love it so much and I’m so bad at words I can’t talk about music with words. I have to use music to talk about music. If that makes any sense.”

Chloe’s nodding enthusiastically, lip held between her teeth. “Weirdly it does. And it’s oddly poetic.” Her face is flushed pink and eyes shining from the combination of alcohol and laughter.

“I could make you a playlist.”

“You would do that?” Chloe’s face lights up at Beca’s suggestion, and she leans towards Beca so fast her drink threatens to slop over the side of the glass.

“Uh. Sure. I mean, that’s basically what I do for fun, so.”

“Thanks Beca.” Chloe looks so excited, Beca nearly starts giggling again.

“Okay, come on then. If we’re gonna do this, let’s get this party started properly. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“Sure okay. Well. You probably don’t know this. The person I dated before Cal was a girl.”

“Really? Huh. Wow.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I just...wouldn’t have guessed is all.”

“What does that mean?”

“Uh, I don’t know, I, uh-”

“Have you ever dated a girl?”

“Um...Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

There’s a pause whilst Beca looks anywhere but at Chloe, her cheeks pink, and she takes a such a big swig of whiskey it makes her cough. She can feel Chloe’s eyes on her so she forces herself to look over.

“Beca, can I ask you something quite personal? You don’t have to answer. What was it like when you found out you were pregnant? I mean, I can’t even imagine.”

Beca takes a deep breath, opens her mouth and words start to fall out. “Fucking terrifying, mostly. Well, and I was pretty embarrassed about it, for quite a long time, actually. I mean, who'd have thought I'd be the idiot who'd get themselves knocked up by accident, right? I was pretty ashamed of myself.” Beca looks down at her drink, swirls it around in the glass.

“Ashamed? Beca that’s ridiculous, you know that now, right?”

“Of course, yeah.” She forces herself to look back up at Chloe again. “It just made me feel really awkward. That people might be judging me or something. That it would be obvious to everyone that he was...an accident. And I hate that. I thought like that for the whole nine months, basically. That I was being judged. But now the idea of anyone thinking that maybe he wasn't supposed to be here sort of makes me feel sick, you know. So.”

Chloe smiles sincerely over at Beca, nodding softly as she takes in Beca’s words. “You’re a really good mom. And that’s like the last thing I ever expected to be saying to Beca Mitchell someday, by the way.”

Beca chuckles, and the mood lightens immediately. Her head feels fuzzy, some combination of the alcohol and the ever-changing tone of Chloe’s questions, she thinks. “Thanks. That means a lot.” She takes the final sip of her whiskey. She’s not sure how it vanished quite so quickly but she can feel the strong burn of it through her chest and into her belly. It’s comforting and electric all at once, and she thinks in five minutes or so she’ll probably be really drunk. “Now, your turn. What’s your favourite song?”

“Bring it on Home by Sam Cooke.”

And Beca can do nothing but laugh and laugh, because of course Chloe can answer confidently, straight away, and with only one song.

Chapter Text

When Beca opens her front door she’s immediately smothered in a hug from Chloe, and it’s so unexpected that for a moment she just stands there, receiving the hug instead of joining in. She remembers just in time that she should maybe wrap her arms around Chloe a little bit too, patting her awkwardly on the back a couple of times before Chloe lets go.

It feels strange- it’s been a long time since she’s hugged anyone who isn't small enough to fit right on her lap.

“Hi,” Chloe breathes, with a radiant smile that betrays no awareness of Beca’s awkward response to the hug.

“Uh, hi, come in,” Beca says stiltedly, “and I apologise in advance for James. I’d heard that three was tough, but I didn’t expect it to start the very second he aged up. So we’re running a little late.”

Chloe looks at Beca, confused, before catching sight over Beca’s shoulder of Jamie sitting on the sofa, little arms folded sternly, eyes red and a frown on his face. He’s wearing only a pair of shorts, unmatching socks and a wooly hat entirely inappropriate for the season. The sight is so comical she turns forcibly towards Beca so that Jamie doesn’t see the smile on her face.

“Apparently getting dressed any further than this is not on his agenda for the day.” Beca says quietly to Chloe, and Chloe struggles to rein in her giggles, biting her lip.

“Can I go say hello?”

“Sure. He’s a little grump though, so good luck. Do you mind if I just finish getting ready? Sorry, I mean I’m not good at being punctual at the best of times, and-”

“Of course Beca, go on. We’ll be fine.” Beca smiles softly at Chloe but hangs back anyway, watching the pair of them for a moment.

“Did you have a good birthday Jamie?” Chloe approaches him, deciding the best plan of attack would be to just pretend everything is normal.

Beca had celebrated Jamie’s birthday two days before the same way she’d done it every year so far- with a quiet mother and son day out, this year to the zoo, followed by birthday supper with Beca’s mom, who lives in a small town an hour and a half away from her daughter.

Beca was dreading the day he started getting old enough to want parties, so she was avoiding them as long as possible. Sure, she’s a total goner for her own son, but other people’s children? No thank you. Especially when hyped up on cake and soda. She’d taken Jamie to exactly one party so far- his friend Caitlin from preschool- and to be honest, the memory was enough to make her want to rock back and forth in the corner with a large scotch (which coincidentally is somewhat similar to what she actually did that day upon arriving home). Not only had there been hordes of screaming, hyper children (and oh the screaming), she’d felt decidedly awkward standing there with her plaid shirt and tattooed arms. Knowing she looked at least a few years younger than she actually was didn’t help, and she’d seen the other parents look her up and down as she tried her best to participate in polite small talk.

“We went to the zoo- you should tell Chloe all about it, James.” Beca smiles over at them, before finally disappearing up the corridor.

“Oh the zoo, amazing! The zoo is my favourite. Did you have fun?”

At Chloe’s excitable questions, Jamie’s pout seems to get even more dramatic, and his red eyes go watery. He nods.

“Oh good! You’ll have to tell me all about it later, I haven’t been for such a long time, so I need you to teach me about some of the animals. Do you reckon you could help me out with that?” James looks at Chloe, wide eyed, and nods slowly.

“Good. Thanks Jamie, you’re so clever I knew you’d be better at remembering than me. And did you get some nice presents for your birthday?”

Jamie nods again.

“Will you show me?”

James just stares at Chloe for a minute, before hopping off the sofa, grabbing a toy from the floor and passing it to Chloe before sitting down again without a word.

Chloe looks down to see that he’s passed her a plush doll of Anna from Frozen. The smile Chloe’s been trying to prevent breaks free across her face, and Jamie scoots over and grabs Anna, as if he only just realised that he’d just willingly given someone else his favourite toy, like a crazy person. He wraps his little arms around her tightly.

“Mommy got me an Anna.”

“I can see that, wow James. You are so lucky. She looks pretty cool. So you like Frozen, yeah?” Another nod.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Chloe leans in towards James, and he nods with a bit more enthusiasm this time.

“Sometimes when I’m in my car I sing the songs and pretend to be Anna and Elsa.” Chloe whispers into Jamie’s ear. His eyes widen.

“Me and mommy do that!” Chloe’s certainly caught off guard by that remark.

“...You do?”

“Mommy does really good singing.”

“Oh she does, does she? We’ll have to get her to sing for us later then won’t we, little man?”

“No, she just does singing for me, not for you Chloe. It’s a secret.” Chloe’s mouth contorts as she tries not to grin at his sincere expression.

“I won’t tell, I promise.” At this, Chloe gets her first smile of the day from him, and he reaches forward to make Anna give Chloe a kiss on the leg that’s closest to where he’s seated.

Chloe stares down at him, starting to wonder how she’s going to get through knowing this little boy without melting into a puddle on the floor, and how on earth Beca Mitchell produced and raised him. She can’t help but think that getting to know this sweet little guy tells her way more about Beca than Beca would ever let slip on her own (at least on purpose) and the thought makes her smile softly before addressing James again.

“You want to play?” Jamie seems to consider for a moment, and then nods again, with more enthusiasm this time.

“But but but but,” he takes a massive breath, words tripping over themselves as he gets excited. “I get Anna, she’s mine.”

“Of course, sweetie.”

When Beca comes back into the room, having fixed her hair and make-up and grabbed a t-shirt for James to put on, Chloe’s sitting cross-legged on the sofa opposite Jamie, holding a plush lion in one hand and making it pretend to attack Anna. Jamie meanwhile is manoeuvring his doll onto her getaway train, narrating everything in detail. Beca takes a moment to watch quietly, before approaching with the blue and white striped shirt held open.

“Come on Jamie boy, t-shirt time. Arms up.” Jamie looks up at his mother briefly, and lets go of the toys to do as requested. Beca slides the t-shirt over his head, straightens the hat she’d knocked askew and throws a double thumbs up at Chloe when James proceeds to continue his game as if there was no interruption at all.

Chloe grabs at Beca’s arm before she can move away from the sofa, leaning in close and pulling Beca slightly downwards towards her.

“Your son is ridiculous in the greatest way,” Chloe says under her breath.

“Yeah? I’m pretty fond of him too.” Beca grins lopsidedly, startled by how close her face is to Chloe’s.

“And you are a mystery, Beca Mitchell. But I think I’m going to discover everything about you. I just have a feeling.”

“Um-”

Chloe scrunches up her nose, pulls Beca even closer for a second before letting go of her wrist and jumping up excitedly.

“C’mon, let’s go have some adventures.”

Chloe’s earlier hug seems to have broken forth a flood of personal space violations, because now as they’re walking in the park Chloe keeps touching her arm when she laughs, walking so close to Beca that their shoulders are touching, and grabbing Jamie’s hand, which of course he takes willingly.

Honestly, now that she’s thinking about it, Beca’s surprised these didn’t come sooner. Because as soon as Chloe hugged her Beca was reminded of Chloe’s most distinctive trait at school- the fact that she felt quite happy touching and hugging just about anyone, just about any time. It was freakish to Beca then, and not much less so now. She loves to cuddle Jamie but she’s never really progressed onto snuggling with people her own size, and she’s forever grateful that she never really had the attention of Chloe long enough for her space to be invaded back then- she’s pretty sure she would have keeled over or said something really mean that she then would, of course, have dwelled on for weeks later. But also Beca can’t help but feel slightly ashamed, regretful perhaps, that her outwardly projected hate for everything high school had been so strong that even other-human magnet Chloe Beale hadn’t been drawn into her personal space. The thought makes Beca furrow her brow briefly.

And then she remembers that none of that matters now, because Beca is a normal person who has a son who is the ultimate space invader, and she loves it, and already worries about how sad she’ll be when he gets too old to want to clamber into bed with her and tuck under her chin. And she just greeted Chloe with a hug that was almost passable as normal, so. Progress. There has been progress. Beca releases a breath.

“I started making that playlist for you”

“Yeah? Tell me about it.”

“Who the devil are you texting Beca Mitchell? You’re face looks weird. More weird than usual. All smiley. One might even say suspiciously smiley.” Fat Amy is sat at a desk across from Beca’s, peering over the top of her computer screen.

“Ha ha. I do have emotions you know. I smile.”

“Not like that though. If I didn’t know any better I’d say Jamie’s somehow become a genius and has learnt to text you hilarious monologues about his day at preschool.” Oh great, now Jesse’s joining in too, his cheeky grin appearing next to Amy’s.

Beca frowns.

“It’s just a friend. A friend from school. And Jamie is a genius, shut up.”

“A friend from school? No. Beca Mitchell doesn’t have friends from school. I thought you were an antisocial loser back then? And, kinda now too..?”

“Well, fine, we just went to school together, but I saw her again by chance and now we are friends I guess. We’ve been hanging out, that’s all. It’s nice. James really likes her.”

“Oh, James really likes her? Did you hear that Amy? James likes her.”

“Mmmm. Interesting.”

“Dude. You are insufferable. Go away. She’s a friend. Of course I...like her.”

“Mmmhmmm. Nope. You don’t make friends with new people.”

“I made friends with you guys.”

“I don’t know if that counts. I feel like that’s more something that we forced upon you and you gradually learnt to tolerate us.”

“Oh so you accept that version of events the one time I’m trying to persuade you that we’re actually friends? Fuck you guys. You are the worst. I changed my mind, we’re not friends, you’ve been relegated again.”

“You don’t need us anymore because you’ve got a new friend” Jesse singsongs.

“What’s her name?”

“Chloe.”

“Ooooooh Chloeeeeeeeee, Beca’s friends with Chloe.”

“Fuck you guys. I hate you both.” But she’s given away by the grin that accompanies her words, as reaches across the desk to swat her hand at Jesse’s head, using the other to attempt to steal the sandwich that’s sitting in front of Amy.

“Don’t you dare, you little-”

“Nononononono.”

“AHHH okay, no tickling, no tickling-”

“BeCAW!”

“Argh, help, no, please AMY!”

“Do NOT use that as a weapon!”

And for the seventh or so time that week, their tiny office descends into hysterical chaos.

The hardest part, if Beca’s being honest, about adjusting to having Jamie in her life had been not in anything practical, but in the admittance than she could care so, so, so much about something. Not to anyone else, no, that she projected with a fierceness that no-one could question- a lioness protecting her cub. No, it was admitting it to herself, that she could feel like that and still exist like a normal, capable human. Because before Jamie, emotions were something that made Beca uncomfortable and nervous. Sure, she had them, she is human after all. She just wasn’t all that in touch with them- she’d deny them endlessly, either through that scowl she perfected, or by pushing feelings deep, deep down so she didn’t have to think about them (at least, that was the theory behind that- in practise it worked out somewhat differently. But still, the intent was there.)

The love that she’d immediately felt for her son, unlike any emotion her little body had ever had to deal with before, was so strong and all-consuming she’d felt utterly vulnerable and unprotected. Like all of a sudden she’d started living one of those nightmares where she accidentally went out in public naked. Anyone could hurt her now. Anyone could hurt her because she felt so much, and because the thing that she felt so much for was independent of her- another little being with a mind of it’s own. How the hell was she ever going to live and be normal again when she felt so much love and fear and protectiveness for this tiny human that would one day have a life beyond her arms? It was unfathomable and terrifying, and part of the reason Beca spent almost the entirety of Jamie’s first few months of life with him in her arms, afraid to let go.

Yes, having him had put her a decidedly long way away from her safe, no-emotions-involved comfort zone, and that’s before you even began to consider how far diapers, children’s clothing stores and tiny, demanding crying people were from what Beca had previously enjoyed as part of her uncommitted 21-year-old existence.

And sometimes that wore down into her reactions with other people too. So that she felt herself softening in front of others more easily, more often. She found herself forgetting sometimes to wear her veil of indifference. Sometimes she forgot it existed at all.

And the fact that her friends teased her to the extreme at these moments? As she sat back in her chair, red-faced from exertion and grinning at Jesse and Amy’s teasing comments, yeah, she supposed she was getting used to that too.

Chapter Text

Beca’s slumped on the sofa, dressed in her favourite sweatpants and an old band shirt- a beloved outfit that makes an appearance at least twice a week. She scrunches her eyes shut briefly, trying to absorb some of the blissful calm that comes from the silent apartment now that Jamie’s settled down for his nap. He wouldn’t go without a fight, and so had spent a good hour getting himself, and consequently Beca, worked up in such a state that he’d eventually keeled over in an exhausted, tearful pile onto the floor of his bedroom. Beca had scooped him up, wrapped him in his favourite rainbow-striped blanket and placed him on his bed, tucking his Anna toy between his arms and stroking his soft curls away from his face where they’d stuck to his wet cheeks, before crashing herself in the living room, head throbbing.

She’s sweaty from scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen, and her unbrushed hair is pulled into a messy bun on the top of her head, leaking out in curls around her neck. She takes in the sight of the room in front of her, the last room she has to tackle today. Jamie, before his nap, had apparently been wreaking havoc. There are toys scattered everywhere- trains, partially built wooden railway, pieces of plastic food, a pile of books, even a stack- Beca is horrified to notice- of her precious records, that she knows live on a shelf too high up for Jamie to reach. She doesn’t even want to think about how they’ve ended up on the floor. She eyes the phone sitting on the coffee table in front of her, before snatching it up before she can overthink it. Scrolling through the names in her phonebook, she’s aiming for Jesse, but as she passes over Chloe’s name, she pauses. Bottom lip held between her teeth, she rubs at the furrows in her aching forehead with one hand, and hits the call button with the other.

“Beca?”

“Hey.” Even Beca can tell she must sound weary.

“What’s up?”

“I just...God. I haven’t spoken to another grown up other than the man at the grocery store in, like, three days, and I think I’m going insane.”

Chloe laughs softly, and then is silent for a minute, as though this is really not how she was expecting the conversation to go.

“I’m not surprised Beca. I mean, toddlers are lovely but their conversation is not known to be the most stimulating.”

“No, it really isn’t, and I know it’s cliché, but he has said why so many times today it’s practically tattooed behind my eyelids.” Chloe giggles gently, and Beca takes a deep breath before continuing.

“Every moment of every day is taken up with him. I mean I love it, but God. Some days I’m just exhausted and we both snip at each other and I’m trying to be perfect for him, but we barely ever eat anything healthy so at some point I need to address that but just, when, you know? Some days I just need to stay at home in my pyjamas and slob out with Jamie because I don’t have the energy to do anything else. And some days I wish I could just be a normal twenty four year old you know? Without responsibilities. Or at least, responsibilities that I can ignore happily.”

Beca can hear Chloe chuckle briefly on the other end of the line. “Yeah, looking after a child is not the kind of responsibility you can leave for a day you’re feeling more up to it.”

“Unfortunately not. I mean, I have to let so many things fall by the wayside. I love my job, but I can barely focus on it some days, and I vacuum about ten times less often than is socially acceptable. My brain feels like mush. Oh my God, I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear this but just, ugh. It’s too much sometimes you know? I am really grateful for adult time whenever I can get it. Sorry, I’m rambling-”

“Beca do you see anyone outside of work? Other than Jamie?”

“I see my mom, sometimes Jesse and Amy. And you.”

Yeah but like, for relationships or whatever.”

“‘Beca are you getting any?’, is that where this line of questioning is going?”

“Beca! No! Well, yes. But I was going to avoid being that crude.”

“I don’t have time for dating. It’s too complicated with Jamie. It’s not worth the effort, maybe when he’s older.”

“But are you okay with that? Like, you know you have willing babysitters, if you wanted to...get back out there. You seem like you need more adult time, it’d help you, if you got a chance to relax more often.”

“Chloe...I don’t want to get back out there. Jamie’s more important than me...getting some. I don’t have time to worry about me. I don’t have room in my head for that. I just- I just need to vent sometimes, sorry.”

“That’s what I’m saying though-”

“No, Chloe.” It comes our terser than she’d really intended.

“...Okay.”

“Sorry. I just...sorry. Anyway, hanging out with you really, really helps.” They’re both silent for a moment.

“I can come round now if you want? I mean, I’m not doing anything other than marking and I can do that anywhere.”

“No. No, it’s okay. But thank you. I’m so gross right now and I want to keep up the illusion that my personal grooming has improved at least a bit since high school.” Chloe laughs loudly on the other end of the phone, and it makes Beca smile for the first time in hours.

“In that case, what you need is wine.”

“You’re not wrong.” There’s a pause, and Beca nibbles on the inside of her cheek. “Chloe?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me something- just, anything? Just talk to me about something that isn’t toddler related?” Chloe, Beca is immensely grateful to realise, doesn’t even question the request, launching into a story without hesitation.

When Beca finally puts the phone down, over half an hour later, she feels lighter than she has in days. As she slightly adjusts her position on the sofa, she spots Jamie stumbling towards her, dragging his blanket in one arm, Anna tucked under the other, cheeks pink from sleep and hair pressed up crazily on one side of his head.

“Come here, little guy.”

He silently obeys, walking over to his mom until he’s close enough for her to pull him up onto her lap. He nuzzles in immediately, and Beca can feel his warm breath against her neck, already slowing as he slips easily back into the sleepy haze he’d not quite made it out of. Beca stretches the blanket over the pair of them, wraps her arms around Jamie’s tiny body, and closes her eyes, joining him almost immediately in a restful slumber.

Chloe can smell the something delicious cooking in her apartment before she’s even opened her front door, and wrinkles her forehead, confused. Calvin’s not supposed to be home for several hours yet.

“Cal?”

“In here!”

She dumps her bag by the door and steps into the living area. Calvin’s stood by the stove, stirring something in a large pan. There’s already two glasses of wine set out on the counter, one half drunk.

“What’s all this?”

“Date night. An apology because I skipped the last two.”

“The last three. I thought you had a class? And you know date night’s supposed to involve us leaving the house.” But she’s got a smile on her face as she says it, approaching Cal to wrap her arms around him from behind as he turns back to the stove. She stands on her tiptoes to rest her head on his shoulder, just about reaching his cheek to give it a kiss.

“Skipped it, and I’m improvising, sorry.”

“It’s okay. I know you’ve been busy, I just really miss you.” Cal turns around in Chloe’s embrace so her can kiss her properly.

“I know, babe. I’m sorry. Life’s kinda crazy right now, isn’t it? I can’t believe we’ve been here for nearly three months already. I’m sorry it feels like I’m barely around.”

“Stop apologising, silly man.” She kisses him softly. “What’s cooking?”

“Lamb tagine. There’s pita warming in the oven.”

Chloe groans. “Ugh, you are the greatest. It smells incredible.” Cal smiles widely down at her, reaches up to tuck a stray curl behind her ear.

“It’s nearly ready, you good to go?”

“Let me get washed up, I’ll be two minutes.” She spins around, and Calvin slaps her lightly on the butt as she leaves the room.

“Okay, I’ll see you in ten.”

“Watch it mister!” She calls, from out in the hallway, making Calvin laugh loudly so it reverberates around the room.

Cal’s just wiping up the last of his meal with a piece of pita when Chloe’s phone beeps and she pulls it out of her pocket. He watches Chloe’s face light up with her smile.

“Who’s that?”

“Just Beca. She’s having really shitty week I think. I’m trying to cheer her up.”

“How come?”

“She’s a single mom.” Chloe shrugs. “Sometimes it’s just exhausting I guess, and I don’t think she’s very good at asking for help. She’s keeping hold of some of her loner-ish tendencies.”

“You should invite her round here again. Jamie can come too, I don’t mind. He sounds cool.”

“He is.” Chloe grins at the thought, shoulders relaxing.

“You’re totally smitten with him aren’t you? Are you getting broody?” His tone is light and teasing.

“Definitely not. But it’s hard not to fall for him, really.” Calvin nods quietly, a small smile on his face.

“I probably would love him too.”

“You would?” Chloe looks surprised- more so than Cal thought she would and it makes him furrow his brow slightly.

“Men can get all broody and melty around kids too you know, and you know what they say- it takes two to tango.” He raises his eyebrows at her.

“Sorry, that’s not what I meant. I just can’t imagine it. I guess you’d get along, you’re just like a very tall child after all.” She grins at him.

“Oy. Rude.”

“But true.”

“A very tall one who you have sex with.”

“Ew, Cal!”

“Sorry, sorry, you started it!”

“Fine, a grown up with many child like tendencies, some of which are adorable, some much, much less so.”

“Aw, thanks, babe.” He smirks.

She throws a crisp piece of pita at his face.

Chloe doesn’t usually answer her phone at school, but it’s recess and when she sees the name she finds she’s breaking her rules without hesitation.

“Hello?”

“...no, Jamie, can you put that down please- Chloe! Hi!”

“Hey, what’s up Beca?”

“Sorry I just... I am in a kind of jam and it’s just a sign of how insane this week has been but- Jamie please don’t touch that- I know you’re in work today, but I had to come into the studio for a majorly last-minute thing, and I have Jamie here with me and as you can probably tell it’s kind of chaotic-”

“Do you want me to come and get him when I’m done with work?”

“I really don’t want to ask you to do something like that but you’re kinda my only hope right now. I’ve tried all his babysitters, and his daycare’s closed, and my mom’s working too, I’m really sorry. If you’re really busy I can keep him with me-”

“Beca, I really don’t mind at all. Seriously. Will he be okay with it?”

“Yeah of course, he loves you.”

“He does?” Chloe smiles so wide she knows Beca will be able to hear it in her voice.

“Yeah, kinda freakishly large amount actually. Look. I’m sorry I gotta go. Jamie that’s not a toy-”

“I finish at half three, Beca, then I’ll come straight there okay?”

“God. You are my hero, seriously. Thank you. I’ll text you the address.”

“Sure. See you later Beca.”

Chloe arrives at the studio later that afternoon to find it’s a fairly non-descript box of a building, in a sketchy neighbourhood, with just a tiny plaque by the door to explain what’s within, and a large, grey buzzer. She presses it tentatively.

“G’day, Riptide Records, what can I do you for?”

“Hi, I’m Chloe, I-”

Instead of a response, there’s a loud buzz, and the door clicks open. Chloe steps inside to a bright, sparsely furnished reception area. Behind the one large desk spanning a wall sits a blonde lady, with what Chloe can only assume is Jamie sat upside down on her lap so that his feet are nearly under her chin. She can hear his giggles as the receptionist absent-mindedly tickles his belly.

“Hey, um, hi, I’m here for Jamie?” She reaches the counter and looks down at James, whose flushed-pink head hangs upside down off the lady’s knees, hair wild and eyes shining.

“Chloe!” He immediately starts to right himself upwards and nearly slides onto the floor in the process, but the lady grabs him just him time and sits him the correct way up on her lap, arms tight around his middle as he squirms.

“I guess you do know the mini-Beca man huh?” Chloe nods, bemused.

“I do.”

“Beca’ll be pleased you’re here, she thinks I’m a bad influence. She’s wrong, but you know, whatever. I’ve been teaching him my crocodile wrestling technique, I’m an expert, you know, back in Tasmania they have this nickname for me that- actually is probably not something I should say in front of mini-Beca. She it still angry about that time I accidentally taught him how to use bullshit in a sentence and-”

“Bullshit!”

Both Chloe and Amy look down at Jamie. Amy grimaces.

“Let’s just skim over that. So, uh, Chloe right?” Chloe nods again.

“I’m Fat Amy and I have heard all about you.”

“Fat Amy?”

“Yep. Tell ‘em why mini-Beca?”

“Um...bitch twigs!”

Chloe stares at Fat Amy, gaping in her confusion, but Amy offers up no further explanation, instead addressing Jamie again with a loud whisper.

“We’ll keep working on that. Just remember never say that in front of your mother or we’ll never get to hang out again, my main man.” She looks up at Chloe. “Maybe she is onto something with the bad influence thing.”

Chloe laughs, wide eyed and nodding.

“Ah well. The little guy knows I’m the coolest, and I need to up his street cred because he’s got our tiny friend as his only parent so he needs all the help he can get. Plus I’ve been teaching him some of my sickest dance moves, right fella?”

“Mermaid dancing!”

“Oh hell yes, you wanna try just a tiny bit more before Chloe takes you for way less exciting adventures?”

“Yes!” Amy plops Jamie onto his feet, where he immediately proceeds to lay on the floor, and Amy, to Chloe’s surprise, follows him.

“Should I go tell Beca, you know, that I’m taking him?” Chloe leans over the desk to try and make eye contact but Amy’s partially obscured behind her chair.

“Uh sure, yeah.” Fat Amy sits up a little to wave her arm towards the desk. “Here, can you reach that buzzer? Cool, yeah that one, the main door’s open now. Third door on the left! Don’t forget to knock!”

Chloe can see Beca through the round window in the door, sat at a large mixing desk with a pair of headphones on, and surrounded by several serious looking men. She watches for a minute, noting how Beca’s movements seem a lot surer and more confident than usual, her shoulders relaxed, a small smile on her face as she presses switches and turns a dial.

One of the men must have noticed her standing there staring, because suddenly Beca’s swiveling round to face the door, slipping the headphones off and grinning at Chloe as she gets up and approaches.

“I’ll be two secs,” Beca says to the men in the room as she steps out into the corridor.

“Hey.” Chloe pulls her into a quick hug, and Beca responds straight away, tightening her arms briefly around Chloe’s back.

“Hey, you are seriously, like the greatest human I know today, Chloe, thank you so much.”

“What’re friends for right? It’s no trouble.”

“Right.” Beca looks at Chloe, gnawing on her lip, as though she’s forgotten she’s the one that needs to be speaking in this conversation. Chloe attempts to prompt her.

“Um, so, when do you think you’ll be done?”

“Shit, sorry, uh, I kind of have no idea. Is that okay? Here, you can take him back to mine, cause all his toys and stuff are there if you want?” Beca pulls a set of keys from her pocket and starts looping one of them off the ring.

“Sure, okay. It really is no problem, Beca, at all. I promise. It’s a Friday anyway, so no work tomorrow. I can stay as late as you need.”

“You’re my hero. I hope he’s not too much of a pain for you. Listen, I really have to get back to work.” Chloe peers back through the window and everyone in the room is looking out at them, awaiting Beca’s presence. “We have dinner scheduled in a couple of hours, can I ring you then?”

“Of course. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“Stop saying thank you.” Chloe grabs onto Beca’s wrist briefly to emphasise her statement.

“Sorry.”

“And stop saying sorry.” Beca laughs, pulling the studio door back open.

“I don’t make a habit of this, you know,” Beca says, looking concerned again for a moment.

“Okay. I know.” Chloe nods sincerely.

“Give him a hug from me?”

“Sure. See you later, Beca.” And Beca vanishes back into the room with a grin and a wave.

Chapter Text

Beca opens the door just a crack- she can see that there’s only a single lamp on so she enters as quietly as possible, looking down at her watch for the first time in hours- it’s 1:24am. No wonder her eyelids are so desperately fighting the caffeine she’s been consuming regularly for nearly eighteen hours.

She pushes the door to with the softest click she can manage, before turning around and letting her eyes adjust to the semi-darkness. Chloe, she sees, is in almost exactly the position Beca and Jamie had fallen asleep in the previous weekend. His little body is curled up on her lap, head resting near a collarbone, lips puckered where his cheek presses into Chloe’s skin. One leg of his Thomas the Train pyjamas is pushed up to the knee, and the top rides up so that his back is partially exposed. Chloe’s arms are wrapped around him tightly, holding him firmly in place, her head fallen to the side, deep asleep.

A rush of feeling washes over Beca- guilt, she thinks, but also something like gratitude for being able to walk in on this sweet image. She sort of wants to take a picture, but resists, thinking all the while that were their roles reversed, Chloe would have her camera out already. The thought makes her smile whilst she slips her boots off by the door before she tiptoes over.

She moves to extract Jamie, knowing that if the pair of them sleep like that all night they’ll both be strangely achy in the morning but pauses, hovering over them. She wonders briefly how to do this without touching Chloe, before realising that she’s just going to have to. She gingerly picks up an arm and places it carefully down at Chloe’s side, before doing the same with the other. Chloe’s fingers curl back and forth but she doesn’t stir until Beca reaches to move Jamie’s warm weight off of her. Then Chloe’s arms twitch as though she’s going to reach back up to the sleepy toddler, but instead she opens her eyes, blinking up at Beca.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t mean to wake you,” Beca whispers, looking down at Jamie to check he’s still sleeping when he stirs slightly in her arms.

Chloe swallows a few times, still blinking hazily, and she rubs a hand over her face.

“You’re home,” Chloe says, somewhat unnecessarily. 

“Yeah. I’m just going to put this guy in his bed then I’ll be back okay?” Beca finds herself using the soft, calm voice she usually reserves only for when dealing with her sleepy son.

Chloe nods and looks as though she’s going to fall straight back to sleep. But when Beca returns a couple of minutes later, she seems fully awake again, sitting up albeit rosy-cheeked and yawning widely.

“I should get home,” Chloe says as Beca throws herself down on the sofa, letting her body be enveloped in the many cushions.

“What? Dude, no. You can’t drive this sleepy, that’s crazy. You should stay, I’ll make up the sofa properly for you. It’s the least I can do, really, it’s my fault you’re here so insanely late.”

“Sure. Okay.” Chloe’s obviously still too hazy to protest.

Beca hops up again and vanishes into her bedroom without a word, returning with a pair of pyjamas.

“Do you want to borrow these? I’ll get some bedding for you while you change.”

“Sure, thanks Beca,” and to Beca’s horror Chloe’s throwing her shirt over her head before Beca’s even has a chance to turn around. She gapes for a second, stunned at the extremely unexpected view of Chloe’s bare back and side, obscured only by her bra, before practically running back into her bedroom. She stands by the door with the bedding in her arms for what she is sure is way longer than necessary before peeking out into the room again, pleased to find Chloe is indeed fully clothed in the pyjamas, sitting cross-legged awaiting Beca patiently. She hops up when Beca re-enters, stepping aside to let her arrange the cushions and sheets into something resembling a bed.

“Dude I am so sorry you got roped into this so last minute. You probably had nice things planned with Cal and I just throw up all over them with my own terrible planning. They sort of gave me all of this extra responsibility last minute, emergency edits whilst the boss was in the Bahamas. And they don’t usually trust me with that kind of stuff alone, so I couldn’t say no, you know?”

“Don’t be silly. Of course you couldn’t, and anyway it’s fine, we had a nice evening. I had fun.” Beca turns to Chloe, raising one disbelieving eyebrow. “We really did. Your son’s kind of awesome, you know.” At that Beca smiles warmly, but it soon turns into a long yawn.

“You must be exhausted. Did you get everything finished?” Beca nods, resisting a second yawn.

“Yeah, eventually.”

“Good. Now go to bed, I’m all good here.” She puts her hands on Beca’s shoulders and forcibly maneuvers her until she’s facing her bedroom door before giving her a light push forwards. Beca meekly obeys, too sleepy to even question it.

“Goodnight Chloe.”

“Night Beca. Thanks for the bed.”

Chloe awoke slowly, not fully registering her whereabouts or what had caused her to stir from her sleep. She exists in this blissfully half-awake state for several minutes before a slight warm breeze across her face pulls her further out of her sleep.

“Chloe,” a soft voice whispers, alarmingly close to her face. She blinks open her eyes, to be met with a small face unexpectedly just inches from her own. “Hi.”

“Morning Jamie.” Her eyes fall closed again momentarily, without her permission- or apparently, Jamie’s.

“Chloe.”

“Mmm, I’m awake. What time is it?”

“I don’t know. I’m three.” Chloe chuckles softly, reaching out to her phone on the coffee table before dropping it back with a groan. 5:44am. Chloe had forgotten this charming detail about small children. She has a sudden memory of her childhood self getting up with the sun in the summer. She would attempt to entertain herself for admittedly probably a very short while before pestering her older brothers or parents until someone got up to keep her company- she just needed someone to nod or “Mmhmm” in the right places whilst she yabbered away happily. She suddenly understands their pain on a new level. Because how can you ignore that face? But also pre-6am is never okay.

Coffee is the answer, she realises, dragging herself upright. Coffee is always the answer.

“Come on then, I’m getting up, but we’re going to be really quiet okay, your mom’s still sleeping.”

Jamie nods and spins around several times, rushing to follow Chloe into the kitchen, his bare feet tap-tapping on the wooden floor.

“Mommy!” Chloe looks up from where she’s reading the news on her phone at the table, one hand cradled around a second mug of coffee, as Jamie jumps from his spot on the living room floor to charge at his mother’s legs.

“Dude. You should have woken me.” Beca says, still pyjama clad, pulling Jamie into her arms and kissing his forehead.

“Don’t be silly. You needed the sleep.” Beca frowns, apparently unused to this kind of attentive care.

“I feel like I’m taking advantage of you, like I need to be paying you or something-”

“Don’t you even dare try. This is what friends do, Beca.” Beca’s frown slowly melts into a much happier expression as she smiles over at Chloe, holding firmly onto her son who’s now wiggling in her arms to get back to his game.

“Okay. Thank you,” she says with a nod and a lip held between her teeth, placing Jamie back onto the floor with a final kiss to his scruff of unbrushed hair.

“There’s coffee in the pot.” Beca’s jaw falls open.

“Oh my God. Chloe. Are you trying for some kind of best babysitter prize? You can stay forever if you like.” Chloe chuckles proudly as Beca rushes to grab a giant mug and empty the pot into it, nearly filling it to the rim. She pauses to inhale the aroma of the coffee with her eyes closed, twisting her legs around one another as she leans back against the counter, facing Chloe. “So did Jamie behave himself? Um, he’s been kind of crazy with toddler mood swings lately. He didn’t tantrum or cry too much did he?” Beca grimaces nervously as she awaits Chloe’s reply.

“Um. Kinda, yeah,” she starts off hesitantly, taking a sip of her own drink before continuing. “Well, he cried when he realised he had to eat dinner, I told you about that on the phone. And he cried when he couldn’t reach Anna even though she was just at the other end of the sofa and my suggestion he move was not greeted with enthusiasm, to say the least. Uh, when I was changing him for bed he cried because he didn’t have his pyjamas on yet, and then when we put them on he cried because he was wearing pyjamas. But, like, I promise I didn’t traumatise your son, in between he was happy as anything. It was kinda loopy-”

“Don’t worry, kids are weird, man. It’s kind of hilarious once you get used to all the crying. Our evenings are often like that, but luckily he seems to get out of his tantrums quickly. So far.”

She reaches up to flip a switch on the stereo that sits atop the fridge before joining Chloe at the table. They sit quietly for several minutes, both watching Jamie as he plays on the living room rug, before Chloe interrupts.

“What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“The music.”

“Oh.” Beca hadn’t really thought about it, flipping the music on being such a natural part of her normal routine, but she suddenly felt nervous, and wondered futilely whether there was a way she could switch it off again without Chloe seeming suspicious. “Um. It’s my music. I mean, uh, the stuff I’m working on...for myself, rather than for the studio. I like to listen to it when I’ve woken up, when my mind’s clear you know. It helps me work out what I need to change. I, uh, I don’t usually let anyone else hear it. No-one else has-”

“Beca. It’s amazing .” Chloe’s eyes have lit up, an intense look of concentration on her face as she listens, and though Beca’s default is to assume compliments are polite rather than sincere, she can immediately tell that Chloe truly means what she says. Suddenly she feels less insecure about leaving it playing.

“Thanks.”

“I mean, I knew you made amazing stuff, because I looked it all up on Youtube, but-”

“Wait, you did?”

“Yes, Beca, of course I did. But I think this stuff is better. Seriously." Chloe starts bobbing her head gently with the beat, and when the chorus comes around again she hums along, already having the hang of the melody. “Are there going to be lyrics?”

“Yeah. Maybe. Maybe one day.” She’s not really sure why she’s telling Chloe this thing she’s never shared with anyone else before.

“Will you sing it?”

“God, no. I don’t sing.”

“A little birdy told me otherwise. But we’re keeping it a secret.” Chloe winks and Beca flushes a soft shade of pink.

“I sing for Jamie. That does not count.” Beca’s flush gradually turns redder.

“Hmm. I don’t know, Beca Mitchell. I think I can get some singing out of you some day. I’m in need a duet partner. Besides, if you’ve been able to sing all along, you owe it to me. You’ve been holding out on me for how many years when I actually could have recruited you to the glee club way back in eighth grade?”

“Yeah, that was not going to happen.”

“I’m going to get you to sing for me.” Chloe sounds so convinced that Beca’s pretty sure she’s right, but being both competitive and stubborn she’ll hold out for the sake of a challenge.

“If you say so.” She raises a single eyebrow and tries to sound nonchalant.

“Yep. I do, and I am a woman of my word.” Chloe nods, a mischievous glint in her eye as she stares intently across the table at Beca.

“So, uh, do you want to, um, shower or whatever?”

“Sure. But you go first. I’ll watch the mini Beca.”

“You heard Amy’s name for him then,” Beca says, rolling her eyes.

“Yep,” Chloe grins. “And I’m stealing it because it is adorable and appropriate. Seriously, he looks so much like a super cute little version of you it kills me a bit.” Chloe’s grin gets wider, lighting up her eyes and spreading so that Beca can’t help but respond with a grin of her own and the pair just look at each other for a moment.

“Go on then. Shower, missy,” Chloe jabs her toes into Beca’s calf, in an attempt to prod her towards the bathroom. Beca rolls her eyes again, but smiling this time.

“You’ve been spending too much time bossing around a small person, haven’t you? Are you on some kind of power trip?”

“Shut up.”

Quickly glancing over to make sure Jamie’s not looking, Beca employs both her middle fingers at Chloe, face scrunched up, before vanishing behind the bathroom door so that Chloe’s loud laugh gets muffled part way through.

Chloe’s draining the last dregs of her coffee when she suddenly hears a crash, a pause of suspicious silence, followed by a gentle “Uh oh.”

She looks over, already up on her feet, to see Jamie’s wide-eyed face peering over the back of the sofa at her. “Uh oh Chloe.”

“What’s up little man, are you hurt?” She tries not to let the little bit of panic reach her voice.

“I did a thing.”

“What did you do?” Please don’t have injured yourself whilst under my care , Chloe begs silently.

“I did a mess.” Chloe laughs out loud, relieved, causing Jamie’s eyes to widen even further.

“It’s okay, we can clear it up. Do you want my help?” He nods furiously.

“Mommy doesn’t like it when you do a mess, Chloe,” he whispers when she’s near enough for him to loop his hands around her elbow, his toes curling over the edge of the sofa he’s standing on, fingers gripping tighter as he nearly overbalances. She looks at his sincere expression and sees so much Beca in it she has to bite her lip to hold in her laughter.

“Well let’s clear it up before she comes back then shall we?” Chloe surveys the floor, where the entire tower Jamie had apparently been building of various toys and blocks is now scattered across the living room rug.

Beca returns to the room to find the pair of them oblivious to her presence, laying on their bellies on the rug building tower mark two and giggling crazily. She watches as Jamie’s laughter overtakes him so much he simply sinks his face into the rug, and Chloe leans over to kiss the back of his head before reaching up to place a toy zebra next to the dinosaur that already sits at the apex of the tower.

It’s only after Chloe’s left that Beca realises it’s the first time that someone else has joined them for their family breakfast routine, ever, and far from being the awkward intrusion she’d imagined, it was actually kind of...nice.

Chapter Text

“So. It’s Christmas soon.” Chloe says when Beca answers the phone, in lieu of a greeting. Beca can hear children screaming in the background.

“Well observed.”

“Me and Cal are having a party. And by that I mean you and Jamie are coming over for food and carols and eggnog and Christmas movies, and then we’re going to get drunk.”

“Oh. Um, sure, okay, that sounds fun-”

“Yay! Right, okay, I’ll text you to find out when you’re free?”

“Sure.”

“Perfect.” Chloe genuinely squeals a little with excitement. “Okay I’m breaking rules at work I gotta go Beca, sorry, bye!”

“Uh, bye,” Beca says but Chloe’s already hung up.

“Mama Santa be here soon?” Beca slams the car door shut, taking a large bag with one hand and offering the other to Jamie.

“Yep, soon, it’s still a week though little man.”

“How many’s a week?”

“Seven days, buddy.”

“Which one is seven?”

“It goes one, two, three, four, five, six, se-” Jamie pulls on Beca’s arm as he twists around to face her, coming to a halt.

“No, mommy, stop! That’s too many.”

“Sorry, dude, there’s not much I can do about that.”

“But Mommy!”

“It’ll go by before you know it, J, okay?”

“But I wish it was sooner!” His lip trembles, releasing a solitary tear to run down his left cheek.

This is the first year that Jamie’s really been aware enough to be excited for Christmas, and though Beca sort of loves it, she’s had this exact conversation, including the tears, with Jamie every day for the past week and fully expects to rehash it over the next seven days too. It’s exhausting, and her Christmas spirit has taken a battering over the crazy week she’s had at work. So when she’s led Jamie up the two flights of stairs to Chloe’s apartment, and is greeted by Chloe wearing the most festive sweater she’s ever seen and a pair of reindeer antlers, she can tell she’s about to get a much-needed top-up.

“Hi! Merry almost Christmas!” She immediately wraps her arms around Beca in a tight hug.

“Hey, uh, wow, you look...jolly,” Beca says when she pulls away.

“Thanks.” Chloe beams before looking down at Jamie, whose eyes are crinkled as he smiles up at his new favourite friend. He reaches his arms out towards Chloe, gripping one outstretched hand around one of Chloe’s fingers.

“Up please?”

Chloe grabs him around the middle and flips him casually upside down, tickling at the bare skin of his belly when his red and green striped sweater bunches up around his neck, causing squeals to reverberate around Chloe’s tiny hallway. She giggles herself at the sound, carrying Jamie into the living room still upside down, Beca trailing behind.

“Chloe! Santa is coming, did you know?” Jamie practically shouts once Chloe has deposited him the right way up again.

“Yeah buddy I did! Are you excited?” Chloe bounces up and down on her toes before kneeling in front of Jamie so that they are eye to eye.

“Do you really need to ask that?” Beca says with a small smile, claiming the armchair for herself and slipping her boots off, and Chloe twists her head around to grin at Beca.

Beca briefly wonders how on earth she’s going to survive dealing with two toddlers all afternoon, because it’s becoming increasingly apparent that her Christmas cheer has caused Chloe to revert back into an overly excitable child.

“Cal had some stuff to finish up but he’ll be here later. Hopefully not too later,” Chloe says, placing a Santa hat on Beca’s head and taking a moment to adjust it so it sits straight before grinning at Beca, eyes glittering with excitement. “Now, can I get you a drink?”

Over two hours later, and Beca can barely move. She’s been plied with so many christmassy snack foods and Chloe’s apparently ‘internationally famous’ eggnog (“I made it for some people from Denmark once, and they liked it, so.”) that she has to forcibly maneuver Jamie off of her lap so that he’s no longer pressing into her stomach. He barely stirs as she places him on the armchair, moving instead to sit beside Chloe on the sofa, fully engrossed in Arthur Christmas, which is apparently Chloe’s favourite Christmas movie.

“Um, I’m sorry that Cal’s not here yet, I wanted for him to be here too for it to be at least a little bit more of a party,” Chloe says when Beca’s settled next to her.

“Don’t worry about it Chloe, it’s cool,” Beca says, until she looks at Chloe’s face and realises that maybe Chloe’ s the one who’s actually upset about the situation. It’s the most concerned Beca’s ever seen her, and she can feel her babbling start before she’s even opened her mouth to speak.

“I uh, I’m sorry, though, like, I know you wanted him to hang out here, and he’s your boyfriend and all, but like, don’t worry about me, you know? I am very happy just hanging with you a J, this is like, dope, or whatever, um, the most Christmassy I’ve felt in a long time, and I don’t just mean, like, since last Christmas-”

“Beca-”

“I’m sorry though.” Beca finishes, taking a deep breath to compensate for the ones she just skipped.

Chloe does, at least, look more cheerful than she did a minute ago.

“Thank you, Beca. Sorry.  I just miss him since he’s gotten so busy lately. Everything’s kind of different, you know?”

Beca nods, her lip between her teeth. Truthfully, she doesn’t really know- the longest relationship she’s had was the one with Jamie’s father, and that ended rather abruptly five months in when he showed his true colours and then skipped town, not really leaving Beca much to work with. Chloe takes a deep breath in.

“It’s like, I know that he needs to be concentrating on school and not me, I know that’s the most important thing, but it’s just hard. So much has changed since we moved here, and it’s like our whole dynamic is skewed and I’m looking at everything differently, you know? Everything’s just changed a lot. I love him a lot but it doesn’t feel like us right now. it’s like some other couple that I don’t recognise. I don’t know if it’s a bad thing, it’s just...foreign.”

Beca nods encouragingly, attempting to arrange her features into something appropriately comforting- she’s never felt particularly comfortable with this whole supportive friend thing, but she finds herself pretty desperate to give it a good go now. “That makes sense,” Beca says, somewhat truthfully.

“Sorry, wow. This is not...I didn’t mean to bring this up at our Christmas thing.”

“Chloe, you can talk to me about these things whenever you want,” Beca says sincerely, surprising even herself at her words, and Chloe’s eyes hold Beca’s stare for a long moment.

“Thank you.”

“You should talk to him about all this stuff though. Like, uh, have you done that properly?” Beca runs her left hand back through her hair roughly, holding it at the back of her head whilst she formulates her next sentence. “Because you obviously have a really great thing, and he seems, really nice or whatever. I’m sure you can work it out if you just take the time to talk properly. My parents never did that, when they had disagreements- they just let all these assumptions and half-truths and unspoken thoughts build up until they had, like window breaking decibel level arguments about it. When even little fourteen year old me could see that if they’d just used their words several weeks earlier they wouldn’t have had to argue at all.” Beca shrugs, and Chloe reaches her arm out to grip onto Beca’s wrist, squeezing it firmly before running a thumb absent-mindedly over Beca’s grasshopper tattoo.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Okay?” Beca’s momentarily confused, her mind occupied by the feeling of Chloe’s soft touch on her arm.

“Okay as in- You’re right, I need to just talk to him about it. Instead of just thinking and worrying about it.”

“Good. You should. I’m sure you’ll work it all out.” Beca smiles at Chloe, and Chloe beams back. Before jumping up with a squeal.

“Oh! Presents! I forgot!”

“Shit Chloe, you didn’t have to, I uh, I don’t have anything for you-”

“Don’t be silly, I don’t care. I just like giving presents, and I don’t have any other kids to buy for and they’re the most fun, so-” Chloe’s on her knees in front of her small Christmas tree, extracting two gifts from near the back of the pile. She pushes the smaller one towards Beca, sitting back on her knees on the floor.

“I’m not a kid, though.”

“You may as well be, you haven’t grown since like 7th grade.”

“Shut up.” Beca swats at Chloe with her foot. “Thank you though. This is really, uh, you didn’t have to.”

“Didn’t we just cover this? I wanted to. So shut up and get your son over here so he can open his.”

But Jamie, as most kids seem to, has a sixth sense for imminent gifts, and is already in the process of unfurling himself from the armchair and charging over to Chloe.

“This for Jamie?” He says, pointing a finger to the present, and then at his chest, looking thrilled.

“Yeah buddy. Merry Christmas.”

He sits cross-legged on the floor, pulling the present so it’s sat directly in front of him, before looking at his mom for reassurance. She nods at him, smiling, and he carefully starts pulling at one corner, ripping a tiny strip from the middle of the present before pushing his little fingers into the gap and pushing the rest off in the most careful, reverent way Chloe has ever seen anyone open a gift. It’s only when the whole top layer has been carefully pushed away that he even looks at what his unwrapping’s revealed- and he gasps at the sight. It’s a small wooden train painted in deep purple (Jamie’s favourite), with ‘JAMIE’ written on the side in yellow lettering.

“Wow, Mommy look! The most coolest one.” Jamie hold it up in both his hands towards Beca, his face the picture of glee.

“Yeah it is, J. There’s something else too though, look.”

Jamie sets the train down, though he can’t resist rolling it a couple of inches along the rug when he does so, before pulling a book out of the packaging and studying the outside cover carefully as though he can actually read what’s written there.

“I thought you might enjoy this one, Jamie. It’s got poems in it. I’ll read it to you, yeah?” Jamie nods enthusiastically, eyes wide at Chloe, before placing the Shel Silverstein book back on the floor and picking up the train again.

“Are you forgetting something little guy?” Beca says from her position on the sofa, eyebrows raised. “Say thank you?”

“Um.” He turns to Chloe again. “Thank you,” he says whispering shyly, rolling the two words into each other so they sound like one. He pushes himself up to his feet and takes the couple of steps over to her, before putting his hands on her cheeks and giving her a sloppy kiss over the general area of her lips. Chloe looks so surprised, and Jamie so pleased with himself that Beca rolls backwards with her laughter, and Chloe quickly joins in, wiping the back of her sleeve across her mouth before pulling Jamie in for a hug.

Cal arrives home when Jamie’s just conked out on the sofa, tucked in under a blanket, his train still secured in his left hand. Beca’s propped against a cushion,  flipping through the book Chloe got her about the history of electronic music- just the right level of nerdy for Beca to get absorbed by. She finds herself unsurprised by the fact that Chloe is a thorough and thoughtful gift giver, because of course and she feels another jolt of guilt that she didn’t bring any presents of her own.

“Hey Beca,” Cal says, popping his head into the living room, and she looks up from her book to see that his cheeks are flushed pink, chest heaving slightly.

“Did you run here?” Beca can hear Chloe ask out in the hallway.

“Yeah? From the bus stop, I mean. I’m so sorry, Chlo, I had to finish that essay and hand it in, and then the professor saw me when I dropped it off and roped me into this impromptu review session, and I just, I got out of there as quickly as a I could but-”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, come on. Come eat.”

“Oh no, the little guy’s asleep already?” Cal steps into the room, slipping a Santa hat just like Beca’s over his head.

“Um, yeah, sorry dude.” Beca’s surprised by how genuinely upset he looks as he walks up to Jamie and crouches in front of him.

“Wow, Beca, he’s your mini-me.”

“Right?” Chloe adds, handing out more eggnog, this time spiked with hearty amount of spiced rum.

Jamie wakes up just after eight pm, and though Beca knows that his sleeping pattern’s going to be totally fucked if she lets him stay awake, she’s just the right level of contentedly tipsy that she indulges him anyway. She lets herself be swayed by the fact that Cal apparently really wants to “play trains” with him, which she doesn’t really understand (trains is easily her least favourite of Jamie’s many games) but whatever. It’s Christmas. And Cal’s grin is really rather adorably wide and it makes Chloe’s get even adorably wider when he does it.

So now Cal’s practically rearranging the living room furniture in his quest to build Jamie an epic train track, and Jamie, though still rosy-cheeked, is bouncy and hyper once again, making Beca laugh often as he skips, hops and rolls around the room, never once taking a single normal step.

“That’s what you were like at school,” Beca says to Chloe, who’s flopped next to her on the sofa, a bowl of doritos resting on her belly.

“Insanely hyper?”

“Well, yeah, but I mean that you never walked like a normal person.” Beca receives a dorito to the face, but she just eats it victoriously, wiping nacho dust off her nose. “You basically danced around. You were insane.” Beca laughs at the memory.

“I still do that.” Another face-nacho.

“You’re still insane,” Beca manages to get out without too many nacho crumbs falling out of her mouth but the action of trying to keep them in makes her laugh again, and she spits a few unceremoniously into her hand.

“At least I am not gross like you,” Chloe adds, shaking with laughter and raining a couple more chips onto Beca.

“Stop it!”

“Here, gimme some,” Cal calls from across the room, propped on his knees with his mouth wide open. Chloe and Beca both make valiant attempts that hit him in the chest, the arm, the forehead, and Jamie trots around, picking them all up carefully and trying to collect them in the crook of his arm before bending slightly too far to get one next to his foot, and spilling them all into an orange-crumbed pile onto the floor.

His face drops, utterly bemused, and the room explodes with the raucous laughter of the adults watching him.

Later, when Chloe’s read Jamie ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ three times in a row at his desperate request, and he’s slipped back into a deep slumber, Beca finally excuses herself. She’s feeling overwhelmingly exhausted but wonderfully Christmassy in a way that makes her insides tingle, giving her that slight edge of excited anticipation that made Christmas magical when she was a child. She calls a cab to take her and Jamie home, though not before she’s been tightly embraced by both Chloe and Cal, and whispered polite rejections of the bed or the sofa about twelve times. Her bed is calling her, and she can pick up the car tomorrow, whatever. It’s on a bus route and Jamie will flip. He adores buses, (in a way that Beca will never, ever understand) but she’d do anything to see that crazy glint in his eye when he’s utterly thrilled about how his life’s going. So that’s tomorrow’s adventures sorted, she thinks, as she closes her eyes in the back seat of the taxi, only opening them again when she hears the driver clear his throat at her loudly, and she’s home.

Beca’s right, Jamie does flip about their bus trip. The adoring look and squeals he’s getting from the teenage girls sat behind them makes Beca feel oddly proud of her silly boy, who’s kneeling, face pressed up to the bus window, his nose squashed against the glass as he watches rows of apartment buildings flash past them, captivated. It's exactly the same view as when they're driving in the car, but Beca has never claimed to understand the mystery that is toddler brains- she just goes with the flow of whatever happens to make her life easiest and Jamie's happiest. She holds one arm firmly around his waist, the other propping open her new book in her lap and resuming where she left off last night.

They slip into Chloe’s apartment building behind a lady struggling through the door with a pram. Beca leads Jamie back up the stairs and he clatters up them noisily the same way as he did yesterday.

“Shh,” Beca says, crouching to his level when they reach Chloe’s floor. “We’re going to pretend to be Santa, okay? So Chloe gets really excited, what do you think?”

“Yeah.” He nods enthusiastically and the pair of them creep up to Chloe’s door, propping a gift bag against the frame. Inside sits a Christmas card Jamie lovingly fashioned earlier this morning (a beautiful design of scribbles and more scribbles adorning both the inside and out). There’s a flash drive taped in the middle, on which Beca has put a carefully curated selection of her favourite Christmas songs and some mixes she’s made for the occasion but never seen fit to use before, slightly embarrassed by their sentimentality. But she’s one hundred percent sure Chloe will enjoy them, so.

She counts down for Jamie, holding him around the waist so he can reach the doorbell, and at her excitable, whispered “-GO!” Jamie presses down on it with his whole fist, before Beca sprints off back down the corridor and starts down the stairs, Jamie giggling as he gets jostled around in her arms.

They’re at the landing below Chloe’s when she hears a door click open, and Chloe’s distant, confused voice saying “Hello?”

Beca presses a kiss to the side of her son’s head, his expression full of glee at having successfully completed their mission.

“Good job, Santa Jamie,” she says, her face still pressed lightly into his messy curls.

Chapter Text

Beca gets a lot of texts from Chloe over Christmas, all of them a level of excitement that seems to vary from ‘overexcited’ to ‘possibly a danger to Chloe’s health and blood pressure excited’. They also use such an abundance of emoticons that it makes Beca feel slightly queasy. Jamie, however, heartily approves and requests to send Chloe a text of his own composition in reply, which turns out to be almost entirely formed of a set of penguin emoticons she’s downloaded purely for his enjoyment (Beca does not use emoticons, even of the penguin variety). She can’t really believe she willingly has a friend that texts the same way as her three year old.

Beca doesn’t think she’s going to get a text more excited than the New Years one, where she’s almost certain Chloe is several steps beyond drunk, (“BEXXX!! omg I am so HAPPY that we met again nd it made 2015 Super SUPER SUPERRR cool! Hap happ happiiest new year to u n tinyy becaman omg I am pretty sure your 2016 is guna b THEee BEST!! If i was there right now i’d be HUGging u!!! bye xxx”) but then she gets one at the beginning of January, a couple of days after Chloe’s arrived back in Los Angeles, that surpasses all previous efforts. It appears, to Beca at least, to be a squeal expressed purely with a string of “Ahh!”s of varying case and length. Beca’s in the middle of deciphering it when the phone rings in her hand, and Chloe’s suddenly re-enacting the squeal into Beca’s left ear instead.

“Woah, eardrums, precious eardrums. I need these for work, you know.”

“Sorry! I just! Ahh Beca! I got my own class, at school. Fifth graders! Twenty of them! Can you believe it?”

“Dude, awesome. How come?”

“There’s a lady going on her maternity leave early and they chose me, and now the little kiddos are all mine!”

“I don’t know if I should be worried about that to be honest. Kidding, I’m kidding. That’s great, Chloe. And you get to teach them to sing too, right?"

"Yeah, yeah I do."

"So do we need to go shopping for 90s style overalls?”

“OMG I didn’t even think of that! Yes!” 

And though no overalls are purchased, this is how Chloe gets Beca to watch two Sister Act movies with her in one day (Beca's pretty sure it's mostly her fault, but whatever, it's Chloe's celebration).

Beca finds that January flies by, in the way the beginning of the year often does, and she’s surprised when she realises one day she’s already four days late to flip her calendar into February. Work has kept both her and Chloe almost crazily busy, but they have settled into a reliable and comfortable routine where they do something at least every weekend with Jamie, even if it’s just for an hour or two. Beca’s pretty sure that all of three of them look forward to their adventures equally. It’s not often she gets to play mom-Beca and Beca-Beca simultaneously, and she likes it. Really, really likes it. It’s a relief.

Sometimes, when watching how well and naturally Chloe and Jamie get along, Beca thinks about asking Chloe if she’s just friends with her because of the opportunity to hang out with her son. But beyond being aware of how ridiculously childish that sounds, she can so clearly picture how sad Chloe’s face would look, were she to say such a thing, that she resolves that it must be a crazy thought.

It’s nearly time for Beca to forget to flip another calendar page when her studio request that she go to Atlanta for ten days, and she realises she’s going to have to start making choices like this quite often, at some point in her career. When she puts the phone down from her boss she immediately picks Jamie up from the floor and hugs him tightly in her arms for a minute, earning herself confused wiggles and whines for interrupting his Pingu marathon. Beca (who has been know to say “I fucking love Pingu” on more than one less-than-sober occasion) settles back onto the sofa to watch with him, head buzzing with worries.

She’s never left Jamie for more than two nights before. And ten days, when you’re three, is practically a month for a grown-up. The thought makes a cold sliver of fear ripple down her spine, and she immediately feels stressed just thinking about it. She’s almost one hundred percent sure that her mom will look after Jamie for her, and would probably jump at the chance. But he’s still her tiny baby, and it’s times like these she wishes she wasn’t a single parent- sure there’d be another person to miss, but at least Jamie would still be with a parent, in his home.

This is one of those things that she’s always waiting for- just niggling constantly at the back of her mind. Waiting for the moment when the bubble bursts and she stops being able to balance her burgeoning career with raising Jamie in a way that she’s happy with. Because sure, if she hadn’t had him she’s sure she’d be a few rungs further up the ladder than she is now, but she’s happy . She makes music happen. That’s what it was all about in the end, wasn’t it?

Unfortunately for Beca, she’s really good at what she does. The lovely people at Riptide think she has potential and want her to grow, and want to push her to do more and be more. And Beca wants to, oh she so wants to, and the thought that they want to support her through this fills her with pride, but at the same time there’s always that niggling dread. How am I ever going to give enough to make this career keep moving, and also give enough to be a good parent? There’s already barely enough hours in the day to do both, and since the day she went back to work Beca’s sort of been waiting for the ball to drop, for everything to crash and burn. Is this the beginning? she wonders, leg jiggling up and down nervously as her thoughts tumble around over one another.

She’s aware that she’s being melodramatic, but still she’s texting Chloe before she’s even fully registered the action.

Chloe comes over three hours later, after Jamie’s already in bed. She’s dressed in bright pink gym gear and a little more flushed than usual, although that’s the only clue Beca gets as to the fact that she’s been exercising- her hair and face are still perfectly made up, and when she hugs Beca tightly in the doorway, Beca’s pretty sure she feels clammier. Chloe even still smells nice, Beca notices, her head being forcibly pulled into Chloe’s neck with the force of the hug. It goes on much longer than their current average.

“What was that for?”

“You seem like you needed a cuddle.” Chloe shrugs non-committally.

“A cuddle? We’re progressing onto cuddles now? Am I five?”

“You don’t have to be a kid to like cuddles Bec, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I love cuddles.”

“Yes, and you are from some different planet and it doesn’t count.”

“I’m not wrong though am I?” Chloe says, twisting it right around to serious again in an instant. “You did need a cuddle?” Beca flushes.

“Shut up.” Chloe huffs for a moment, looking at Beca as though she actually is five.

“Okay, right-” She grabs Beca’s hand and drags her over to the sofa, pushing her lightly so that she falls back into the cushions. When she notices Beca’s still wearing her shoes, Chloe kneels down in front of her and starts working at the laces.

“Chlo, didn’t we just cover that I am not a child?”

“And we also just covered that you need looking after so shush and be looked after.” Beca does as she’s told, eyes on Chloe as she yanks the Converse off Beca’s feet and then moves to busy herself in the kitchen.

“Hot chocolate or fruit tea?”

“Um, chocolate?”

“Good choice.”

Beca sinks further back into the sofa, listening Chloe hum over the quiet clinks and glugs of milk being poured and mugs set out, thinking about how weird it is that she feels so comfortable around Chloe.

Beca finds nowadays that where her wandering mind used to always default to thinking about Jamie, it’s falling to Chloe more and more often. It’s somewhat curious, but Beca puts it down to her general Chloe-ness. She’s so bubbly and open and vibrant- how would she not invade your thoughts. She’s just pretty... bright, Beca figures, and that’s why she’s slid up to second position in Beca’s persons of importance list with virtually zero effort.

And though she’s never much been one to look for advice and support from other people- in fact it would be fairer to say that she actively avoids it, she finds that she’s willing to open up to Chloe in a way she hasn’t with anyone else ever before. This, also, is easy to put down to that signature Chloe-ness. Beca figures this is probably how she makes everyone react. It’s hard not to open up when someone makes you feel so comfortable in your own skin.

“Here.” There’s a quiet clunk as Chloe sets a cup down on the side table next to Beca, and positions herself cross-legged and sideways, so that she’s facing Beca, her own hot chocolate cradled in her hands. Beca picks her own up and mirrors Chloe’s position.

“Thanks. I feel better already.” Chloe grins. Beca’s not sure at what point Chloe’s presence in itself started being something that held a calming effect over her, but she’s not in the mood to be questioning it right now.

“You wanna talk about it?” Beca takes a deep breath and nods, before doing her best to explain to Chloe exactly why this trip to Atlanta has freaked her out. Chloe’s so good at supporting her through the conversation- nodding in all the right places, prompting Beca encouragingly when she loses her thread, that Beca’s sure she must have been to one of those team skills courses where they teach you “how to listen.” Beca had been forced on one several years ago with her record label, and predictably she’d hated it, but Chloe, she imagines, probably had it down first try. Or, like, in toddlerhood.

When Beca’s said everything that was rattling around in her brain, she looks Chloe in the eye, as though to signal that she’s finished, and Chloe takes a deep breath in before she starts.

“Beca, you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. You’re imagining future scenarios that are, as far as you know, totally fictional. As useless as I am aware it is to say not to worry about what ifs, you kinda have to try and not to worry about what ifs.”

Beca laughs- because it kind of really is that simple, if only brains worked that way. But she knows what Chloe means.

“And you are always in control- you can do it case by case if you need to- see what you think about balancing this one particular thing, before worrying about the next one. And have you spoken to your boss recently about it? You say the studio want to support you, and so they’re going to want to keep you Beca. That means you have some flexibility to negotiate with what works for you. Maybe you should arrange a meeting with him or something.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, that’s a good idea.” It really is, and a simple one too, and Beca doesn’t know why she didn’t think of it herself.

“And just know that I am always here for support for you, or with Jamie, or whatever you need. I haven’t forgotten about how much you helped me see straight with Calvin and to settle in to LA when I was a stranger here. And you’re like, my best friend, Beca, so I’m here to help when you need it.”

“I am?” Beca can’t help but express her surprise at that sentiment. “But you have, like, a million friends and I’m just all weird and awkward-”

“Becs.” Chloe puts her hot chocolate down so that she can reach Beca’s ankles and wrap her hands around them, leaning in. “I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true- but you’re my best friend here in LA at least, if that makes you feel better.”

“Oh I’ve been demoted already? Thanks.”

“Yeah, sorry, I’m sure Aubrey would have something to say about that otherwise.”

Beca nods thoughtfully, one eyebrow raised and a crooked smile in place to mask the fact that she’s feeling oddly emotional all of a sudden. Chloe nods along, smiling ever so gently, and Beca thinks she’s probably busted.

“So you talked to Cal properly? I could see that you guys were better, but I never really asked you about it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we talked a lot. It was totes horrible, by the way, but we needed to do it, and we’re both going to try and work things out like grown-ups, which is in itself kind of terrifying. I don’t think I’ve ever purposefully done something like a grown-up before.” Chloe scrunches up her face in apparent disgust.

“Yeah, ew, gross.”

“But yes. Things are better, and oh my God, I have to tell you an amazing thing-” Chloe squeals suddenly and grabs at Beca’s arm, nearly jolting hot chocolate over her legs. “Oops, sorry. It’s just super cool, I’m getting over excited. Bear with me, It’ll be out of my system in a minute.” She bounces her body up and down a couple of times. “Cal and I decided to make the most of our long summer off and do some travelling together. So as Valentines gifts to each other we booked plane tickets to Europe ! Adventure time!” She sings the last part very high pitched.

“Dude! Wow, that’s awesome. And you know I never would never have guessed that you were excited without you telling me. I totally thought that was you playing it cool.”

“Oh shush, you love it. We’re flying into London at the beginning of June, then out of Madrid in the middle of August. What happens in between is totally up in the air. I am so excited.” Beca can really tell, Chloe’s practically vibrating, and the hand still gripping her arm is tapping and wiggling, running fingers up and down Beca’s sleeve.

“Holy crap. Nearly three months? Wow. I’m excited for you too, Chlo.” She bites her lip for a second, thinking. That really is an epic trip. “We’ll miss you though. Jamie and I, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Chloe sighs and suddenly all her excitement seems to have evaporated. “I’ll miss you guys too.” Beca wants to get that sparkle back into Chloe’s eyes though, ashamed for having pushed it away.

“We’ll still be here when you get back, awaiting our showers of gifts.”

“Yes! I will bring you back something from every country. That’s a promise okay?”

“Okay.”

“Jamie will probably have grown a foot and I won’t recognise him.”

“A foot? You do realise who his mom is?” Beca waves her free arm up and down over her body.

“What if it turns out that Jamie’s tall? He could be bigger than you at, like, seven. That would be so embarrassing.”

“It would be a lie to say that’s not something I’ve worried about. But mainly I don’t want him to not fit under my chin too soon,” she says, tucking her hand under her jaw as if to show where Jamie’s head would go, before blushing profusely at Chloe’s cooing.

“You are a such a big softy Becs, I can’t believe you secretly always had that hidden under your I am a badass exterior.” Chloe laughs, prodding at Beca’s cheek where she’s trying to suppress a smile. “What was the last film that made you cry?”

“I don’t cry at films.”

“I don’t believe you. Was it a kids’ film?”

“I don’t cry at films!”

“I bet it was. I bet it was Pixar or something.”

“Shut up.”

“It was wasn’t it?”

“...No.”

“Inside Out?”

“I am done with this line of questioning.”

“Aww Becs. You cried at Inside Out? That’s so cute.” Chloe laughs harder when Beca blushes lightly, but just obviously enough for Chloe to notice. “Becs- so did literally everyone else,” she whispers, with a wink. “But don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

They lapse into quiet, both of them twisting around to flop more comfortably against the sofa. “I feel much better now, so, like, you can leave if you’ve got places to be.”

“Are you kicking me out? Rude.”

“Just excusing you if you want.” Beca shrugs, forever embarrassed by her own awkwardness.

“Nah, I’m good.” Chloe tucks her feet up under her legs, settling into an even more comfortable position and grabbing the television remote from the coffee table. “Trashy TV?”

“Trashy TV.”

They’ve been watching some terrible Kardashian-related reality show of Chloe’s choosing for ten minutes or so before either of them speaks again.

“Chloe?”

“Mmm?”

“Don’t laugh because this is so middle school, but whatever, you bring that sort of shit out in me or something. But you’re my best friend too. By the way.” Instead of responding with words, Chloe shuffles her body up the sofa so the two of them are touching all the way along their sides, from ankle to shoulder, and rests her head against Beca’s upper arm before speaking.

“Duh.”

Beca snorts, before wrenching the remote from Chloe’s grip.

“That’s it, your taste in trash TV is terrible, I’m cutting you off.” She flips away from something Kardashian related and pulls up the menu.

“Um, it’s not possible to have bad taste in trashy television Beca, that’s kind of the point?”

“Well, then you have transcended all previous levels of trash TV fandom with whatever this shit is, because I will put up with a worryingly high level of trash for you, but I one hundred percent guarantee that it is not even trash it’s like, animal cage floor scrapings. It’s so bad, it sunk below ‘so bad it’s good’ and it’s now just really, really, really bad.”

“So rude.” Chloe puts her hand over her heart as though wounded by Beca’s words.

“And yet...so true.” She flips it over to a rerun of Kitchen Nightmares, and settles back, barely even registering that Chloe’s still pressed up against her side.

Chapter Text

Chloe’s right, of course, about everything being okay. Beca’s probably not going to admit that to her face, but she can practically hear Chloe’s smug smile when she tells her on the phone how the studio’s cutting her trip to a week, and that her mom’s going to stay at Beca’s with Jamie so he can keep going to preschool. She’s making it a holiday, tacking on a couple of days at the beach with Beca’s step-dad after Beca gets home. It’s still scary, it’s still a whole week, but she’s much more relaxed about it. Plus, Jamie seems excited rather than nervous, when she attempts to explain it to him, which Beca supposes is a good thing.

When Beca walks into Jamie’s preschool to collect him the next day she’s greeted by a much more nervous than usual receptionist.

 “Oh, hi, Jamie’s mom, right? Beca?”

“Yeah, why? What’s wrong? Is Jamie ok?”

“Yes, yes yes, don’t worry. He’s fine, totally fine, but his room leader asked me to get you to see her, like, today, I mean, right now if that’s ok? If you have time?

 “Sure.” Beca drags out the word, confused and a little apprehensive. The woman stares at her, wide eyed for a moment, before jumping up with a quiet “Oh.” and leading Beca into a side room- a small office she hadn’t been into since first enrolling her son.

She sits at the desk, taking in the impressive amount of kiddy artwork that covers almost the entirety of the far wall, save a small hole in which there hangs an official looking certificate in a frame.

 “Beca, hi, thanks for waiting.” A friendly looking lady steps into the room. Beca thinks her name is Cara but she can’t totally remember. A lot of the people here seem to look the same and Beca’s never been that great with names. She might be Kate or Deanna. Whatever, they’re all friendly and Jamie happily spends his days in their company, so she trusts them implicitly whatever they’re called. “It’s nothing to worry about. We’ve just had a few little incidents with Jamie today we have to tell you about.”

“You did?” Beca sits forward.

“Have you noticed he’s been having a few angry tantrums lately? With quite a lot of shouting?”

“Um. Yeah. More than usual, for sure.”

“Well, it’s totally normal, he is three after all. A toddler teenager, you know. But today he’s been directing that angry yelling at some of the other kids, and, well, he made a couple of them cry. And some the shouting was rather...rude words.”

“Shit, really? I mean, not shit. Sugar. Shoot. Or whatever. God. Sorry. I try really hard not to swear in front of him. Fu- Oh man. I am so sorry. Wow this is embarrassing.” Beca purses her lips together as thought to physically stop the words from falling out.

“It’s really okay.” The lady looks like she’s trying not to laugh at Beca. “We’re just going to be working on making sure he knows that if he’s feeling angry he’s not too take it out on the others. And that some words are not suitable to say in front of his friends.”

“I will do that too, for sure.” Beca nods eagerly, face as red as it's probably ever been. 

“Does he yell a lot at home?”

“His general volume of conversation has, er, gone up lately I suppose yeah. It doesn’t really bother me though so I usually leave him be. But, I will stop doing that. We’ll work on it at home too.” Beca nods some more.

“Great. I mean, I just have to tell you, you know. But that’s all, thanks for stopping in. He’s a great kid, really. One of my favourites, but don’t tell the others. His swearing was pretty funny.” The lady smiles enthusiastically at Beca.

 Beca smiles back, blushing even further so that she can feel how warm her face is, and notices that the lady has a nametag on- it is Cara after all.

 “Yeah I’m pretty fond of him. Thanks Cara.” Nailed it.

 She’s nearly out of the office when an idea springs to mind and she rolls with it. She turns back around in the doorway.

 “Um, and can I add someone to Jamie’s pick-up list?”

 “Sure. What’s the name?”

 “Chloe Beale.” The lady types something into the computer.

 “Done.”

When Beca tells Chloe about the cursing incident later in the week, Chloe laughs and laughs.

“You got called in because Jamie swore at other toddlers?” Beca nods, grinning.

“Yeah and it was fucking embarrassing.”

Chloe just throws her head back and laughs even harder.

“You know your friend Amy is probably mostly responsible for this right?” She says when she’s calmed down a little, eyes glittering with unshed laughter tears.

“Yeah don’t worry I’ve already shouted at her. She, by the way, also thought it was hilarious. In fact I kind of think she was mostly just proud.”

“Oh, there’s the little monster now.” Chloe says, nodding over towards the bedrooms as Jamie comes trotting out, looking warm and ruffled from his nap.

“Hey sleepyhead. Good nap?”

He nods and smiles in turn at both his mother and Chloe, who wasn’t yet in when he’d gone to sleep, and is apparently a nice surprise because happily skips up to give her a welcome squeeze around the legs.

“I think he likes you more than me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I like you both.” Jamie adds in a small but authoritative voice that makes both Chloe and Beca laugh.

“Well, I guess that settles it.” Beca says through her chuckles.

“Very diplomatic.” Chloe adds.

They’d made a vague plan to go to the park, but as the hours dwindle by it’s obvious they’re not going to move beyond the front door, preoccupied instead with weird TV shows, make-believe games and a bottomless coffee pot. Beca eventually seals the deal by changing into her sweatpants, and Jamie naturally wants to copy her, so he puts on some sweatpants too.

Beca’s in the final throes of a playlist she’s making Chloe for her car (“It has to be suitable for both spring and driving, so I’m cross-referencing,” she tells Chloe sincerely). She’s been narrating the whole process, telling Chloe snippets about how it’s the interesting use of violins in this one that really make it special, the fact that this one was written by the brother of the guy from that band Chloe loves, and that this one reminds her of the first spring she spent in LA.

Chloe’s kneeling at the coffee table, drawing alongside Jamie, but listening raptly. She’s trying to take in everything Beca’s saying because she wants to be able to think of it when she hears those songs in her car. She’s pretty sure they add an extra element that’s going to make this one of her most over-played selections yet.

She glances over at Jamie, who’s stopped drawing and put down the crayon he was holding with a clatter.

“IT’S DONE!” He brandishes the paper into the air before Chloe’s had a chance to look at it properly.

“Shh. You don’t need to shout, I’m right here silly.”

“Sorry.” He whispers, overly quiet in a way that Chloe knows is him messing around on purpose, and she tries and fails to not smile.

“Alright, little mouse, show me your picture.”

“No I show Mommy first,” he says, scrambling to his feet somewhat awkwardly with one of his hands out of action.

Chloe expects Beca to praise the drawing, of course, but what she doesn’t expect is for her mouth to drop open in surprise.

“Jamie! Dude, this is so good. You did this all on your own?”

James nods proudly, smiling wide. “It’s Thomas.”

“I know, I can tell.” Beca grins down at the picture. “You’re so clever, J.” She leans down carefully so she can kiss the top of his head without crumpling the paper before Jamie wriggles excitedly away, standing up on the sofa and wiggling his butt briefly to the song Beca has playing (“This one is pretty great for dancing to,” Beca had said earlier, “So be aware if it comes on whilst you’re at a stoplight or something.”)

“Chloe, read a story now please?” Jamie asks, mind already zipping along onto the next cool thing.

“Sure, why don’t you go and chose something and bring it out?”

“Ok!” He hops over the arm of the sofa unnecessarily, and charges into his room, feet thumping heavily on the floor.

Beca turns the drawing around to show Chloe, grin still firmly in place.

“This is the first drawing he’s ever done that looks like a thing and not a scribble.” There’s a scruffy blue rectangle with some black blobs underneath, and an attempt at a smiling face in a rough circle to one side of it, so that even if there are two confusing perspectives, it is somewhat Thomas-like, and now Chloe’s grinning along too.

“You birthed a genius.”

“Shut up. I’m having a proud mom moment. Let me revel in it.” Beca’s pretending to look miffed, but Chloe can see the vulnerability hiding under there too, showing that she really is proud, and kind of self-conscious about it.

“I’m only kidding, Bec. Anyway it’s amazing, I love it. Oh! You have to stick it on your fridge immediately.”

Beca slides her laptop onto the coffee table and does exactly that, Chloe following behind her to watch the grand event take place.

“More coffee?” Beca says, when the drawing’s in pride of place and they’ve both admired it for a few seconds, surrounded on the fridge door by his earlier work- mostly characterised by colourful scribbles and painty blotches.

“Maybe make a decaf pot?” Chloe slips a small painting from under its magnet to look at it closer.

“Gross. I don’t keep that sort of shit in my house.”

“Fine, the real deal will do then. I’m gonna be hyper though and you can’t blame me when it’s annoying.” Beca rolls her eyes.

“Living on the edge, Chlo.”

“Well, what are weekends for, am I right?” Beca smirks and hip checks her back out of the kitchen, right as Jamie emerges with his book of Shel Silverstein poems, calling Chloe’s name.

Chloe does get hyper, and it spurs Jamie on, but they seem to be entertaining each other so Beca happily finishes the playlist and then watches quietly whilst they play ‘Hug O’War’. That poem is apparently Chloe’s favourite, and though Beca’s unsurprised to learn this piece of information, after she hears Chloe read it out loud the perfectness of it still makes her smile warmly.

The spontaneous game involves Chloe chasing Jamie around the living room, chanting the poem at him (of course she knows it off by heart) whilst catching him every few seconds to wrap him in a hug, attack him with tickles or plant an extra sloppy kiss on his cheek. Jamie’s outright shrieking with joy and Beca’s glad her closest neighbours are away on holiday and that all the windows are closed.

When they finally run out of puff, Chloe grabs Jamie into her arms and holds him tight there instead of putting him back down, flopping back into the sofa next to Beca, and doing one final breathless rendition of the poem. This time Beca acts out the final motions for Jamie’s entertainment.

“Where everyone kisses-” Kiss on the red, flushed, slightly damp cheek.

“And everyone grins-” Face pulled into the widest fake grin possible, so that it’s really more of a grimace, making Jamie giggle.

“And everyone cuddles-” Beca wraps her arms around him, pulling him to her own lap and holding tight.

“And everyone wins.”

“And everyone sleeps well tonight.” Beca adds, looking down at Jamie’s floppy body which is heavy against her and then over at Chloe, who is just as red and uncharacteristically slouched into the cushions.

“Mmm. Yep. Night.”

Chloe jolts awake, suddenly flung from deep sleep to fully conscious in one go, and notices there’s now a blanket draped over her and that the sun’s definitely lower in the sky.

“Shit. What time is it?”

“Mommy! Chloe did a bad word!”

“Shhh, Jamie. It was just an accident.” Chloe turns to see where Beca’s speaking from, and spots her in the kitchen, chopping peppers. “It’s nearly half five, do you have somewhere to be?”

“Oh good. Ugh, I can’t believe I fell asleep, you should have poked me.”

“I think Jamie just did. You can stay for dinner if you want?”

“No it’s okay, Calvin and I are going out tonight. On an actual real life, dress up fancy date! But thank you” Chloe beams, obviously excited. “So after that unexpected nap I should probably move. I have had my beauty sleep now I need to fix this mess.” She waves an arm up and down her body.

Beca fakes a grimace at Chloe. “Yeah get your gross lazy butt out of here.”

“Shush you. God. I can’t believe I napped.” Chloe stretches dramatically, arms pulled high above her head before standing up and touching her toes.

“You’re worse than Jamie, overstimulated from all that fun you were having.”

“More like all that caffeine I was having. I think that was the biggest crash I’ve had in years and I blame you entirely Beca Mitchell. You’re a terrible influence.” She yawns widely over the last sentence, so that it comes out weirdly stretched in both pitch and tempo. She pulls her shoes on in the hallway as Beca moves on to chopping an onion, listening to the rhythmic click-click of the knife whilst she ties the laces.

After hugging them both goodbye (Beca’s even more awkward than usual because of the oniony hands she didn’t want to touch Chloe with) she slips out the door into the quiet of the evening.

The silence seems oppressive, almost, when Chloe’s got into her car, after an almost constantly noisy afternoon of laughter, toddler squealing and Beca’s music. She remembers at the last second the flash drive Beca had passed her just a few minutes before, and she wriggles in her seat to remove it from her jean pocket. It’s neatly labelled ‘Chloe’s Car- Spring’ in tiny handwriting on a sticker, and she plugs it in and cranks up the volume before pulling out into the traffic. 

The first song is perfect and Chloe smiles, looking forward to when she knows it well enough to sing along, settling for now instead with tapping her fingers rhythmically along the steering wheel and turning up the volume even further.

Thomas by Jamie Mitchell, aged 3

Chapter Text

When Chloe arrives home, she dumps her bag in the hallway and takes a deep breath before stepping into the living room, trying to retain the sense of calm contentment that Beca's playlist had sent her into. 

“Hey Chlo.” She arranges her face into a smile at Cal, having already scanned her eyes over the room and taken in its general state of messiness, and Cal’s position on the sofa, almost exactly where she left him, though considerably further through his book. There’s a stack of washing up by the sink, a couple of crumby plates on the coffee table, and socks strewn next to Cal on the floor. And an undeniable odour of ‘I’ve not been outside or showered’,  though that might be partially caused by the basket of Cal’s laundry that has found it’s way into the kitchen but not yet the washing machine.

“Have you even moved today?”

“Of course. I mean, not much though, it’s my day off Chlo.”

“Right.” She takes a few more deep breaths, and presses her fingernails into her palms where her hands are fisted by her sides.

“What’s up?”

She looks at him, takes in the casual way he’s draped across the sofa, his book now flopped open across his thigh to keep the page whilst he stares at her curiously. In her head she imagines admonishing him for the state of the apartment, but instead she says nothing, just lets the annoyance bubble there quietly. Because when she does things like that, when she plucks up the courage, he always makes a face that’s just so utterly confused and sorry it breaks her heart. She hates making him sad. She hates that bemused face- the fact that it shows how much they don’t quite get about each other’s minds.

She was sure before they moved to LA that she knew Cal inside out and upside down, she would have sworn to it, even. But the longer they live together, the more she finds she doesn’t quite understand. The more there is in his head that she just can’t see, and probably, she supposes, the other way around too.

She knows that when they spoke about trying to get back on the same page, like Beca had told her to, it had helped some. It definitely feels like they’re trying to get somewhere . They’re trying, but it’s a bit like maybe they’ve picked different destinations by accident. Chloe’s not quite sure how she can work out what Cal’s is. She’s not even sure if he’s noticed that they’ve accidentally wandered off in different directions, and suddenly she feels a bit like a kid in the supermarket who looks back and sees that their mom has vanished up a different aisle, leaving them alone, lost. The thought brings tears to her eyes briefly.

Cal notices- he always notices- and jumps up to wrap his strong arms around her, stroking a hand through the back of her hair.

“Talk to me Chlo.” She takes a moment to steady her breathing.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” She really does feel okay when he has his arms around her. Safe.

So she keeps trying, and will keep trying. Because, God does she love him. So what else is there to do? And it’s at that moment that he leans back and flips his hair from his forehead in that boyband way that always makes her feel slightly swoony, and she thinks “We’re okay.” Because what else could they possibly be?

“I love you, beautiful.”

“I love you too, Cal.” He plants a kiss on her forehead, lingering there before rolling up the sleeves of his top and moving to twist the tap on and fill the sink.

“Go shower, get ready, whatever you have to do. I’m going to sort this shit out and then we’re going to have an amazing night, okay?”

Chloe stands in the doorway for a moment, studying the way his messy blonde hair is all squished on one side, and how he always has to twist one foot around the opposite ankle when he’s standing doing the washing up. She hits the radio on so he’s got something to listen to whilst he works, and the sudden blast of Uptown Funk makes him turn to face her again, that favourite charming grin of hers on his face.

“Make sure you put on something you can dance in.” He says, wiggling his hips for a second.

“Sure,” she says, and her smile feels genuine this time.

The next weekend, Chloe’s pottering about, making herself useful in Beca’s apartment whilst she runs out on a quick errand before flying out to Atlanta tomorrow morning. Chloe had come over for a few hours, before her and Cal’s now regular Saturday date, on the premise of watching Jamie so that Beca could sort her life out and pack. Instead it’s rapidly dissolved into something strange where Jamie entertains himself and Chloe ’s sorting Beca’s life out whilst Beca herself drives all over LA picking up a piece of equipment and a file of notes she’s just been told she needs from the studio.

Not that Chloe minds at all, and she hums to herself contentedly whilst she washes up their lunch, listening to the faint sounds of the one-sided conversation Jamie’s having in his room. She hums nearly the whole way through the song she’s been teaching her fifth graders this week, one of her favourites from Beca’s spring playlist. She’s mentally going through the slightly scrappier parts they’ll need to work on for their upcoming concert when the doorbell goes, and she extracts her hands from the bubbly water, shaking the excess off before rushing to let Beca in.

“Did you forget your ke-” But when Chloe pulls the door open, it’s not Beca standing there, but a slightly taller, older version thereof. The genes are obviously strong in that line, Chloe thinks dumbly, gaping somewhat. “Oh.”

“Hi?”

“Hi!” Chloe says brightly, and the lady looks even more confused than she did before.

“I’m sorry, I thought Beca would be here. I’m her mom, Laura. Sorry I’m unexpected, I left a bit early and hit good traffic. It’s..nice to meet you.” She looks at Chloe, a bemused smile on her face.

“Hello, of course, you too, sorry I was just expecting you to be Beca.” Chloe holds her hand out to accept the handshake Laura’s offering her, shaking her head and smiling politely, before realising that the hand’s still slightly wet and bubbly. She wipes it hurriedly on her dress before finally accepting the handshake. “Sorry, I was washing up.” Chloe says, as if that’s something that random people do in Beca’s apartment whilst she’s not in all the time. “I’m Chloe. Beca just had to go pick up something from the studio.”

“It’s lovely to meet you Chloe. Sorry, are...are you a babysitter?”

“Oh, oh no, just a friend of Beca’s.”

“Right, okay. Sorry, she doesn’t tell me anything. Kids, eh?” Beca’s mom rolls her eyes good-naturedly in a perfect imitation of her daughter (or is it the other way around?) “So is Jamie with Beca?”

“Oh, no he’s here.” Chloe turns around to call his name, as Beca’s mom pulls her suitcase through the door and shuts it firmly behind her.

“Chloe, I’m BUSY,” comes the muffled reply from his bedroom, and the pair of them both stifle laughter as they make eye contact again.

“I think we both know where he gets that cheek from,” Laura adds.

“Oh yes. I’ll just go get him, it’ll be easier. He’s going through a stubborn phase. Even more than usual, I mean.” She’s suddenly aware that Beca’s mom is going to be wondering why she knows anything about any of his phases.

Laura stands in the entryway, slipping of her jacket and shoes and making herself comfortable. From her position she can hear the conversation happening in Jamie’s room.

“There’s someone here to see you, little guy.”

“I’m too busy!”

“You can get back to it in just one minute ok? I promise you’ll like this surprise.”

“Who’s it?”

“I’ll ruin the surprise if I tell you, silly.”

“BUT, BUT-”

“Uh, remember how we’ve been practising our not yelling?”

“Maybe.”

“Thank you. Come on, trains will still be here when you get back.”

“Lift?”

Chloe come out of the room with Jamie in her arms just as Laura is settling onto the sofa.

“Gramma!” Jamie shouts as soon as he spots her, his eyes lighting up. He makes no effort to get down, however, his little hands still gripping into the fabric of Chloe’s dress until she places him down in front of her.

“There’s my favourite grandson.” Jamie climbs into his Grandma’s lap for enforced snuggle time, and begins playing gently with the ends of her hair whilst she softly chats to him for a moment, and he answers with nods and smiles as he relaxes his body into her.

Chloe sits herself in the armchair across from them, watching quietly and trying not to intrude. She’s totally fine with small talk and strangers, enjoys it even, but she wasn’t expecting to meet Beca’s mom at all today, let alone without Beca here and it makes her feel slightly out of sorts. Jamie, however, knows exactly how to put her at ease.

“Chloe’s my friend,” he says, pointing over at her whilst looking up at his grandma.

“Oh really? I thought she was mommy’s friend,” Laura teases.

“Mine too,” he says with a satisfied nod.

Laura’s grin is almost identical to both Beca’s and Jamie’s and it makes Chloe feel slightly odd to see it on someone she’s never met before. She finds herself warming to Laura almost immediately when it’s suddenly directed at her.

“He seems very fond of you.”

“Yeah, well, the feelings mutual.”

It’s at that moment when Beca comes clattering back through the front door, stopping in her tracks when she’s sees her mom’s suitcase sitting in the hallway and looking up to take in the scene in front of her.

“Mom, you’re early.”

“I know, I’m sorry love I should have warned you. I got clear roads for once.” Laura places Jamie back down and approaches Beca for a quick hug. Whilst they’re embracing Beca looks worriedly at Chloe over her mother’s shoulder, eyes wide, and mouths “I’m sorry!”

Chloe just shakes her head and smiles, before hopping up from the armchair and brushing the front of her dress back flat again.

“Now you’re back, Becs, I guess I’ll get out of here and leave you all to it.”

Beca looks surprised and a little disappointed, bending down to pick up Jamie who’s now at her feet, tugging a sleeve. “Chlo, you don’t have to, you can stay if you want, I mean-” She jostles Jamie into a slightly more comfortable position in her arms.

“Don’t let me get in the way of your plans, girls.” Laura pipes up, now busying herself with the coffee pot it the kitchen. “Am I making for three?”

“No, no really. I’ll go. Thank you though.” She slips on her shoes and cardigan before Beca wordlessly passes Jamie over into her arms for their goodbye hug. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Beca’s mom furtively watch their interaction whilst she boils water and sets out mugs.

“Walk me out?” Chloe asks, hoping Beca won’t think it a weird request, and she smiles when Beca immediately nods.

“Sure.”

“See you soon, Jamie boy. Be good.” She kisses him on the cheek before placing him back on the ground.

“Buhbye Chloe.”

“Buhbye Jamie. It was lovely to meet you, Laura.” She waves into the kitchen and gets another warm Beca-like smile and wave back.

“You too Chloe.”

When they’re out in the hallway, Beca immediately starts apologising profusely again.

“Dude, I am so sorry if my mom was weird or, you know, mom-like at you. I had no idea she would chose this one day to be organised for the first time in her life. And sorry for just like, using you as a slave this weekend, that is not what I wanted at all. I was going to offer to watch a movie and everything.” Chloe laughs softly, trailing in front of Beca down the final few stairs.

“I really don’t mind Beca. At all. We’ll make plans for when you get back.”

“Right.” Beca chews on her lip nervously, as though she’s just remembered she was going anywhere at all. Chloe pauses next to the main door of the building, and reaches a hand out, grasping lightly onto Beca’s upper arm.

“It’s going to be fine, Beca.”

“Yeah. Yeah I know.” She looks like she is very determinedly trying to convince herself of the fact.

“And I think you’re really brave, by the way.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I really do. And Jamie would be really proud of you if he had any idea how awesome your job was, and how great at it you are. Just think, in his little head every parent is as great at making music as you are, because that’s all he knows. How crazy is that?” Chloe scrunches up her nose, oddly pleased with the thought.

Beca smiles.  “You’re an idiot.”

“And you insult people when you’re too much of a pussy to say nice things.”

Beca laughs loudly. “I thought I was brave a second ago?” She adds with a smirk that tries to cover up the light blush on her cheeks.

Chloe shrugs casually. “Maybe you can be both.”

Chloe leans in to pull Beca into a firm hug, that Beca willingly returns.

“You are brave and you’ll be fine, and so will Jamie.”

“Yeah. We will.” She looks a little more sure this time, even though she’s still spinning one of her rings around on her finger nervously. Chloe offers up her sunniest smile in support, and Beca returns it, before politely holding the door open for Chloe to exit.

Halfway to her car, Chloe spins around, standing in the middle of the parking lot in her sundress, hair blowing in the breeze. She has to shout to make sure Beca can hear.

“Beca!”

She watches as Beca spins back around in the lobby, and pulls the door open again looking confused.

“Don’t forget to have fun!”

Beca doesn’t respond with words, but Chloe can see her grin, and can imagine the way she’s rolling her eyes.

“See you next week!”

Beca throws an arm up in the air to wave goodbye.

Chapter Text

Beca’s still hungover when her flight touches down in Los Angeles. She thought it would have gone what with her nap, the aspirin and the fact she’s drunk basically half her body weight in water since she boarded. But she can feel it bubbling inside her, feel the uncomfortable way it makes her aware of all these achy body parts that she doesn’t usually register exist. Her swirling stomach was probably not helped by the bumpy landing she’s just had, and she imagines she can feel the water and cereal bars she’s eaten today sloshing around in there unpleasantly. The thought almost makes her gag. Again.

She knows she’s much more of a lightweight than she used to be, but even so, this hangover is unprecedented levels of horrible. She thinks back to the crazy bartender, her hair up in a massive beehive, and the thick, black concoction she had poured into shot glasses for them. She’d claimed it was the real bartender’s trick- throw back one of these at the end of the night and you won’t be hungover in the morning. Beca instead had responded by immediately going to the bathroom to throw it back up. And then proceeded to come back out to the bar and order another beer. It maybe wasn’t her most sensible idea.

Because now here she is, mentally cursing the bartender under her breath as her head throbs to the rhythm of her footsteps along the excessively long airport corridor. No fucking hangover, stupid fucking bartender it’s all her fault.

She tries to wash away those thoughts, and the ache in her temple, with imagining how nice it’s going to be to see James when she gets home. It’s been a long week, and Skype just doesn’t really cut it for either of them. She’s fed up of explaining to her little boy why she’s trapped in the computer instead of at home, which is just so tragically adorable she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry about it (she’s done both a little, just to be thorough.)

After she’s waited patiently by the baggage claim, braving another cereal bar and some more paracetamol whilst she’s hanging about, she sets about finding the nearest taxi rank to arrivals. She’s so determined on her destination Beca almost doesn’t notice the red head standing with her hands rested over the shoulders of a certain small, wavy-haired boy. But he certainly spots her, rushing forward with a shout, and suddenly her hangover feels much, much better. She half aware of the other people in arrivals watching and laughing as Jamie approaches at full pelt.

“MAMA!”

When she lets go of her suitcase it totters over onto it’s back, nearly taking out a lady in the process, but she doesn’t notice, preoccupied with scooping Jamie up into her arms and squeezing him almost desperately.

“I missed you little man,” she says, pressing her face into his hair as he hugs her back as hard as his little arms can manage.

It’s a minute or so before Beca remembers that Chloe’s there too, now dutifully holding onto the suitcase, and she moves Jamie onto one hip so that she can address her properly.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”

“Sorry, I got distracted there.” She gestures at Jamie with her free arm.

“Don’t be silly. That’s why I brought him here.”

“I was going to get a taxi.”

“And now you don’t have to.”

Beca grins at Chloe sheepishly. “Thank you.”

Beca’s all but forgotten the hangover until they step out of the terminal and the sudden bright sunshine makes Beca wince at the sharp jabbing in her head. Chloe of course notices straight away.

“Oh ho ho!” She squeals excitedly. “Are you hungover? You are! You’ve been living it up!”

“And now I am living it down. So far down. I feel like I died, Chloe.” She studies Chloe’s gleeful face through squinting eyes. “You seem thrilled at this information which is making me question our whole friendship.”

“Oh shh you, I just delivered your son to you out of the goodness of my heart, so I’m in the friendship plus points for a good week or so at least. Besides, a hangover that bad- you must have had a good night.”

“Yeah. I really had fun. I mean, we worked hard, but we earned it. It was pretty great.”

She chats to Chloe and Jamie about her week in Atlanta, and their weeks in LA as they traipse up through the parking lot, and now that her eyes have adjusted she can feel the fresh air doing wonders for her aching head.

“Mommy what’s a hangover?” Jamie asks, as Beca pulls open the backdoor of the car and starts strapping Jamie into his car seat. She can hear Chloe laughing over at the driver’s side.

Beca pauses, considering her explanation. “It’s just a really bad pain in my head, J. I’ll be okay.”

It’s not until Chloe’s pulling out of the airport onto the highway that Beca even notices-

“Hey! This is my car!”

“You are just realising this now? Wow, Becs. You really are a wreck. It, like, really needs a clean too, by the way. There’s like a whole tree worth of twigs in the trunk. I assume they’re Jamie’s.” Chloe giggles, but offers no further actual information until Beca prods her in the arm.

“Hello?”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, I had to go to yours to make sure this was okay, you know. To bring Jamie. And your mom volunteered it. Apparently the car seat is a bitch to move or whatever.”

“Jeez. Thanks Mom. Just go ahead and loan out my property to every rando who turns up at my door.”

“She also loaned out your son, in that case. And I’m not a rando.”

“You’re a weirdo. I don’t know where I’m going with this. They just both end in o. God, I need sleep.” Beca leans her elbows on her knees and puts her head in her hands. “Oh no, does this mean you’ve been socialising unsupervised with my mother?”

“Mmm, yep.”

Beca groans. “Don’t tell me what she said about me. I don’t want to know. I can’t take it. I know there were stories, there’s always stories.”

“There were a few stories. Nothing bad though, Becs.”

“I don’t believe you.” She’s not even looking at Chloe, but she can practically feel the amused smile she’s wearing. Beca leans back, resting her head against the car window so that the cool of the glass presses onto the side of her forehead. Chloe glances over.

“Go to sleep Beca. The traffic’s terrible, we might be here a while.”

“Mmm.”

Beca wakes to a sound she’s not heard in years. Not properly anyway- not louder than humming or soft background noise. Chloe’s got the radio on and is singing along enthusiastically, and Beca had completely forgotten how lovely her voice was. Jamie’s joining in by bashing his hands against his car seat in a way that almost matches the rhythm.

Beca pushes herself up in her seat, rubbing her hand along the crick in the back of her neck.

“Mommy, we can do singing?” Jamie says when he notices her stir. Beca looks back at him, then at Chloe, who hasn’t paused her singing but now has a smile on her face. And maybe it’s the fact that she’s just woken up, and hasn’t seen Jamie for a week. Maybe it’s the fact that she really enjoys this song and always sings along if it plays when she’s alone. Or maybe it’s the fact that she really does love to sing, and somehow Chloe doesn’t really feel so much like an audience any more.

Either way, she does as requested, and as soon as the first notes come out of her mouth Chloe looks over at her, startled and Beca worries for a second that she’s going to forget to look back to the road, but she doesn’t. Instead she grins when she’s facing forwards again and starts to sing even louder and Beca, never one to turn down a challenge, follows suit.

She’s glad they’re stopped at a red light when she starts to harmonize, because Chloe does the same thing again, only this time it’s accompanied by her letting go of the steering wheel to slap Beca around the arm, but she doesn’t falter in her singing once.

“I knew you’d be amazing,” Chloe says when the song ends and it’s just the DJ talking briefly about a guest that’s playing later in their show instead. Beca just smiles, and starts to sing along to the next song too, and Chloe doesn’t miss a beat with joining in.

They’re about three songs in when Beca notices that Jamie’s just been sitting quietly, rather than singing with them like he usually does, and as she signals to Chloe to quieten down a bit Chloe looks over at her quizzically.

“It’s a shame Jamie’s not here to sing along with us.” Beca says, louder than her usual voice.

Chloe grins, taking the bait straight away. “Hmm, yeah. I heard he’s really good.”

“Oh well.”

“Yeah. Maybe next time.”

“Mommy! I AM here!”

“Did you hear something then, Chlo?”

“Mommy!”

“No I didn’t hear anything.”

“Mom! Chloe!”

“Hmm, how strange.”

“MOMMY!” Jamie’s laughter peals around the car after his shout.

Beca puts on her best Acting Voice and really goes for it when she turns around in shock, hand held over her heart. “Jamie! Have you been here the whole time?!”

“Yes Mommy!!”

“Well you better help us sing then, okay?” She says, turning back around and flipping the radio onto CD and skipping a couple on so that one of Jamie’s favourite tracks plays, and he willingly obliges.

They pull into Beca’s parking space right as a song’s coming to a close, and they sit there in silence for a moment, listening to the final few bars play out.

“You staying this time?” Beca uses her thumb to indicate the one window of her apartment she can see from here.

“I’d love to but I’m meeting some of the teachers from work for lunch and shopping.”

“Fair enough, I don’t really want to give my mom a chance to tell you any more stories anyway. It sounds fun.”

Chloe raises a single eyebrow at Beca.

“Okay yeah I’m lying that sounds horrible. But I’m sure you’ll have fun.”

“That’s more like it.” Chloe opens Jamie’s door to free the restless boy from his car seat whilst Beca extracts her heavy suitcase.

“Chloe Chloe Chloe Chloe.” Jamie sing-songs, running rings around her legs before Beca calls him away and he wobbles dizzily over to his mom instead, taking her free hand with one of his own.  “Come play soon?”

“Sure little man.”

“Um, thank you so much Chloe. Seriously. This was a really nice surprise, I owe you one.”

“Nah,” Chloe scrunches her face up. “I’ll come play soon,” she repeats Jamie’s words with a smile and Beca laughs gently.

“Then I look forward to our playdate.”

When Beca’s settled back in and had a thoroughly reviving shower and meal with vegetables in it courtesy of Mom, she flops next to her mom on the sofa, both in their usual position- cradling cups of coffee as though they contain the secrets of the universe. Jamie’s curled up in the armchair, playing contentedly with a plastic dinosaur and his Princess Anna toy, and Beca watches him, never more aware of how much she missed him than now, when she’s finally back in his presence.

“Chloe tells me you went to school together. I didn’t realise, I don’t recognise her at all.” Beca tears her eyes away from Jamie to look up at her mom.

“Well, we weren’t friends then so you’d have no reason to.”

“Right. But you are now?”

“Yep.”

“And what brings Chloe to LA of all places?”

Beca shrugs noncommittally, even though she does know the answer. “Her boyfriend goes to grad school at UCLA.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Oh okay.”

“What?”

Beca’s mom just shakes her head. “Nothing. Tell me about your trip. Did you get to make some music?”

“ Mom. Yes I made some music. That’s my job.”

“Well, I don’t know. You don’t tell me anything, I don’t know what you do sat in those dark rooms all day. You know, that’s why you’re so pale, you must be the palest person in Southern California. You need to get more sunlight or you’ll just fade right away one day.”

“Mom, I literally got my paleness from you. It’s not my fault your ancestors were the most Irish people in existence.”

Beca’s mom rolls her eyes.

“Come on. Tell me about it. Humour your mother, it’d make an old lady very happy.”

“You’re not old.”

Beca gets a light whack across the arm. “Huh, usually that goes the other way around.” Beca grins, laughter on the tip of her tongue, and she can tell her mom is almost there too.

“Jesus, child, I thought you were supposed to get less annoying when the teenage years were past us?”

“Nuhuh.” She ducks out of the way of another swat of her mom’s arm. “Alright, alright.” Beca adjusts her body so it’s slightly more comfortable on the sofa. “So there’s this producer in Atlanta-”

“Oh my God.”

After an evening catching up with her only daughter, Beca’s mom had left early this morning for her vacation by the beach, leaving Beca and Jamie alone again in the house. She’d also left a neatly organised pile of Jamie’s drawings that Beca’s now flipping through.

He’s drawn the same Thomas picture maybe 12 times. Possibly more.

Some of them also have scribble embellishments, and one of them has faces in all of the blank space and it’s kind of creepy, actually, so Beca folds that one up and slips it sneakily into the recycling before she accidentally ends up having to stare at it every day. Beca’s mom must have stacked them up with all the pictures she found around the house, because the bottom of the pile includes the one Chloe did on the day Jamie had busted out his first ever Thomas drawing, (henceforth known as Thomas #1, The Original Thomas), and one Beca did a few days before that. Beca pulls them out of the stack, placing them side by side to compare their wildly varying approaches. They really could not be more different. Chloe’s is surprisingly detailed and well-done, considering it’s rendered in crayon. There’s a unicorn that actually resembles a horse-like creature, and the other objects scattered around the unicorn centrepiece are easy to identify, if totally random (Beca notices an old fashioned telephone, several little pixie like creatures and some cupcakes with faces).

It is random and scattered and colourful and funny, and not unlike how Beca imagines the inside of Chloe’s head to look.

Beca’s drawing, on the other hand, is a little more restrained. She’s used just a couple of colours to crudely attempt the classic house picture- winding path, four symmetrical windows, blue sky, sun with rays. She’d also been unable to resist the urge to sign “By Beca, aged 24” at the bottom. It wasn’t her greatest work.

Beca sticks as many of the Thomases as she can on the fridge, and takes a picture which she sends to Chloe without explanation. Then she looks at the gap left on the side of the fridge, and sticks hers and Chloe’s pictures up there too, side by side.

Her phone vibrates noisily on the counter several times in quick succession.

Chloe: OMG!!

Chloe: Nightmare inducing D: !!

Chloe: We’ll have to work on expanding his repertoire next :D :D

Chloe: xxx

She thinks it must be Chloe again when Beca’s phone vibrates five minutes later whilst she’s sitting on the floor, constructing a looping train track with Jamie, so she reaches to grab it straight away.

Jesse: Becaw! You’re back in Cali? We missed your grumpy face brightening the studio this week! Also Karaoke Thursdays next week? You promised? My Christmas gift? This is me redeeming my coupon. So it’s a question but also you can’t say no. Mwah x

Jesse: ps. Bring Chloe if you want! pps. Don’t relax too hard this weekend! I need my fix of that grumpy look or I’ll start to worry

Beca laughs at the text, rolling her eyes.

Beca: You’re an idiot. Fine. I’ve pencilled you in. If I could roll my eyes in a text I’d be doing it x

Two seconds later Jesse sends her an eyeroll emoticon, before following it up with an actual reply.

Jesse: YAY. And love you too!!

She’s glad her friends know that her acting like they’re the most annoying people on the planet is actually a sign of her affection, even if it does make all of them more determined to shower her with soppy compliments and, frequently on both Amy and Jesse’s part, loudly serenaded love songs. Because Beca really does enjoy her grumpy facade, even though she’s not really sure why any more.

After she’s put Jamie to bed, with two stories and a song, she pulls out her phone again to ring Chloe, already sitting at her laptop to fiddle with a track before work in the morning. She props up her phone with her shoulder so she can do both things simultaneously.

“Hey Beca, what’s up?”

“Are you free on Thursday?”

“Um wait a sec.” Beca can hear Chloe put something down with a clunk and then the soft ruffle of her rifling through pages. “Yep, what are you thinking?”

“Well, uh, I promised Jesse for Christmas that I would go to a karaoke bar with him and Amy, and he’s officially put in his request for it to happen. I know you’ve not really met the guys from work and they’re kind of insane, so like, don’t worry, if you don’t want to but, like, it would be fun if you wanted to come. You’re a good singer. I forgot how good. So, yeah.”

“Beca I was in as soon as you said the K word, you don’t have to sell it to me. It’s karaoke. Have you even met me?”

“Right. Well, I have in fact had the pleasure of meeting you.”

“Also I love meeting new people. You basically just sold me a perfect evening.”

“Well, that was lucky.” Chloe’s silent for a second, and Beca gets distracted looking for the file she needs to open.

“So Beca Mitchell does karaoke does she?”

“Only when forced.” Beca grimaces for effect, even though she knows Chloe can’t see her.

“And I presume part of Jesse’s gift is that you will sing?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Chloe squeals. “Yay! OMG Beca, we are so doing a duet.”

“Hmm.” This is exactly what she was worried would happen. She dreaded to think what song Chloe might pick and force them to sing together. For some reason her brain doesn’t even entertain the idea that she could pick the song or, you know, say no.

“So karaoke. Thursday. You are officially in my diary.” She says, and Beca can hear the scratching of Chloe’s pencil.

“Are you mixing anything I can listen to?”

“Um.” Whoops.

“Yes, I can hear you multitasking. Busted. I’ll forgive you if you play me some?”

Beca can’t even think of a good reason to protest, even though she knows she’s not really supposed to let anyone else hear these tracks. She puts Chloe on speaker, and before she knows it Beca and Chloe have listened and commented through nearly the whole album’s worth of songs she’s been working on slowly with a young up-and-comer (read- currently a nobody) named Luca. His music has a sort of ethereal quality to it that they’ve been trying to develop and perfect together, and she’s really pretty proud of how it’s sounding at the moment.

“Mmmm thanks, Becs,” Chloe says when the last track comes to a close. “I feel super chill now.”

“Well, that’s the right idea, so.” Beca can hear Chloe yawning deeply. “You should go before you fall asleep on me, Beale.”

“Mmm, okay. I’m proud of you Beca.”

“You are?” Of all the things Beca might have expected Chloe to say in that moment, that wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah.” Chloe breathes, her voice the most sincere she’s ever heard it. “You’re really talented. And you work like, super hard.”

Beca can feel her cheeks warming at the uncommon praise. “Thanks Chloe.”

“Oh, oh I have to ask you before I forget. Will you come to my choir’s spring concert? Pretty please?”

“You really want me there?”

“Are you kidding? Of course! Also I used that playlist you made me for inspiration so you might like our setlist quite a lot? Please?”

“Oooh. Any hints?”

“Nope. Uh uh. I’m not saying a thing.”

“Of course I’ll be there, Chloe. What’s the date?” Beca copies Chloe’s response into her computer’s calendar, and adds one of the custom images so that there’s a little microphone next to the note that says ‘Chloe’s concert.’ She’s not totally sure what compelled her to do such a thing, but it’s done now.

Chloe yawns again, louder and longer still.

“Go to sleep Chloe.”

“I can’t, I’m on the phone to you.” Her voice is soft and sort of muffled with her sleepiness.

“Well put the phone down, idiot.”

Chloe huffs in quiet laughter. “Goodnight Beca.”

“Night Chlo.”

“Have nice dreams.”

“Right, yeah. You too.

And Beca hangs up before Chloe has a chance to actually fall asleep right there and then.

Chapter Text

When Chloe’s rushing out the door to meet Beca for karaoke, already running almost late, she crosses paths properly with Cal for the first time in days. For a moment they’re both squished in the tiny hallway, next to the door, Cal trying to come in, and Chloe trying to leave. And it’s whilst they’re awkwardly dancing, trading pointless chatter about their lives, that Chloe realises they haven’t really spoken about anything real in weeks and the thought makes her stomach churn in a way she tries to press down and ignore.

“Where’re you off to?”

“Karaoke.”

“Oh okay.”

“There’s leftovers in the fridge.”

“Cool, thanks Chlo. Did you get groceries?”

“No, not yet. I just used the random bits we had left.”

“I’ll go pick some stuff up when I’ve eaten. Do you need anything?”

“There’s a list in the kitchen.”

“Awesome. Have a good night.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She nods, looking up at him for a moment. “Don’t work too hard. I’ll try not to wake you when I get in.” She presses a kiss to Cal’s cheek before slipping out the door.

She arrives at the bar at almost the same time as Beca- she can see her, already holding open the front door, as she steps out of her taxi.

“Beca!” Beca spins around, looking for the source of the shout and grins when she spots Chloe approaching.

“Hey.” Chloe pounces and envelops Beca in a tight hug.

“You okay?” Beca asks, brow furrowed, when they separate.

“Yeah.” She nods too enthusiastically, and Beca’s brow furrows a little deeper. “Yeah, I will be when you’ve bought me a drink.”

“Oh it’s like that is it?” Beca holds the door open again, looking a little more relaxed, and Chloe slips inside.

“Mmmhmm.”

“I apologise in advance for anything and everything these two say or do this evening,” Beca says when they approach Fat Amy and Jesse, already propping up the bar, flipping through a song list. She says it loud enough that both of them can hear, and the pair of them jump off their stools to wrap their arms around Beca in a simultaneous bear hug, cawing her name excitedly. Jesse plants a sloppy kiss to Beca’s cheek that makes her grimace, wiping slobber away with her sleeve.

“Gross. Jesse, Amy, this is Chloe.”

“It is a pleasure to meet again, ginger one,” Fat Amy curtseys, rolling her hand in front of her elaborately.

“Hey. Nice to meet you.” Jesse holds a hand out, and Chloe shakes it firmly, taking in the twinkle in Jesse’s eyes as he grins cheekily at her. “There’s a three for two on cocktails. How do you feel about tequila sunrise?”

Chloe beams, feeling relaxed already. “It’s my drink of choice.”

“Well, good, because we got you the free one.” Jesse shoves it into her hand, grinning madly.

“Oh, thanks guys, don’t worry about me.” Beca feigns annoyance, rolling her eyes, and Chloe pats the top of her head teasingly.

“Beca can get her own. She’s a big girl. Metaphorically.”

Fat Amy cackles, wrapping a hand around Chloe’s upper arm and guiding her towards an empty booth. “Yep, you’ll fit right in Ginger, let’s go sit and let shorty get angry when no-one notices her waiting at the bar in peace.”

“So, Ginger,” Amy says, slapping her hand down on the table next to Chloe, making her drink wobble. “What’s your song?”

“My karaoke song?”

“Nah, your song for slow dancing in the moonlight.” Chloe giggles, taking a sip of her drink through her straw before answering.

“No Diggity. Usually.”

“Oh boyo.” Amy claps her hands together loudly, bouncing in her seat. “You’re going to give shortstack an aneurysm if you sing that one. She’s got it bad for that tune. Like, you know. Bad.” Amy licks her lips in an exaggerated attempt to look seductive, wiggling her eyebrows up and down.

“Amy!" Beca looks a little flushed as she arrives back at the table at exactly the wrong time, and stares down Amy, as though willing her through her eyes to try not to embarrass her too much tonight. She flops into the booth next to Chloe.

“It’s true,” Amy mouths silently and Beca looks over suspiciously when Chloe laughs.

“I’m worried for my safety this evening.”

“Oh you should be.” Jesse and Amy say simultaneously, and Beca sinks her head into her hands with a groan, before taking a massive swig of her beer.

“Yep, that’s right, mini, get that in you and everything will be better.” Amy holds a finger gently to the bottom of Beca’s glass, persuading her to keep drinking. “So Chloe, have I told you about the time we got Beca so drunk I persuaded her to join my jelly wrestling display team?”

“You have not, but please do.” And so begins their evening of swapping ridiculous stories, joking and teasing Beca at every chance they get.

It’s simple and easy to get along with them all, and it’s nice to see Beca so relaxed, Chloe thinks. She’s rolling her eyes frequently, but for all the insults and “I hate you”s she throws at Jesse and Fat Amy, Chloe can tell she’s very fond of them. There’s no way she’d let them get away with this level of teasing otherwise. She watches Beca half heartedly swat at Jesse’s hand as he pinches her cheek for saying something about Jamie he’d declared “adorable” and interjects the conversation for the first time in a few minutes.

“You guys are like weirdly mismatched siblings. It’s cute.”

“Gross,” they all say together, and Chloe laughs so hard she doubles over, snorting, and soon they’re all joining in.

When Jesse’s sung his first song, and they’re all decently on their way to drunk, Beca brings a guy trailing back to the table with her and their next round of drinks. Chloe watches Beca’s expression carefully, unsure whether this is a welcome intrusion or not, but he integrates himself in the conversation straight away, without anyone blinking an eyelid about his presence. They chat amiably for fifteen minutes or so, all watching and whooping together when Amy does the most enthusiastic and insane Lady Gaga cover Chloe’s ever seen, making Chloe’s stomach ache with laughter.

“-Um, no, I am not doing shots because it is a weekday and I have a three year old, and believe me, parenting on the kind of hangover that you guys inspire in me- nobody wants that.” Beca says, when Amy’s returned to the table, staring pleadingly at Beca.

“Wait, you have a kid?” Chloe watches as the guy’s eyes immediately widen and she can see Beca roll her own in response, knowing from his panicked expression exactly where this is going.

“Yep.”

“Right. Um, my friends are probably missing me, I should, you know.” He indicates over to them, half standing up. “I think it’s our turn soon. It was lovely to meet you all.” He smiles winningly at them as he shuffles out of the booth, and receives a decidedly half-hearted reply in return.

“Jesus Christ. Could he have been any less subtle?” Beca rests her head in her hands briefly.

“Well, it’s not like you were going to sleep with him anyway, right Shorty? I mean, it’s been how long since you last pulled the old Beca Mitchell one-two on a dude or dudette and slipped out early if you know what I mean?” She adds an exaggerated wink, even though it was obvious everyone knew exactly what she meant.

“Amy!” Beca screeches, reaching across the table to slap at Amy’s arms, and Chloe’s laugh is gleeful as she takes in Beca’s rosy cheeks.

“You’ve never told me about these stories, Becs.” She bumps her elbow into Beca’s side, grinning wildly.

“ Dude. And I never will. Besides, I don’t do that anymore, you guys know that. Also I hate you all, by the way.”

“Nah, you love us,” Jesse adds with a grin, even though he’s missed most of the conversation, slipping back into the booth and pushing more drinks towards their respective owners. “You just hate fun.”

“I’ll reconsider it if you don’t make me sing,” Beca says, exactly at the moment the guy on stage shouts “Beca?” questioningly into the microphone. Her groan is drowned out by laughter and whoops, and she takes a huge gulp of beer before being forced straight over Jesse’s knees and out of the booth.

“If you’ve picked something terrible, I swear to God.” She points her finger threateningly between Jesse and Fat Amy, and it only serves to make the pair of them cackle louder. Chloe shoves her fingers in her mouth inelegantly to whistle loudly as Beca steps up onto the stage. She watches as Beca reads the name of the song from the screen, and though she rolls her eyes Beca can’t seem to help grinning widely. Chloe finds herself joining in as the first strains of Wannabe by the Spice Girls starts playing loudly, and for all her reluctance, she really goes for it when she starts to sing, even beginning to wiggle her hips and grin when she catches Chloe’s eye towards the end and notices her also singing along wildly.

That seems to be part of her style, Chloe thinks. If you’re going to do it, you may as well do it properly. It’s one of her favourite things about Beca and her mind slips to Calvin for a second, thinking about how neither of them are even trying to do their relationship properly any more. But she pushes the thought to the back of her mind as Beca returns to the table, so she can swoop on her, screeching excitedly about how great she was.

Amy was right, because when Chloe gets called up to sing and she starts rapping the first verse of No Diggity, Beca’s mouth falls open comically. It takes a moment before she regains control of her jaw and makes eye contact with Chloe, laughing readily as Fat Amy pretends to fan at her face with her menu. Beca does an exaggerated thumbs up gesture at Chloe, and it almost makes Chloe lose her flow, giggling between words into the microphone.

Chloe’s sung three times, including a duet with Amy, by the time her and Beca haul themselves out of the bar, leaving Jesse and Amy to a tray of tequila shots, and three new best friends they’ve bonded with over a mutual love of 90s boy bands and cheap liquor.

“We still need to have that playdate,” Chloe says, trying not to lean too hard into Beca, but the sidewalk’s slightly more wobbly that she expected it to be.

“Mmm. Yep.” Beca’s got her eyes closed already, even though she’s still standing up and walking, entirely trusting the guiding arm that Chloe’s got looped through hers. “Saturday?”

“Saturday. I like Saturday.”

“Me too. Chloe day.” Beca opens her eyes. looking sideways at Chloe as Chloe does the same and nearly trips over her feet. “That’s what Jamie calls it sometimes. It fits.”

“I like that. I like Jamie. I like you."

“You’re drunk.” Beca leans a little farther into Chloe as they turn the corner, reaching the main road where there’s a short line of cabs waiting patiently for custom to spill from the bars that line the street.

“So are you.”

“I like drunk Chloe.”

“Do you like normal Chloe?”

“Maybe.”

Chloe grins, twisting Beca around so that they can hug tightly before spinning her around again and guiding her towards the first taxi in the queue.

“Go home Beca Mitchell. I’ll see you Saturday.”

“Bye Chloe Beale. I had fun tonight, and you’re a really good singer. By the way.” Beca’s leaning against the side of the car, hand on the door handle.

“Same back at you Beca.” Chloe grins before skipping to the next taxi and jumping in, ready to be home and in her bed.

Cal takes her out on Friday.

He’s got a massive project deadline in three days, plus an internship with some researcher guy, but even though they’ve barely seen each other Chloe’s finding that she doesn’t even know what to say to him, sometimes, when they’re actually both home together, like they've suddenly forgotten how to do it. She can fill a silence, sure, that’s one of her greatest talents. But she does it so much, as they eat noodles and dumplings and watch the people coming in and out of the bars across the street that she almost starts to panic, right then and there in the middle of the restaurant.

She takes a few steadying breaths as she really, finally, thinks about how they’ve not really been saying anything important to each other for far too long.

Chloe stops talking and puts down her chopsticks so suddenly that Cal looks up at her, confused. He smiles, warm and encouraging, and all Chloe can do is stare into his eyes, the thought looping and looping around in her mind. Inane chatter is something that’s always been relaxing and comforting to Chloe. It was the way her family worked, and she’s pretty sure that to her it signifies being at home with someone, to be able to talk about anything and everything and just exist loving each other, content.

But there’s something about it now. Something’s changed.

It doesn’t feel like they’ve been doing much more than filling silences with words.

“Chlo, are you okay?” She nods frantically, immediately soothed by his fingers running softly over her palm, by his friendly, open face that she loves so much and Chloe thinks she’s maybe going to explode with all these messy thoughts, such a jumble in her head.

“Yeah. Yeah, can you just...um. I don’t know. Tell me about something. Something important. Because I’m just talking crap here and that’s not what I want to do at all. Just talk to me about something that actually matters?”

Cal frowns so slightly she almost doesn’t notice, but he does exactly as she asks and doesn’t let go of her hand, even though it means he can barely use the chopsticks he’s never quite got the hang of, and she grasps back onto it just as tightly.

On their short walk home, Cal makes her laugh so hard at his ridiculous jokes there are tears in her eyes, and still he won’t let go of her hand. She can feel it, warm and steady, like a lifeline, and it’s that thought that makes her kiss him hard the second they come in through the door, pushing him up against the wall, hands under his shirt and pressing into his skin, feeling the warmth there and running over and up and around without stopping. Cal’s hands twist into her hair, grab at the back of her top to untuck it and find some skin of his own to press against.

They have sex for the first time in weeks, frantic and desperate.

Afterwards they lay there on their backs, side by side, fingers almost but not quite touching, and Chloe replays it all in her head, chest still heaving. She watches the whole evening like a movie, somehow, as though it was something that happened to some other person, because she can’t imagine that it was her and Cal. No, it didn’t feel like them at all and it makes something in Chloe’s stomach twist anxiously, layering up over all the other worries and panic until she can feel tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

She hears the creak of the bed as he gets up and put his boxers back on, and suddenly feels more exposed, being naked in their bed, than she’s ever felt before. She pulls the covers up tight under her chin, eyes fixed on the ceiling and knows, in that moment, that it’s ending.

But she loves him, and he loves her. This, at least, is something she would never doubt. So when she’s put her pyjamas on and got back under the covers, she wordlessly pulls Cal’s arm around her, tucks herself under his chin so that he can press a kiss to her head and they fall asleep wrapped up together.

She leaves early the next morning, making her way out of the door and to Beca’s before Cal’s even woken up.

Beca simply calls from inside for her to come on in when she knocks on the front door, so she pushes the door open and is immediately ambushed by an armful of small boy.

“Hey Jamie,” Chloe says, smiling at the grin on his face as she scoops him up into a cuddle and tickles at his sides.

“Stop, stop, no, no!” He squeals in between giggles, until Chloe frees him and he scoots across the room in his socks, nearly falling over as he turns too sharply into the living area. It’s only then that she notices that Beca’s in the kitchen, flipping bacon in a pan.

“Hey, you eaten?”

“Yes, but for bacon I could eat again.”

“Good. Because I’ve made a shit ton.”

“Can I do anything?” Chloe looks around at the kitchen, noting the fact that three plates are already set out on the side.

“Entertain that small person who has been asking me every two seconds since he got up when Chloe’s going to be here?” At this, Chloe can’t help the grin that spreads across her face, and she wallows briefly in the warm feeling it sends to the tips of her fingers.

“That I can do.”

“So what do you want to do today?” Beca asks when brunch is all cleared up.

Chloe looks around the room, at the toys scattered messily across the floor, and Jamie laying on his belly, trying to interact with as many of them at the same time as possible. She takes in the light drizzle sputtering against the window, and how it makes the room both darker and cosier than usual, and wraps her arms around herself tightly. “Can we just stay in? Is that okay? I mean, I think everything that I want to do is here today.”

“Sure.” Beca looks slightly worried, but Chloe can tell she’s also trying to hide it, so she doesn’t say anything, just lets her anxiety about Cal spring up for a moment, before jumping down to the rug next to Jamie. They pass the hours easily, as they seem to always do these days, flitting between activities according the the whims of a three year old. Beca’s put on one of her favourite records, and has been telling Chloe about the person who first invented a way of recording music, and how it changed the world forever. Chloe listens raptly, whilst Jamie runs around their feet using their knees as hills for his toy cars, and takes in the way Beca’s eyes shine, how she holds herself differently when she’s talking about things she loves.

“How’s it going, J?” Chloe says, when Jamie crawls over at one point whilst Beca’s in the kitchen, and rests his head on her knee, looking up at her with wide eyes.

“Going, GOING, going,” he says with a grin, at different volumes, as though testing out the word in his mouth for the first time. “It’s going to SPAIN.”

“Spain? Oh, right okay. What’s going to Spain, kiddo?” Chloe holds down her laugher, intrigued to see where this conversation will take them.

“Thomas and Anna. The train to Spain.” His eyes light up when he realises how the words sound the same. “Train, Spain, train, Spain.” He giggles crazily and lays himself on the floor, one hand on Chloe’s foot, gripping tightly as he rolls on the floor and keeps repeating the words.

“You, little man, are totally insane.” She rubs a hand over his belly, making him laugh harder.

“No!”

At that moment, Beca’s phone starts to ring and Jamie’s up like lightning, darting over to it.

“Jamie! Do not answer it!” Beca scrambles from the kitchen, where she was setting out cups for coffee, but doesn’t quite make it to the table before Jamie, and he picks up the phone and holds it to his ear.

“‘Lo?”

No-one responds because he hasn’t actually answered, and when it keeps ringing loudly in his ear he pulls it away, confused. “Hello?”

They’ve missed the call by the time Beca’s got over her laughter long enough to take the phone out of Jamie’s hand.

“It’s work, I better just call them back, I won’t be long.” Beca excuses herself to the quiet of her bedroom, and Jamie charges back towards Chloe so fast that this time he really does go flying, and there’s a soft thud as he faceplants the rug at Chloe’s feet.

“Whoops, up you get little guy,” Chloe says, trying not to sound too concerned, scooping him back onto his feet, but there are tears appearing at the corners of his eyes, bottom lip wobbling dangerously.

“Ow.”

“You’re alright little man, see look, all perfect.” She smooths down the front of his t-shirt and smiles warmly, before wiping away the few tears that slipped out. “Good as new.”

Suddenly he jumps up on the sofa and buries his head into Chloe’s side.

“Don’t look.”

“Don’t look? Why?”

“I'm a big boy and don’t want to do crying.”

“It’s okay Jamie, don’t be silly. I don’t mind if you cry.”

“But I'm big and I have to be brave now.”

“You’re still brave if you cry when something hurts you Jamie.” Chloe looks concerned down at Jamie’s sad little face, wondering how to explain properly. “You know, I would probably cry if I fell over and hurt myself too.”

“You would?” Jamie sits back up suddenly, his face scrunched up and confused. He takes a moment to mull over Chloe's words. “Grown-ups can cry?”

At that, Chloe gapes.

“Um...yeah?”

Jamie face falls. “Oh. But...but... I thought….But grown-ups are too big to cry?” His wide, glassy eyes stare up at Chloe, looking heart-broken.

Chloe can do nothing but stare, and she looks at his face, his sweet innocent face who longer believes adults are infallible heroes. And she thinks of Beca, and how she’s never once cried in front of her son, and she thinks of Cal, and how they’re different now, and not in a way it feels like they can change.

She hops up and runs into the kitchen, breathing shallow.

Chloe leans her arms on the counter, trying to blink in the tears before they come streaming out regardless, marking wet trails down her cheeks as she bows her head, looks at her feet.

Beca comes out of the bathroom just as Chloe’s wiping the tracks away on the back of her sleeve, and she looks up at Beca, guilty expression as though she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t, eyelashes glistening with the tears still caught in them.

“Chloe?”

And suddenly Beca’s grasping her arms around Chloe, holding her, Chloe’s own arms tucked into her chest so that Beca’s hug is all encompassing, and Chloe’s shoulders shake as she sobs quietly into Beca’s t-shirt. They stand like that until Chloe’s tears have turned to hiccups, and Beca pulls back gently so that Chloe can wipe away the tears that haven’t been mopped up by Beca’s shoulder. They stand like that for several moments.

“Chlo?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just… Me and Cal. Well, I need to break up with Cal. We both know that’s it’s over, that it’s ending. But neither of us has the guts to do it, to actually say it out loud to one another so we’re just tiptoeing around it pretending that it’s all going to be okay and that’s making it worse.” Her voice cracks on the last word, a some fresh tears come tumbling out.

“Oh Chlo.” Beca pulls her back into another hug, but softer and lighter this time. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Chloe leans back out of Beca’s arms.

“And I accidentally told Jamie that grown-ups could cry and I corrupted his sweet perfect innocence and now he’s going to be scarred for life because I immediately am actually crying in front of him.” They both look over at Jamie, half of his face face visible as he looks up at them from where he’s kneeling on the sofa, peering over the back. He looks utterly bewildered by the strangeness of adults.

Beca laughs openly. It’s the best kind of laugh that she does, Chloe thinks.

“Chlo, he was going to find out some day. I think he’ll be fine. Really.”

“Did you never cry in front of him?”

“I...I guess not.”

And now it’s Chloe’s turn to embrace Beca in a hug.

“You’re ridiculous, you know,” she says into Beca’s hair.

“Well, then that makes two of us.”

Chloe makes it to Sunday evening before she plucks up the courage. She’s already got a bag packed with clothes for work the next day out in the hallway, and the thought of it makes her feel like the worst person ever. She can’t put this off any longer.

“Cal, we need to talk.” He looks up at her, and straight away puts his book down, folding a corner down as he stares.

“Yeah. Yeah I know.” He swallows slowly, bites his lip, and gets up to stand in front of Chloe, and looking into his eyes Chloe knows that this is it, that he knows too, and it’s that thought that gives her the courage to push the words from her mouth.

“We don’t feel like a couple any more, do we?” And now someone’s actually said it, there’s a palpable air of sadness and relief in the room. Cal holds her gaze as long as he can, before looking down at his feet, shaking his head.

“Maybe we were each other’s people for a specific time in our lives, you know?” Yeah. That Chloe can understand. The post-college bubble of nerves and excitement and pretend adulthood. She nods, trying to catch his eyes as they flit about around the room.

“I guess we were.”

“I had a pretty amazing time being your boyfriend, Chloe Beale. This is the right thing though, yeah?”

Chloe has to take a deep breath before she answers. “Yeah I’m pretty sure it is Cal. I love you, like a lot, though, you should know that.” She somehow laughs, despite the fact it feels like her heart is in her throat, and Cal looks at her fondly.

“I do. And I love you too.” He pauses, gathering his thoughts. “You know when a relationship ends, and people are like ‘well that was a waste of 2 years’, or whatever, well I don’t feel like any of our time together was wasted at all. We were pretty great but it just wasn’t meant to be forever.”

Chloe sniffs, and laughs softly at herself when she wipes away the tears running down her face. Cal has a few tears escaping too, but he smiles through them before sighing and pulling Chloe close, resting his damp cheek on the top of her head and wrapping his arms around her tightly. They stand that way until the tears have dried up. Silently, Calvin kisses Chloe’s forehead, and then she reaches up, puts one hand gently across the side of his jaw, and kisses him tenderly. Her hands come to rest on the front of his t-shirt. She grips it tightly for a moment, suddenly seized with a need to hold on just a bit longer, before she looks at what she’s doing and forces herself to let go, smoothing out the bunched up fabric before taking a step backwards so they’re no longer touching. Cal’s looking at her in that sort of way that made her fall in love with him in the first place, like he’s got a joke inside that only he can hear, and he’s trying to share it just through his eyes. It makes her insides swoop. He breaks eye contact, runs a hand back through his hair, and Chloe forces her next words out.

“I think I’m going to stay somewhere else tonight, is that okay?” Cal bites his lip, nods gently.

“Yeah, of course. Can I ask where?”

“Um. I’ll probably call Beca. If not a hotel. I just think...it’s so small here, I need to be out of your hair. I need to...not be in this bubble.” She unfolds her arms from where they were wrapped around her torso, holding them out to indicate the room around her.

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good idea. Come back tomorrow, yeah? We can...talk. Like, logistics or whatever.” He looks at the floor again, scuffs his socked foot over a mark on the floorboard. “I guess we should do that.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Chloe nods, even though Cal’s not looking at her again. “I think...Cal, I think I should go.”

“...Okay.” Cal follows her out towards the hallway, leaning on the doorframe to the living area with a fingernail in his mouth while he watches Chloe put on her shoes and throw her bag over her shoulder. When she’s ready he takes a step forward and envelops her in a hug that she returns just as forcefully.

“We were pretty awesome, Cal.” she says into his shoulder, voice muffled, so he can feel her hot breath through his t-shirt. He pulls his arms tighter.

“Yeah we were, Chloe.” He lets go and then she’s looking at him again with an expression he can’t totally read, before a small smile breaks onto her face that he can’t help but mimic, as usual.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.” Cal reaches out as though to caress the side of her cheek, but pulls back at the last second, leaving his hand in limbo, but Chloe grabs it straight away, gripping onto it tightly before pulling it up to her mouth and kissing over his knuckles once softly, squeezing his fingers.

“Bye.” She pulls open the front door and steps into the corridor, before turning to look back at Cal.

“Sleep well, Chlo.”

“You too, Cal.” And as she takes a first step away he moves back inside, closes the door softly so he doesn’t have to watch her walk away.

Chapter Text

Grocery shopping was one of Beca’s least favourite activities, and Jamie didn’t like it much either, being confined to the little kiddy seat and prevented from picking up all the cool colourful things he saw on the shelf. So it was usually an efficiently executed expedition, in and out as fast as possible. But this time, early on the Sunday after Beca had spent the day with Chloe helping to psyche her up for the inevitable with Cal, was a little different. When Beca reached the final aisle, mission nearly complete, she found herself face to face with buy one get one free ice cream, and had a sudden idea. Grabbing a couple of cartons and chucking them into the cart, she pulls her phone out and dials Jesse.

“What do people eat after break-ups?”

“Um, hello to you too. What?”

“You know, break ups. I have ice cream, what else should I get?” She chews on a nail, absent mindedly watching as Jamie leans up to stare openly at a massively tall man with a beard that’s passing them.

“Um, can I ask what mystery person you’ve somehow got with and broken up from since I last spoke to you?”

Beca rolls her eyes. “It’s not for me, it’s for Chloe.”

“Oh. You’re buying Chloe break-up snacks?” His voice rises in slight surprise, but he quells it in time for the next question. “I don’t know, I mainly go for the alcohol. And chocolate I guess. What did you eat after your last break up?”

“Okay, maybe chocolate and wine, good call. Well I was three months pregnant then, so basically everything, minus the alcohol. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.”

“Right. That figures. Okay, well ice cream, wine and chocolate is a good start. Let me think-”

And so Beca had done another circuit of the store, picking up most snack food items she’d ever remembered Chloe expressing a preference for, and a massive slab of chocolate that Jamie chose personally (he liked the picture on the front and reasoned that maybe Chloe would too).

When Chloe knocks on the door, later that evening, it’s already dark out and Beca ushers her inside, studying her intently and cautiously for any signs of impending breakdown. Chloe looks sad- there’s something about her that’s just not quite as glowing as usual- but she’s not crying and produces a warm smile for Beca that doesn’t quite fully extend to her eyes.

Beca hugs her, because she knows she should, holding tight for a moment, before letting go and leading Chloe towards the kitchen and commences her attempt at the comforting speech she’d sort of tried to prepare.

“Um, I hope you’re okay, like, I know you’re probably not, but that’s fine, you know?” She waves her arms around for emphasis. “And I’ve made up Jamie’s room for you so you have a proper bed, and I’m, um, I’m here for you or whatever, you know? Whatever you need. Oh, and I got snacks. Ice cream and wine and those chips you like-”

“You, you did?” Chloe looks a little confused, and Beca, frankly, is grateful for the interruption to her rambling. But then Chloe’s expression morphs into one that’s Beca’s not sure how to describe- falling somewhere between pride, excessively grateful and amused.

“Um, yeah, I did but now you’re looking at me like that and I’m embarrassed about it, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t.” Beca turns away to hide her blush, extracting two wine glasses from a cabinet, and when she turns back, Chloe’s got tears in her eyes.

“No, no, no, don’t cry, shit I’m sorry.” Beca rushes forward, puts a tentative arm up to Chloe’s, gripping her bicep with warm fingers.

Chloe laughs, and her eyes are shiny but the tears haven’t fallen. “You’re an idiot.”

“I am aware of this, believe me.”

“But thank you.” Chloe smiles tentatively at Beca, and she returns it as warmly as she can manage.

“You’re welcome.”

They settle on the sofa, with wine and chips and a big bag of jelly beans on the coffee table in front of them, getting steadily tipsier with each passing episode of Friends they get through. They’ve been making the occasional comment back and forth, talking about how much Beca hates Ross, and how much Chloe, if she could choose to meet any fictional character in real life, would want to meet Phoebe and give her a hug. They chat about Jamie’s ridiculous new passion for drawing pictures of trains, and the way the jelly beans taste better when you eat a white and a green at the same time (Beca thinks pink and orange are the best combination, actually, but she graciously lets Chloe have this one). They successfully avoid talking about the thing. But Beca thinks that’s probably okay. And distractions? Those she can do, so she opens her mouth to fill their current silence with telling Chloe about a really cute dog she saw earlier.

They’ve been silent for about ten minutes by the time Beca registers the fact. Chloe’s gradually moved up the sofa so that she’s now pressed into Beca’s side, head flopped onto her shoulder, and Beca leans forward, not entirely unconvinced that Chloe might have fallen asleep. Instead, she notices that her shoulder’s wet, and Chloe’s crying and a moment of panic strikes her.

She tries not to dislodge Chloe as she leans forward slightly.

“Chloe?”

“I’m okay,” she says, voice lower and slightly more croaky than usual. “I don’t want to talk about it yet. But I’m okay, I promise.”

“Okay.” Beca nods slowly, considering her next move. “You should get to bed, you have work tomorrow right?”

“Yeah.”

“You know you can pull a sickie if you need, I’ll vouch for you, pretend to be a doctor or whatever. I can sound official if I have to.” She puts on a silly voice for a moment, aiming for English and posh but landing sort of mid Atlantic instead, and mimes talking into a phone. “ Ever so sorry, Principal whatever-your-name-is, Ms Beale needs to stay home today, yes, she’ll make a full recovery, no need to fret, I’ve prescribed a diet of ice cream, wine and pizza, a known cure for all ailments. ”

Chloe chuckles appreciatively.

“Thanks for the offer but no, it’s okay. My kids will make me feel better. It’ll be good to keep busy, and we’ve got loads to work on this week for the concert.”

“Okay, but you make sure they look after you, yeah, your kids I mean?”

“I’m sure they will Beca.”

When Beca wakes up the next morning, to Jamie poking at her face, she can already smell coffee brewing in the apartment. She’s annoyed for a minute, she’d been intending on getting up before Chloe. She may not be very good at looking after people, but she sure as hell can make them breakfast. But she guesses she’s probably missed the boat on that one, this morning at least. She rolls over to look at Jamie. His hair's so messy, a tangle of upright curls, and she runs her hand across them briefly.

“You need a haircut, little man.”

“No!” Jamie squeals. “I need it!”

“You need your hair? All of it? You’re sure you couldn’t spare just a little bit?”

“No I need all of it.” He nods furiously, sitting upright and clambering over Beca, shoving elbows and tiny poky hands everywhere as he arranges himself.

“Yeesh, Jamie, careful.” Beca grumbles. “Hey guess what?” She looks up at his rosy-cheeked face, just inches from her own.

“What?”

“Guess who’s here for breakfast today?”

“Thomas?”

“No silly, a human person.”

“I don’t know!”

“Someone you really like. Someone who plays games with you, and draws pictures with you, and gives you really good cuddles. Who do you reckon?”

“Chloe is here? Now?”

“Yep.” She feels a surge of something, she thinks it might be pride, when she realises Jamie’s worked it out from that description.

“Oh!” He sits up, atop Beca’s stomach. “We can go see her?”

“Only if you get off me, buddy.” He clambers off, running to the door before Beca’s even out of bed, and stands on his tiptoes so he can pull the handle with two hands and his whole body weight. He doesn’t really need to use that technique anymore, but apparently he hasn’t seen any need to change it. It works after all and Beca remembers (with fondness mixed with horror) the day Jamie figured out door handles, and how he’d somehow unravelled seven rolls of toilet paper in the short time it had taken Beca to realise he was no longer confined.

She hears bare feet running on floorboards, and then Chloe greet Jamie cheerfully. It’s only two minutes or so before she makes it to the kitchen herself, but Jamie’s already sat up at the table, a plate in front of him as he awaits the toast Chloe’s cutting into squares.

“Morning.”

“Hey. Good morning.”

“Thanks.” Beca gestures at the peanut-buttered toast Chloe’s now placing onto Jamie’s plate.

“It’s okay. I was making myself some anyway.” Beca spends a moment taking in Chloe, and it’s slightly weirder than she expected, seeing her here so early and dressed in the formal clothes she wears to work. Beca thinks she looks kind of nice. It’s just a blue blouse tucked into a pencil skirt, but with her hair tied into a neat braid and pinned at the back of her head, and the way she leans against the counter, coffee mug in hand, after providing breakfast for the toddler, Beca suddenly feels like she’s not the grown up here at all.

What comes out of her sleepy-brained mouth to express all of that, however, is simply-

“You look like a real person. It’s weird.”

Chloe smiles. “Shut up, Miss I can wear my holey-est jeans to work because I have a job in a hip recording studio . We can’t all be as cool as you, Beca.”

“Hip? Are you fifty?” Chloe rolls her eyes in response to Beca’s teasing. “You’re okay, though? Still sure you want to go?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve been better. But I’ll be fine.” Chloe smiles softly and Beca opens her mouth to respond, but words don’t quite come out. “I’ll call you, if I need anything, okay? I promise.”

And Beca’s left wondering at what point Chloe became able to read her mind. At that moment, Chloe’s toast pops up, and Beca nudges her away to the table, taking her chance.

“I can make my own toast Beca.”

“I know.”

“Beca-”

“I’m awkwardly attempting to look after you, okay, so shut up, sit down and let me wow you with my supreme breakfast making skills.”

Chloe, Beca’s somewhat surprised to see, does as she’s told, taking a place opposite Jamie.

“Are you staying here again tonight?”

“Yes,” Jamie says through a mouthful of toast.

“Not you, J.” Beca nudges the side of his head with her hand, and he squirms away from the touch.

“If that’s okay. I should have something else sorted this week, there’s a lady at work with a room going in her apartment. I should be able to get it on a short lease. It’s only, like, two blocks from school, I’d be able to walk to work.” Beca tries to mentally calculate whether this means it’s within a sensible distance from her apartment, but she can’t remember where exactly the school is, and resolves to look it up on Google maps later, being as she has to go there on Friday anyway for the concert.

“Cool.” She responds, probably a moment or two later than she should have, plopping two pieces of toast onto Chloe’s plate, followed by half of the apple she’s just cut into slices. She puts the other half on Jamie’s plate, because he’s the intended recipient, but Beca was sure the action would make Chloe smile, and it does. Success.

“You know you can stay as long as you need,” Beca adds, turning back to the counter to pour herself a coffee.

“I do. But I don’t want to impose-”

“Really,” Beca interrupts, shaking her head, “you don’t do that. Besides, I owe you. You’ve done so much to help me and Jamie out.” And I’d probably do anything for you , is the somewhat confusing thought that follows, but Beca doesn’t pay much attention to it. Chloe smiles up at her, and Beca returns it, sipping at the caffeine that makes her feel instantly more alive.

“I don’t actually like apple.” Chloe says, after a pause.

Beca scrunches up her face. “Freak.” She reaches and grabs a couple of pieces off Chloe’s plate. “Hello, Beca’s breakfast.”

That evening, Chloe goes to see Cal, and comes back with a much bigger bag of clothes, plans to pack up her stuff as soon as she’s got somewhere to take it to, and a blotchy, tearstreaked face.

She falls into Beca’s arms as soon as she’s through the door, and sobs into her shoulder until Beca’s sure she can’t have any tears left. As Chloe’s body finally starts to relax and calm, she manages to maneuver her onto the sofa, wrap her in a blanket and run to the kitchen to fetch tissues and wine. Jamie watches the whole scene play out from the safety of the arm chair, bemused once again, but when Chloe’s safely cocooned on the sofa he approaches cautiously, a dinosaur toy still safely encased in one fist.

“Why are you sad?”

Chloe sniffs a few times before answering. “It’s complicated, little man.”

“Why?”

Beca pauses out of Chloe’s line of sight, not wanting to interrupt their conversation, holding two bowls of ice cream and three spoons. She stands awkwardly behind Chloe, and tries not to make it seem like she’s listening in, even though she is.

“There’s lots of things that are making me sad.”

“Oh.” Jamie pauses for a moment, and Beca watches as he fiddles with the edge of Chloe’s blanket. “You need a cuddle?”

From Chloe’s voice Beca can tell she’s started crying again when she says “yeah, yeah I do,” and Jamie clambers into her lap. He stays there for the rest of his evening, digging his spoon into Chloe’s bowl ice cream, walking the dinosaur up and down her arm, and then sleepily pressing his head into her chest until Beca drags him off to bed.

“You know I’ve never seen Jamie get so attached to someone so quickly. By the way,” Beca says as she sits back down next to Chloe and grabs the remote.

Chloe smiles properly, and it’s a relief to see. Beca likes it when Chloe smiles.

The next morning Beca wakes up early enough to make pancakes and Jamie does a literal dance of joy, which totally ruins Beca’s plan to make Chloe think she’s a responsible adult that does things like that all the time. Beca thinks he’s going to pass out with excitement when Chloe arranges the banana on top into a smiley face. She’s never seen him eat so fast at breakfast time, and has to stop eating her own pancakes to supervise so he doesn’t try to swallow without chewing in his glee.

Evening passes again in a haze of ice cream, book report marking, stories read out loud and more episodes of Friends.

“Do you want to talk about it yet?”

“No, not yet. I’m okay though, I promise.”

On Wednesday night Chloe helps Beca chop vegetables for dinner, and then joins in as Jamie colours some more pictures.

“What are you drawing, Jamie?”

“Secret.”

“Will you show me when it’s done?”

“Yes.” He sticks his tongue out a little, leaning down so close over the paper as he scribbles that Chloe wonders how he can see it at all. “It’s a picture for you so I have to.”

It’s only a few minutes later that he declares the picture “DONE!” and proudly show Chloe. It’s a train.

Chloe laughs and laughs until Beca joins in. Beca likes it when Chloe laughs. She grins over at Jamie, his little face bemused once again, but he happily picks up another blue crayon and turns the sheet over before leaning in to start again.

“It’s nice that kids go to bed quite early isn’t it?” Chloe says later, laptop propped on her knee as she puts together a worksheet about clouds for her class tomorrow.

“Yeah you need that time to recover.” Beca’s laying sideways so that her legs flop over the side of the armchair, and there’s a bowl of ice cream resting on her belly.

“I never really got that before.”

Beca lifts her head up for moment to look at Chloe. “I’m sorry that you’re having to deal with a crazy toddler this week on top of everything else.”

“Don’t be silly, that’s not what I meant at all. He helps. You help. It helps being here.”

“Do you want to talk about it yet?”

“No. I will though. I promise.

“I know.”

Chloe spends the whole of Thursday humming the same song from the spring playlist Beca made her, but Beca’s sure she hasn’t even noticed, because she still insists on it being a surprise when Beca brings it up briefly. Beca’s too amused to tell Chloe she’s ninety nine percent certain she’s cracked the mystery. Plus she’s probably going to be hearing a bunch of ten year olds attempt sing a Primal Scream song tomorrow and that’s pretty exciting. She wonders if maybe she could teach Jamie to sing it afterwards too, and then they could all sing it in the car.

And suddenly it’s Friday afternoon and Beca’s circling round the block near Chloe’s school, trying to find a parking space. She’s sure she’s going to be late, but when she reaches the hall, rushing with Jamie in her arms, they’re running late too, of course. She takes a moment to admire the stage as she walks past it, and there are brightly painted handprints, flowers, sunshines and trees creating a backdrop of sorts, and Beca wonders if Chloe had anything to do with its creation. She lifts Jamie up to take a look as he continues to babble happily to himself, the same way he has been since they got in the car, about penguins and diggers and singing and trains. He doesn’t seem really bothered if Beca provides any input to the conversation at all, though of course she does anyway.

She makes her way to the back row, because it’s the only one she can see any empty seats at, and  sits down next to a friendly looking blonde lady who’s next to two teenaged children with their heads in their phones. Beca can see that the younger one, a girl with her hair tied up in an elaborate braid, is scrolling through Tumblr, paused over a gif of two dogs chasing each other in a circle.

“Do you have a big brother or sister in the show, sweetie?” Beca looks over and Jamie, now settled on her lap, eyes the lady with a serious expression.

“No, I have a Chloe.”

“Miss Beale. He means Miss Beale, the fifth grade teacher.” Beca’s quick to clarify. “She’s a friend of mine.”

“That’s so sweet of you to come out and support her.”

Beca smiles politely, unsure how to respond to that. Sweet? She’s here because Chloe asked her to be, why would anyone turn down a request like that from a friend? From their best friend? But she’s saved from responding because the lights go down and a hush falls over the room as a lady in a pantsuit walks onto the stage to introduce the concert.

They start with some kids playing the violin really badly, and it’s sort of excruciating, actually. When the song’s over, Jamie suddenly decides this is the moment to try out one of his loudest voices.

“Mommy, that sound was not nice.”

“Jamie!” Beca hisses, “Shhh!” She can hear the two teenagers laughing at Jamie’s words and a lady in the row in front turns around, but thankfully she’s smiling too as she catches Jamie’s eye for a second.

“Oh my God,” Beca mutters to herself, cheeks flushed bright red.

There are four more classes before they get to Chloe’s, but luckily the general standard is higher than the violin abusers that opened, and Jamie doesn’t make any more comments about the quality of the sounds being created. Which is good because otherwise she would have dug herself a hole right here and now and clambered into it forever more. She’s already feeling out of sorts, the whole vibe of being in the kind of non-descript gym building with weird motivational posters and hand made displays about antarctica that could only be a school. It’s making her feel squirmy and high-schoolish again, and reminds her of how she’d felt when she’d first seen Chloe again, that day outside of her favourite record store. It had been so hot that day Beca had nearly burnt her hand on the buckle of her seatbelt earlier that morning. She’d eaten a bagel in a cafe, bought a record and then she’d bumped into this person who had somehow become her best friend.

She thinks back to how she’d decided at the last minute to look through the reduced section at the store, how she’d actually found something she wanted to buy at the bottom of the last box she rifled through. How if she’d decided to leave without purchasing a five dollar second hand Joni Mitchell record life wouldn’t have changed at all, and she’d have had no idea that it might have done, in some other alternate future.

It makes Beca feel anxious, just thinking about it. Plus she’s still not really sure how she feels about being here , in this terrifyingly academic space, where even the smell makes her stomach squirm with memories of sitting alone in the cafeteria and hiding in the toilets with her overly large headphones on, listening to weird electronic music from the seventies on a loop.

She definitely couldn’t really care less about any of these performances that don’t involve Chloe, but she’ll do her best to pretend that she did later, for sure, even though she probably won’t be able to pull it off.

Beca just about makes it out of her daydreaming to clap politely, and then Chloe’s walking onto the stage in a flowery dress, leading a gaggle of children and Beca can’t help but grin widely at the sight. It’s just so strange . It wasn’t so long ago that they were those little kids, and now they’re so... old . But Beca doesn’t think she feels like a grown-up version of tiny her, really. More just a happier version. And she guesses that’s quite nice, really.

Then Chloe’s little choir starts to sing, and it is Movin’ on Up, and Beca smiles through the whole thing, even when she can’t see because Jamie insists on standing on her knees so he can see Chloe. They sing some other song that Beca is shocked to realize she doesn’t know, though it sounds vaguely familiar. It’s sweet and pretty and Beca resolves to ask Chloe about it later. When it’s all over Beca decides to wait patiently in her seat for all of the slowly milling around parents to filter away, gushing about how wonderful little Maddie was, and Oh gosh, did you see when Jackson span in the wrong direction!

And suddenly Jamie’s launching himself away, running off, scooting between people’s feet and vanishing out of sight and Beca jumps up to try and chase after him. When she calls his name loudly a few parents part to let her through, but then she’s caught behind a pack of dads oblivious to her presence and the fact that she can’t see Jamie makes her heart jump to her throat for a second. She pushes impolitely between two overdressed men in suits and spots Chloe’s red hair at the front of the room, keeping her eyes on it like a beacon to guide her, hoping that Jamie’s plan is simply to find Chloe.

From behind a mother hugging one of the terrible violin players, Beca suddenly loses sight of Chloe as she bends down. She reemerges a moment later with Jamie in her arms, her eyes darting around to locate Beca as unobtrusively as possible, trying to maintain the polite conversation she’s in the middle of with adoring parents and offspring.

Beca catches her eye with a small wave, a rush of relief spreading through her. Jamie settles in, resting his head on Chloe’s shoulder and playing with a bit of her hair, and she just lets him be, jiggling him occasionally on her hip to adjust the weight. Beca hangs back, so as not to interrupt Chloe’s networking, knowing that this boring part of interacting with parents and talking up their children is still work for her.

“I didn’t know you had a kid, Miss Beale.” Beca hears later, as the crowds are starting to file away, and she spots a short girl with a disproportionately large afro that Beca thinks looks super badass standing in front of Chloe.

“Oh he’s not mine, Jasmine. He belongs to my best friend.”

“He’s so cute.” Jasmine moves a step closer to Jamie and takes his hand in hers. Jamie grins, always happy to meet new people, but nuzzles his face shyly into Chloe’s side all the same.

“The cutest.” Chloe concurs with a smile.  “And thank you for doing such a good job today, lovely, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks Miss Beale.” Jasmine suddenly turns around at a distant call of her name. “Oh. I gotta go.”

“Okay, see you on Monday!” Chloe calls after her.

And this seems to signal the end of teacher networking time, the hall now nearly emptied other than a few small circles of parents chatting animatedly near the door, their gaggle of tired and bored looking children scattered around them, clinging onto hands and scuffing their feet.

“Alright Miss Beale?” Beca teases, but Chloe just grins madly, and then actually squeals a little bit.

“So? What did you think? Weren’t they perfect?”

“They were great, Chlo. I loved it. You did a great job.” Beca tries to do her most sincere smile to back up her words.

“Thanks Beca.” Chloe looks suitably touched, beaming with pride, so she thinks it worked, but then she’s worried for a second that Chloe might cry again.

“Jamie what did you think?” Chloe asks, and he holds his little hands up to his face in contemplation.

“I liked the singing.” He grins at Chloe. “And and and I really really liked when the mailman came this morning and he rang the doorbell and he had a HAT on, but he didn’t have a cat, but he had a big package in a big BOX.” Jamie rushes out in one fast sentence that Chloe can just about follow.

“Oh, how exciting, was it for you?”

“No, for mommy. A birthday package from Gramma.” Jamie looks proud of himself for remembering.

“Birthday?” Chloe’s brow furrows in confusion, turning to Beca. “When’s your birthday?”

“Um, well. It’s kind of...today, actually.” Beca looks down at her feel sheepishly, lip between her teeth. She’s not really sure why she didn’t tell Chloe, but it would have felt weird to try and direct attention to herself when this week’s whole purpose has been about looking after Chloe . She’s sure that Chloe would have wanted to do something far too nice that would have made Beca feel horribly guilty.

“WHAT!” Chloe cries the word so loudly several of the stragglers near the door look over for a second. “Beca, why didn’t you say?! You didn’t have to come to my school’s silly choir concert on your birthday.”

“I wanted to.” Weirdly, she finds that she really means it. “And I don’t really do birthdays anyway, so. Not mine anyway.” She shrugs.

Chloe shifts Jamie in her arms again, and embraces Beca suddenly in a slightly awkward hug because Jamie’s tiny body is sort of squished between them. “Well, I like your birthday,” she says, arms still around her, “so Happy Birthday, old lady.”

“That was so nearly nice.” Beca teases. “My bad habits have been rubbing off on you.”

“Perhaps. Um, okay so here’s an idea. We have to pass an In-N-Out drive through on the way home. I guess you don’t like celebrating yours, so you can say no if you want to, but I adore birthdays and you deserve to have a nice one, so how do you feel about birthday cheeseburgers and milkshake?”

“Dude. That sounds perfect.”

“Come on then. Let’s get out of here.” Chloe turns her face to Jamie. “You ready to put those little legs of yours to good use, trouble?”

“Nuh uh.”

“Come here then,” Beca says, reaching her arms out.

“Your mom needs a birthday cuddle Jamie.”

“Is everything we do going to be a birthday version of itself now?”

“Maybe. Come on, I’m starving. Let’s birthday walk to the birthday car and then get me some birthday nourishment before I birthday keel over.”

“You’re a dork.”

“A birthday dork.”

“Surely that’s me, if anything.”

“Did you really just admit to being a birthday dork?” Chloe’s eyes are twinkling in the semi-darkness of the parking lot, nose scrunched up teasingly.

“Shut up,” Beca grins, and it’s probably the nicest birthday she’s had in years.

Chapter Text

“Can I borrow your son tomorrow?” Chloe’s gathering up the greasy packaging from their burgers whilst Beca fishes beer out of the back of the fridge.

“Um, what for?” Her voice is muffled, directed still at the excessive selection of condiments that take up the refrigerator’s top shelf rather than over at Chloe.

“We have to go to the mall.”

“You do? Does Jamie have errands to run?” She’s not looking at Chloe still, now rifling in a drawer for a bottle opener, but Chloe can see the confusion on her face nonetheless, hears the edge of amusement in her voice.

“Mmhmm.”

“Chlo, you’re not going to buy me a present are you, because-” There’s a clunk and hiss as Beca prises the caps off the two bottles, passes one to Chloe, frowning.

“Nope, don’t worry. But Jamie is.”

“Chlo-”

“Have you ever had a present from Jamie before?”

“Chloe, he’s three.”

“Well, then you’re going to get your first one. Besides, it’s going to be your present from me too.”

Beca opens her mouth, forehead furrowing as she’s about to speak, but Chloe carries on before she gets the chance. “We’re going to go in the morning so you can lie in.”

At this, Beca’s ears prick up.

“Sold.”

The lie-in’s conditional, of course, because Beca still has to get up to get Jamie ready for the day, but as she stumbles through the house in her pyjamas, Chloe can tell she’s more relaxed than is usual for Beca in the morning, pre-caffeine at least. It’s been a bit of a crazy week, and Chloe knows she’s the main cause of it, though Beca would never dream of saying such a thing. But even so, she wants to make it up to her and she knows Beca’s only a morning person out of pure necessity. This seems like the perfect solution, she thinks, fixing herself a dazzling smile in the mirror, letting the warmth of it seep into her. Fake it until you make it’s always been her style, when it comes to recovering from something sad. She’s been trying pretty hard at that this week, but somehow it’s easier already. Somehow the load’s lightening with every day.

Chloe steps out of the bathroom, fully prepped and ready for the day at the same time Beca leaves Jamie’s room, and for some reason, bursts out laughing. The sight’s a nice one- an open, honest cackle that Chloe raises her eyebrows at, smile tickling at the corners of her mouth. Then Beca steps aside to let Jamie skip out of the room, and Chloe understands the laughter.

Because they’ve somehow dressed exactly the same, both in striped blue and white tops and denim shorts, and Chloe giggles as she swipes Jamie up from the floor into her arms, squeaking a little in her excitement.

“Look how cute we are Jamie!”

“I’ll go put a different shirt on him,” Beca says, eyebrows still raised in amusement, turning back towards Jamie’s dresser.

“No, no, don’t, Beca can’t you see how adorable we are?” Chloe pouts at Beca, pulling her eyes extra wide.

“You seriously want to go out dressed the same as a toddler?” Beca looks incredulous, but it gradually morphs into something Chloe reads as ‘I don’t know why I’m surprised ’, and that sense of understanding, of Beca just getting Chloe as the ridiculous person that she is makes Chloe grin.

“Sure.” Chloe shrugs. It tickles her, and maybe it’s weird, but so what? Chloe’s never cared about weird if it makes her happy and she’s not about to change now.

“You’re so weird.”

“But just look at us, Becs. Look how cute we are, all matchy.” She smooshes Jamie into her side as she holds him, wiggling side to side and making him giggle.

Beca’s staring at her sort of weirdly, and Chloe doesn’t know how to read the look on her face. It’s been awhile since she’s thought that, and it feels a little bit odd, until the expression morphs into one of amusement again. Chloe smiles back automatically, putting Jamie down so he can rush off into the living area with a mission to make as much mess as possible, no doubt, in the five minutes before they leave.

“Chlo, your shorts are practically shorter than the three year old’s.”

“Shut up, it’s the hottest day of the year so far. It’s nearly summer! Perfect day to show a little leg.”

“So you’re going to celebrate by hiding inside in a mall?”

“In the glorious air conditioning.” Beca rolls her eyes. “Get back to bed anyway. Your services are no longer required, mom Beca.”

“You’re going to be okay yeah? Do you need anything?” Beca looks suddenly a little concerned, in the way Chloe imagines she probably does every time she has to leave Jamie somewhere that’s not with her, chewing on the corner of her thumbnail as her brow wrinkles slightly.

“Nope. And we’ll be fine, I promise. In case you were worried.” She puts a comforting hand to Beca’s forearm, finds it still oddly warm with sleep, and there are still pink lines embedded across it from where Beca must have lain still in her mess of sheets for too long.

“I know. I trust you.” Beca nods sincerely at Chloe, attracting her attention away from the bumpy lines she can’t help but run her fingers across briefly. It’s nice to feel how alive Beca is, under her palm. Vibrant and warm and full of life. It’s part of why she loves to be up close to people- feel the power of all that life running through them, and the solidness of their body grounding her in the real world.

“And I just need to keep busy, you know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“You’ve got to keep holding onto my hand, all day, okay J?” Chloe says as they step into the mall.

“Um, yep.” Then he’s rushing ahead, pulling on Chloe’s arm in his haste to go over to a charity stand he’s spotted from the local dog shelter. And Chloe notices there are puppies , and suddenly she’s just as excited as Jamie.

“Does your son want to hold one?” A kindly looking woman asks when Jamie approaches the pen, pulling himself up on tiptoes to look over the top.

“Oh he’s not my son.” Chloe feels a sharp jolt at the strangeness of that, as the lady beams her apologies.  “But yes, definitely,” she adds, after looking over at Jamie’s moon-eyed face.

“Oh wow.” Jamie says softly, when he’s sat safely on a little stool and had a plump, wriggly dog yet to grow into its ears placed into his lap. “Hello dog,” he whispers, as though it’s somehow too fragile for normal volume words and Chloe watches intently, feels a rush of affection and pride that warms her belly, as he strokes his hand softly over the puppy’s velvety head.

It takes a monumental effort to drag Jamie away from the dogs, but after shoving several notes into their collection tin and taking maybe a thousand pictures, Chloe thinks it’s probably time to move on. She says a silent apology to Beca for the tirade about getting a puppy she’s probably to have to suffer through when they return home, (and possibly forever more) and they finally get to the actual purpose of their trip.

“Okay, Jamie, so how do you feel about finding Mommy a present?” She kneels down in front of him so they’re at the same height.

“Yes!”

“Shall we have a look and find something together? I’ll need you to help me choose, okay?”

“I can choose, I’m really good at choosing.”

“I know you are little man. You’re in charge then, okay. King of shopping?”

“I am so good at being in charge!”

“Alright then. Where first King Jamie?”

“The toy store!”

“How about we go in the record store first?”

“Mommy does like records.” He nods sincerely.

“She does. Good idea, Jamie.” He looks so proud for coming up with the idea, as though he really has no idea of Chloe’s input, and Chloe leads the way to the store, tucked away in a corner of the mall, between two empty shop fronts.

The shop assistant, a young woman with permanent hint of laughter in her eyes, looks the pair of them up and down in amusement when they walk through the door, bell tingling. The space is dark and broody, most of the windows covered up by rows up rows of records and CDs, and the music playing is a thumping track Chloe doesn’t recognise. Chloe guesses they maybe look a little out of place.

“You guys look adorable.”

“Thanks?” Chloe says, questioningly, still slightly unsure whether she’s been made fun of or not.

“We don’t get enough people matching their outfits to their kid’s in here.” The lady winks, smiles wide.

“Oh he’s not mine. We’re just friends.” The lady squints her eyes. She’s got to find a better way to explain that.

“Okay-” The lady says, stretching out the word. “So you’re dressed the same because..?”

“It was an accident. And why not?” Chloe shrugs, smiling warmly. 

“Fair enough. I guess I did say you looked adorable, so it works for me.” She smiles again at Chloe, walking around to the other side of the counter. “So, uh, can I help you find something?”

With Jamie’s (and the shop assistant’s) they pick out two records they think Beca will like, and one that Jamie likes the picture on and is only 50 cents in the bargain rack, so they get that one too. Chloe had no idea how exhausting trying to shop with a three year old would be, but Jamie wants to look at everything, and is distracted by everything, and has questions about everything, particularly men with beards, who he seems to be equal parts fascinated and confused by whenever one walks past them.

Chloe’s never been so equally exhilarated and exhausted by a trip to the mall before.

Chloe has Jamie help wrap the records, in the highly predictable penguin paper he picked out, in the back seat of the car. She’s usually a meticulous present wrapper, but she figures she can blame any haphazardness caused by their makeshift wrapping space on the three year old in charge of the scotch tape. It’s sort of freeing to not worry about it, and to know that Beca will smile and laugh and roll her eyes at it whether it’s neat as perfection or in a paper bag.

She gets a text from Calvin as they sit in the car, arranging her time tomorrow to go to their (no, she reminds herself, his) apartment and pack her belongings. It makes her heart pull strangely. She really, really doesn’t want to box up her life, to have to really put a final, solid end to things. It’s terrifying, mostly, she thinks.

So her thoughts are occupied by Cal all the way home. She’s been trying to avoid thinking about it, because she hates being sad, she doesn’t want to be sad, and she downright refuses to be heartbroken, and she’s pretty sure that’s the kind of tenacity you can force through sheer will alone. It’s worked before. Why not now?

But there's no denying, really, that she is sad, and she does want to cry sometimes. But it’s a sort of vague melancholy rather than anything overblown, and that, she thinks, is possibly the saddest bit of all. Everything had be so intense, when her and Cal first got together, first fell in love. So it’s sort of tragic to think about how it’s fizzled away. Sort of scary. She feels tears prick at the corners of her eyes, threatening to blur the street in front as she drives home, but a sudden squall from the back seat jumps her away from it.

“What’s up Jamie?” She coughs to clear her throat.

“Are we there yet?”

“James, we’ve been in the car for less than ten minutes.”

“That’s SO many Chloe. I’m bored. I’m hungry.”

“You want some music?”

“Yeah yeah yeah yes.” He kicks his legs against his car seat, shoes thumping a distinct rhythm.

And thoughts of Calvin are banished from her head.

Jamie presents the gift whilst they’re sat down eating lunch, and Beca looks, for a second, as though she’d completely forgotten that’s why they’d gone out at all.

“Happy Birthday, Mommy.”

The grin Beca pulls is one of the widest Chloe has seen, open and sweet, as Jamie lugs the present onto the table.

“Thank you Jamie. Wow.” She brushes a hand across his head, pushing his curls out of the way so she can plant a kiss on his forehead. “You want to help me open it?”

“Nuhuh, it’s YOUR present, silly,” and his phrasing makes Chloe smile, because it sounds exactly like something Beca would say to him.

“I like the paper you picked, J.” Beca catches Chloe’s eye, smiling slyly. She pulls gently at the paper to open the present, cautious as though she’s worried about ripping it, as though everything about the gift is extremely precious, including its haphazard paper.

“Oh wow.” Beca fans the records out in front of her. “Did you pick these?” She’s looking up at Chloe now, questioningly, a smile playing on her lips.

“I had help from this one.” She nods her head at Jamie, still standing patiently by his mother’s knee. “And a shop assistant who was very enthusiastic.”

“I love all of these, and I don’t own any of them.”

“We did good?” Jamie looks up at his mom, eyes wide and hopeful, little hands gripping onto her thighs.

“You did so good. I’ve never seen this version of this one before, but I’ve got some of their newer stuff and I love it. This will be great.” To Chloe’s surprise, she’s holding up the one Jamie picked, with the colourful and psychedelic sleeve, a band Chloe’s never heard of.

“Jamie picked that one all on his own.”

“He did?” And Beca looks so proud as she bends down to pick him up, prop him on her knee, resting her chin on his head.

“Thank you Jamie. I love you.”

“Love you too Mommy.”

“And thank you Chloe. Seriously. This is...this is really nice.”

“You’re welcome, Beca.”

“I’m ready to talk about it.” They’re sat in pyjamas, a documentary about sharks playing on the television, and Beca reaches for the remote to mute it before turning to Chloe.

“Yeah?” Beca's face looks concerned, but hopeful and Chloe nods, swallowing nervously.

“I’m really scared about tomorrow. About the finality of it.”

“It’s a scary thing, Chloe, for sure.”

“And I’m scared about the future. About my future. Because I thought everything was going to be perfect, when we first got together. It was all so intense, and so loving, and we were so wrapped up in each other for so long. It was lovely. But somehow even that ended in failure. In nothing.”

“Chlo, you know it’s not failure, or nothing.” She reaches out for Chloe’s hand, the one she’s leaning her weight on, and rests her palm over it. It’s a reassuring touch, grounding her.

“I know. I know, I do. It’s just crazy. That so much feeling became something so different. What if that always happens? What if that’s just what I do? Jump in way too deep and then gradually rise to the surface, instead of the other way around? You know what I mean?” Chloe’s voice is a little frantic, and Beca’s brow furrows as she tries to follow. “Sorry, I’m getting overemotional.”

“Chloe, you broke up with someone. There is no over emotional in that context. You can be as emotional as you damn well like.”

And maybe Chloe needs that permission, though she’s not sure why, so she burrows her head into Beca’s shoulder and lets herself cry out some of the sadness. Some of the ache. Some of the fear. She feels Beca’s hand move, now a comforting presence across her back, feels the soft fabric of her shirt under her face.

When the tears have dried out she feels much, much better, as though she’s cried away some kind of weight across her shoulders. As though she can go to the apartment tomorrow without keeling over in fear at the idea of packing away her and Cal’s life together.


She can feel that she’s healing, and it’s a relief.

Chapter Text

Chloe’s woken early the next morning. She thinks for a moment that it’s because she’s still a little worried about what she has to do later today, but then she realises there’s someone else in the room with her, a soft, warm breath near her face, and she opens her eyes with a jolt of fear.

Jamie’s face is inches from her own, bright-eyed and hopeful.

“Jesus, Jamie, you scared me.”

“I’m not scary.”

“I know. You just made me jump.” Her voice is scratchy, not awake yet.

“Chloe?”

“Mmm?”

“Will you play with me?” Before Chloe gets a chance to respond, Beca’s silhouette appears in the slightly open doorway, hissing at Jamie.

“Jamie what are you doing? Come back to bed. It’s half four in the morning, and didn’t I tell you not to go in when Chloe was sleeping?” She’s trying to both whisper and sound serious all at once.

“But-”

“Jamie!”

And Jamie trots out of the room, sighing dramatically, Beca closing the door with a soft click behind her.

Half four? No wonder it’s still so dark on the other side of Jamie’s star-patterned curtains, and why her head still feels so heavy.

She takes a moment to look around the room in the darkness. It’s tiny and cosy, just a bed and a dresser on one wall and a small bookcase and baskets of toys on the other, with Chloe’s cases scattered haphazardly in the middle.

But she thinks about the room she’ll be moving to next weekend, in her colleague Maya’s apartment. About the blank walls and empty cupboards that will seem so open and muted after existing for two weeks in Jamie’s safe cocoon of a room, colourful and lived in, much like the rest of Beca’s apartment. There are posters tacked next to his bed, at little boy height- Thomas and Olaf and Snoopy, and postcards from San Diego, San Francisco, Atlanta, France. His dresser has every drawer painted a different colour, a little rainbow, and Chloe wonders if Beca did that herself, if Jamie requested those colours especially.

The sun’s just slightly starting to peek between the gap in the curtains now, and Chloe’s still awake, mind running in slow, loping circles, when the door slowly cracks open again and Jamie’s little face peeks in between the gap.

“Chloe!” He says in his loudest whisper.

“What are you up to now trouble?” She pushes her hair out of her face, rolling onto her side to properly look at him, and he takes a couple of steps into the room.

“I’m not done with sleeping yet,” he whispers.

“Why are you up then?”

“I can stay in here?” His questioning face looks exactly like Beca’s but in miniature, and he twists a bare toe around on the floor, pulling at his pyjama top so that Thomas’s face stretches out oddly, and Chloe thinks it’s probably a little ridiculous, how easy it was for him to get her wrapped around his little finger. So Chloe lifts the corner of the sheets, shuffles backwards a little, and Jamie skips forward to hop into the bed next to Chloe, the tiniest little spoon she’s ever snuggled, his little cold feet poking into her legs. He wriggles around for a few minutes before Chloe can hear his breathing slow, his body relax completely, and she feels her’s start to follow him.

She’s lying right across the border between awake and asleep when she vaguely registers Beca’s shouty-whisper voice again.

“Jamie?”

“Jamie!” There’s a sigh as Chloe hears the door being pushed a little bit further open. “Ja-”

Then there’s quiet, and Chloe can tell that Beca’s still in the doorway, that she hasn’t moved yet, and Chloe doesn’t open her eyes, concentrates on making her breathing steady, making sure her eyes don’t twitch open. She’s not sure why it feels so important, but it does, so Chloe lays there, an arm draped across Jamie’s middle and eyes squeezed shut for the long pause until Beca shuts the door behind her with the barest of clicks, and she hears soft footsteps away.

It feels weird to knock, is the first thing she thinks. And then it’s weird not to greet Cal with a kiss. But it’s not so scary, as soon as his face is there smiling cautiously at her, and as soon as she’s back in the living room that really doesn’t feel like her living room already, because Cal’s taken down pictures and posters and the bookshelves are empty.

“Wait, you’re moving out too?” Chloe turns on her heel to look at him, standing sheepishly in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, feet in mismatched socks.

“Yeah. Yeah, you remember Ryan? From the Christmas party? He’s on my course, and he’s got a room going. It made sense I guess.”

“Yeah.” Chloe nods encouragingly.

“I’d be rattling around in here on my own.”

“Cal, I don’t think a Borrower could rattle around in this apartment.” And Cal smiles, laughs, and the sound spurs her into action, pushing her across that hump of going from being here, to actually packing things away, actually moving out.  

“Maybe not. But the company’s nice.” He shrugs.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

They’re packing up in companionable silence, radio playing in the background, and it’s a lot less traumatic than she thought it would be. They manage to chat and laugh, and though Chloe has to shove the folder she knows contains all the cards and notes Cal’s ever given her into a box at super quick speed, so as not to think about it too long lest her eyes start to water, it’s not an altogether unpleasant way to spend the day.

“What are we going to do about the summer?” Cal asks whilst he’s wrapping dish ware in old newspaper, shoving it into a box in a much more haphazard manner than Chloe’s really comfortable with.

“The summer?”

“The trip we have tickets for? Europe?” Cal raises his eyebrows, face scrunched in confusion.

“Shit. Shit. I forgot about our trip. My mind has been in so many places, I’m sorry, it’s been a crazy week. Shit. The trip.” She looks up at Cal, lip held between her teeth, pushing her hair out of her face with the hand that’s not still holding the book she’s part way through packing.

“You should go.” Cal says firmly. Chloe pauses before responding, looking at him questioningly, trying to read the expression on his face.

“You still could too? It’s just a flight. I’m sure we could sit next to each other without killing each other.”

“We could. But I want you to go.” He looks at her, one of the most serious looks on his face that she’s ever seen.

“But what about your ticket?”

“I dunno. I’ll talk to the airline. Maybe I can switch something out for a flight home. I don’t really care. It’s only money.”

“Yeah, but it’s only money and you barely have any.”

Cal shrugs nonchalantly, looking completely unconcerned. “But I think this is important to you. Important for you, and you deserve it. Go and have some adventures, Chloe Beale.” She gets up from her knees, dropping the book unceremoniously into the box, and envelops Calvin in a tight hug for a long while before responding.

“Thank you.”

“You are so welcome Chloe.” She leans back away, his arms still around her back.

“This is a really hard thing.” She looks into his shining eyes, knows hers are much the same.

“It is. Yeah. It is. But it’s the right thing. I just want us to be happy. I just want you to be happy.”

“You are just...too good, Calvin. You’re going to have an amazing life.” She presses her face into his chest again, holding him tightly.

“I can’t wait to make friends with you.”

“What?” Chloe can’t help the amused, questioning smile that rises on her face.

“We’ve done this backwards, don’t you think? Started strong, relationship fizzled out. Now we can be friends, I hope. Eventually.”

“That sounds...that, that would be perfect.”

“Yeah, I know. I can’t wait.”

“Cal reminded me about our trip to Europe.” Chloe says on Sunday evening, when they’re on the sofa working side by side, Jamie safely in bed.

“Your...shit. I totally forgot about that.” Beca pauses her hands over the keyboard, hovering in the position they were about to write the next word of her email in.

“Yeah, me too.”

“You’re gonna go though, right?” Beca shoves her laptop off of her knees onto the coffee table, and twists her position so that she’s facing Chloe.

“You trying to get rid of me Mitchell?”

“Shut up.” Beca rolls her eyes good-naturedly, and Chloe’s face is teasing, on the verge of laughter. “Don’t make me say I’ll miss you, I can’t deal with that much sap coming out of my mouth,” Beca says with a pointed warning finger. “I might vomit.”

“Thanks for that visual, Becs. Charming as ever. You will though, right?”

“Vomit?”

“Miss me, you ass.” Beca wriggles to dodge Chloe’s slapping hand.

“Obviously.”

“I’d take you with me, if I could by the way,” Chloe says, breaking eye contact for a second before looking back to see Beca staring at her strangely. “I’d give you the other ticket.”

“Chlo, you know I wouldn’t be able to-”

“I know. I know. That’s the point. I just wanted you to know that if I could, I would.”

Beca pauses, a serious look on her face that gradually moves into a small smile. “Thanks.” She pauses once more, staring still at Chloe. “Will you tell me about where we’d go?” And Chloe smiles wide as she grabs Beca’s laptop to pull up a map and launch into her plan.

It takes eleven trips up two flights of stairs to get everything piled into Chloe’s new room the next weekend. Her new home. She’s feeling oddly cheery, though she’s not sure if that’s real yet, or just because she’s willed it into being. But it’s the sunniest, warmest Saturday afternoon they’ve had in months, and the window’s open wide. She’s got an old Slow Club album playing from the speakers she already took the time to set up (an important priority) and she’s singing along, wiggling her hips as she transfers clothes from suitcase to closet.

“Chloe?” Maya pops her head around Chloe’s door, smiling warmly.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going over to my boyfriend’s now, okay? I’ll be back late, probably. Do you need anything, or me to show you anything else?”

“No, I’m good. Thank you for all your help today.”

“No problem roomie.”

Chloe appreciates the chance to settle in on her own, and she knows that Maya’s gone out on purpose to let her have that time. It bodes well, Chloe thinks, to have a roommate that is somewhat conscious of the needs of the other. Plus the place is clean and tidy, but not freakishly so. And though the rooms are small there is a teeny tiny balcony off the living area that Chloe just can’t wait to have her breakfast on, even though there’s not even room for a chair. She’s been talking Beca’s ear off about it all week, and she’ll balance her plate on the railing if she has to. She will eat breakfast on that balcony.

Perhaps tomorrow.

She smiles at the thought, before her extensive imaginings are interrupted by a harsh buzzing noise from the living area. It takes her a moment to work out it’s someone asking to be let in, and she rushes to pick up the phone, trying to work out what button to press.

“Hello?”

“CHLOE,” a little voice squeals, unmistakably Jamie, and Chloe grins at the sound of it.

“Hey! My first visitors. Gimme a sec, I’ve got to work out how to buzz you in. Okay. Um, did that work?”

She hears a muffled “yep” from Beca, and a click as they open the door. It’s only a couple of minutes before there’s a rap at the door, and Chloe skips over to let them in.

“Um, hey,” Beca says oddly sheepishly, Jamie in her arms and a big bag at her feet.

“Welcome to my humble abode.”

“It looks nice, Chlo.” Beca takes a step into the living area, kicking the bag along with her feet until Chloe reaches down to pick it up. “You left a couple of things. Um, and there’s something in there for you.”

“There is?”

“House-warming, you know?” She looks up at Chloe with her bottom lip in her teeth. “Actually, Jamie, are you going to get down and give Chloe your present?”

He scrambles out of Beca’s arms, bouncing excitedly. “He’s been perfecting this all day. He insisted it was going to be for you, once he had it down.” Jamie bends down and starts rifling through the bag roughly. “Hey, hey, hey, let me get it out so you don’t mess it up, hey J?” Beca says, bending down beside him.

He takes a step back, wriggling and unable to keep his feet still with excitement. “Hurry hurry hurry.”

“All right, keep your hair on little man. Here you go.” She passes Jamie the miraculously still flat piece of paper, and he grasps it carefully before rushing over to Chloe.

“I did this for you.” He passes her a piece of paper contain one very rough, but unmistakeably penguin-like creature drawn large in crayon across it. Chloe laughs at how wonderfully clever and silly it is, the orange scribble that is the beak not really attached to anything else, the feet about three times longer than they need to be.

“Wow, Jamie!” She bends down to give him the full force of her smile. “ Thank you.  This is perfect. Look at you, you are getting so good at drawing. I’m proud of you, clever little guy.” Jamie squirms proudly under her praise, then under the kiss she presses to his cheek.

“Fridge?” He asks, eyes wide and hopeful.

“No, this is too important for that. Here, come with me.” Chloe leads Jamie to her bedroom, him skipping and hopping behind her into the space, mostly unpacked but still littered with boxes and bags. She takes a moment to assess the blank walls whilst Jamie clambers up onto her bed and uses it as a more interesting route to reach the window. He presses his hand and then face up against the glass, taking in the traffic running past on the street below with interest.

Chloe vaguely registers Beca propping herself in the doorway as she tacks the picture in pride of place above her desk.

“There, perfect.” She looks over at Beca, who offers up a small smile. “What do you think Jamie?” He clambers back over the bed so that he’s stood next to Chloe, grabs onto her elbow for balance.

“You need some more.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, Jamie.” She looks around at the rest of the very blank walls. She’s going to have to fill them up with something.

“Don’t encourage him, you remember the train picture incident. You’ve lived with that fridge for two weeks, it still makes me jump if I get up in the night, seeing all those leery Thomas faces.” Beca shivers dramatically and Chloe tries to stifle a giggle. Yeah, she probably doesn’t want that many penguin drawings.

“Do you live here now?” Jamie asks.

“Yeah, I do. Do you like it?”

“No it’s too far away. It’s as far away as the moon.” He hops down from the bed, landing dramatically on his knees before skipping over to Beca. “Mom why is it so far away?”

“Alright drama queen, is not that far.” Beca musses up his hair as he approaches the reach of her arm, and he wriggles away screeching.

“It’s so far.” He sighs dramatically. “And I’m so hungry.”

“I think you’re preparing to grow about a foot aren’t you Jamie?” Beca looks up at Chloe, now perched on the side of her bed. “He’s eaten a meal basically every hour today, I’m going to have to buy extra groceries. I wasn’t expecting this to happen until he was a teenager at least.”

“OMG, Jamie as a teenager, can you imagine?"  Chloe grins wide, eyes bright, looking down at the little boy now laying on his belly on the floor to investigate what might be under Chloe’s bed.

“Don’t, I can’t. It’ll go by in a flash and I am not prepared.” Beca grimaces, looking horrified, before suddenly changing tack entirely. “What’s this music?”

“Slow Club. You know them?”

“...Actually, no.” Beca smiles cautiously, knowing she’s about to get teased.

Chloe’s grin is ecstatic as she throws her hands up in the air. “YES!! Finally! Finally found a band you don’t know.” She starts a rousing one woman version of We Are The Champions, arms swaying above her.

“Shut up,” Beca’s biting her cheek to try not to smile, Chloe can tell from how it makes her lips pucker, how her eyes are smiling anyway. “I was going to buy you pizza but I can change my mind.”

Chloe hops up from the bed in one smooth motion, and loops her arm in the crook of Beca’s. “Have I told you how lovely you look today?” She bats her eyelids at Beca, pouting slightly. “And how wonderful your taste in music is?” She rubs her face against the arm of Beca’s she’s now gripping, like a strange cat. “And how incredibly impressive your extensive knowledge of LA’s pizza restaurants is?”

Beca rolls her eyes. stepping towards the living area with Chloe still clinging to her. “It’s my superpower, ok? A sixth sense for good pizza.”

“And a mighty fine one it is too.”

“Jamie, come out from under there now?” Beca calls back as they leave the room, turning back to look for him. His slightly dusty face appears from under one side of Chloe’s bed as he scrambles free to follow them, still on his hands and knees, with a rousing chant of “pizza, pizza, pizza!”

It’s dark by the time Beca and Jamie leave, and it’s not until then that Chloe remembers the bag of things they brought along, abandoned where it was first put down near the front door. She delves in to find assorted items of her’s- a hairbrush, two odd socks, a book about music therapy, a sheet of gold star stickers.

Then there are the house-warming gifts Beca had mentioned. She pulls out the first, a bottle of white wine with a post it note stuck to it saying “I hear this is a house-warming ‘thing' ??"  in a messy scrawl, and a small cactus with another post-it on the pot. ("Ditto the wine post-it, ps. don’t kill me").

She’s about to shove the bag into the designated ‘plastic bag to contain all the plastic bags’ that Maya has shoved in a corner of the kitchen when she notices one last thing bouncing in the bottom. It’s one of Beca’s signature flash drives, though this one is a lurid shade of pink that makes Chloe think she must have a bought it especially for this purpose. The neat sticker on the side, this time written in Beca’s neatest capitals rather than her post-it scribble, reads “Chloe’s breakfast on the balcony playlist,” in tiny writing.

Chloe reads it five times over, and grins and grins. As she runs her thumb over the sticker, pressing down a loose corner firmly, she knows now that, yes, for sure, she will definitely be at home here.

Chapter Text

It’s oddly quiet on Sunday evening when Jamie’s gone to bed and Beca’s sat on her own on the sofa, working on a track with her headphones over one ear in case Jamie stirs. She’s in her usual position again, now that Chloe’s vacated it after her two week stint, with papers and notes spread around her- her little bubble of work chaos. It’s never felt lonely before, this bit of her life. This was always her Beca time, her normal 25 year old aspiring music producer time, the part of the day she lived for and craved.

It’s never felt like it was missing something before, but even though Beca’s glad to have her mess back surrounding her, it’s weird not having Chloe there too.

It makes Beca worry, as she sits there fiddling minutely with the levels of a backing vocal that appears for ten seconds at the end of the track. The worry’s like a background churning anxiety in her belly, as though she’s got a presentation to do tomorrow that she’s forgotten about, and her whole body’s on edge trying to remember what it needs to be freaking out for. It was only two weeks, but somehow Chloe had slotted herself into hers and Jamie’s routine in that time in way that was not only not obtrusive or annoying, but nice. Natural.

As though she was meant to be there, on the sofa with Beca, marking shitty book reports and spelling tests, separating out singing parts from her favourite Adele tracks for the kids, whilst Beca made music next to her.

And this is not cool, this is not cool at all.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.

She was meant to be totally cool with this living alone, independent single mother thing and now look. Two weeks is all it took, and now she’s gone and done it. Beca chews on her lip, barely noticing that she’s just been listening to the same section of the song on loop for several minutes now.

Beca Mitchell, Idiot, strikes again. Why did she have to go and get herself a friend that reminded her human company could be nice? She rubs her hands over her face, smearing her eyeliner down her cheeks slightly, and finally hits pause on the voice singing over and over into her ears, slipping the headphones off with a shrug. She picks up her phone as a distraction, thumbing briefly through the pictures she took earlier that day, Jamie squinting cheekily up at the camera in the park, sun shining. She sets one as her phone background, then lets her thumb hover briefly over the Tinder logo, that Amy had downloaded for her, threatening in that Amy way that Beca was never entirely sure if it was a joke or not that Beca was in danger of getting something she called “spinster’s elbow” if she didn’t “get some” soon.

She hasn’t even opened the app yet. Doesn’t want to actually, possibly ever. Okay, maybe she’s a little lonely but the idea of having to explain Jamie somehow to a bunch of randomers who would probably like her better if he didn’t exist? Ugh. No thank you. She couldn’t think of a worse way to spend her time, and she’s already got plenty to do without filtering through all of LA’s weirdos in a vague effort to find one potentially normal person. She throws the phone back onto the sofa, where it gets wedged between the seat cushions and immediately, now that it’s just out of reach, buzzes loudly.

“Fuck’s sake,” Beca groans, flopping over to reach it with her fingertips, before opening up Chloe’s text.

Chloe- It’s quiet here without a toddler running around

Beca smiles at her phone, immediately thumbs a reply, still flopped strangely across the sofa.

Beca- excuse you, he’s fast asleep and quiet as a mouse right now

There’s a pause whilst she considers what she wants to say next.

Beca- but also it’s quiet here without a Chloe running around

Chloe- I’ll come visit soon

Beca- You better

Chloe- :)
Chloe- Have a good week Becs
Chloe- Hug Jamie for me when he wakes up xxx

Beca- Will do. You too x

She reads back through a week or so of texts between the two of them absentmindedly- there’s less than usual, because they’d actually spent almost all of it together- chewing on the corner of her thumbnail and smiling briefly as she rereads the stupid joke Chloe had sent her earlier in the week, made up by one of her students.

Obviously distracted, she decides this odd sort of melancholy is not a good headspace to be working in- this track is supposed to be a cheerful one, and on any other day is oozes that sort of sunshine and summery feel that can’t help but make you smile. It’s wrong, to be trying to fiddle with it right now. So instead she pushes her mess of notes back into a stack, shoves it all in it’s makeshift slot high up on the shelves that cover one whole wall of the living room, heavy with baskets of toys, DVDs, records and weird ornaments.

She peers in through Jamie’s ajar bedroom door on her way to her own, leaning against the frame for a moment to take in her son. He’s wrapped crazily in the sheets, twisted so that his foot is touching the wall on one side, head nearly hanging off the other side of the bed. He’s got Anna firmly clasped in the crook of his right arm, tiny fingers grasping into her woollen hair.

She can’t resist it, the lure of his soft baby cheeks, rosy with sleep. His perfect little being so quiet and innocent and wonderful in his deep sleep. So she does what she used to do regularly when he was still a baby, and risks the danger of an accidentally woken child to press a warm kiss to his cheek, to run a hand over his freshly-cut curls, now so much tidier but so much more big boy-ish it makes Beca’s heart ache a little bit.

And suddenly she’s sad again, because as annoying as it is to share a bed with such a wriggly little person, she’d got used to it over two weeks and the idea of getting into such a big empty bed is not so appealing right now. So she sits herself cross-legged beside Jamie’s bed instead, listening to his slow breathing like a kind of meditation until she can’t keep her eyes open any longer. She heaves herself quietly up, presses another kiss to his cheek and a soft whisper of “love you,” into his ear before she slips out the room and to bed.

Beca’s work schedule gets crazy right as Chloe’s does the opposite, everything already winding down in preparation for the summer. There’s still projects to mark, after school choir club to run, crazy parents to politely deal with, worksheets and lesson plans to put together, but it’s all a lot more relaxed somehow, everyone slightly on tenterhooks in anticipation for the break. Beca meanwhile is winding up a project in a different way- frantically working towards an overly optimistic deadline with a massive team. It’s an exciting project, one that Beca has been steadily working on with almost everyone at the studio for months now, and though she gets to make minimal input, creatively, it’s still by far the biggest (and most expensive) project she’s been entrusted with in any way so far in her career. It’s pretty exciting. She’s heard music she’s worked on on the radio, seen it performed on television, but this- this could really become something major. And it sounds pretty fucking great, even if she does say so herself.

Her and Chloe manage to slot in breakfast early on Saturday, the only time they both have free because Chloe’s parents are coming to stay for a few days, deciding their little girl needed looking after and spoiling after her breakup with Calvin. Beca’s chopping up Jamie’s banana pancakes, and he’s very eagerly trying to prod his fork in between her fingers, impatient to get started on his current food obsession.

“Calm down, little man,” she says gently, chopping the final piece. “Alright, there you go. What do you say?”

“Thanks Mommy.” The last bit’s muffled by the pancake already in his mouth, and Beca stifles a laugh that turns into a yawn before moving to her own breakfast.

“Am I boring you already?” Chloe says with a small smile, hands wrapped around her coffee while she waits patiently, and- as Beca has already told her several times- unnecessarily for Beca to be ready before she starts to eat.

“You’re lucky you’re getting me at all at this hour of the day, Chlo. This is literally the earliest hour I have ever willingly socialised with someone outside of my own home.”

“Unless you haven’t been home yet,” Chloe says with a wicked grin that makes Beca laugh, flushing. She shrugs in response.

“Shut up.” She looks up at Chloe, and the way the morning sun’s shining over her slightly freckled face makes her eyes glitter even more than usual. Beca thinks she looks especially pretty, in that light. “You should feel special though.”

“I do.”

“Now eat.” Beca starts shovelling her own pancake into her mouth, completely without grace, and Chloe finally follows suit.

They’re in the same cafe they’d first met up in, before Chloe had even met Jamie. Before they knew anything about each others lives, other than they’d happened to grow up in the same town. It’s weird, being back here now, Beca thinks, now that they are self-proclaimed best friends, and temporary roomies, confidants and partners in crime.

“I was really nervous last time we were here together,” Beca says suddenly, surprising even herself.

“You were?”

“Yeah. I was determined not to act like a total idiot in front of you.” Chloe laughs, then takes a sip of her coffee before her expression turns slightly more serious looking.

“Beca, you don’t have to worry about things like that. I know you’re an idiot, no matter how normal you try to act.”

Chloe grins, and Beca returns it, rolling her eyes. “I wanted to impress you with my prowess at adulting.”

“You did.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. You really did. I wasn’t joking when I said that you’d changed a lot. It’s like you kept all the good Beca bits and shed loads of the ones that were holding the good Beca back when we were in school. The more time I spend with you, the more I can see that. I’m proud of you for that, you know, Becs.”

“Thanks.” They’re quiet then for a little while, working on their pancakes before they get cold.

“Hey, do you want to hang out some time this week? Like, grown up time, with drinks or whatever?” Chloe asks, pausing to sip at her coffee.

“I would love to but I can’t this week. I’m scheduled in late every day, it’s the final push on this project we’re finishing.”

“Ah, well that's awesome though, means I get to listen to it soon, right?" Beca nods enthusiastically, mouth full of pancake, as Chloe continues. "I guess I’ll have to drink on my own instead. What are you doing about Jamie?”

“I’ve arranged for him to stay with one of his babysitters, I just have to call to confirm this weekend some time. Well, I think it’s a new lady actually, Linda or something. That’s what the agency said. I’ve not met her before, but-” Beca shrugs. She hates this awkward part of single-parenting.

“Well do you want me to go and fetch Jamie instead when I’m done at work?”

Beca looks up at Chloe, shocked. “You would do that?”

“Of course.” Chloe shrugs.

“That would be amazing. You’re sure that’s okay?”

“I wouldn’t have volunteered if it wasn’t, Beca. Though I’d have to take him with me to my older kids’ choir practise on Thursday.”

“I can do the choir? Singing?” Jamie’s eyes light up with excitement.

“I don’t know about that, J,” Beca says at the same time as Chloe says “of course!” So Jamie naturally picks the best answer to respond to.

“Cool.” He grins happily, tongue poking between his teeth.

“Thank you, Chloe.”

“You are very welcome, really. Do you need to tell them I’m coming or something? So they don’t just let him leave with some randomer?”

“Um. Yeah, sure. I’ll tell them.” Beca tries to keep her face straight, but she knows she’s a terrible liar so she tries to deflect by calling over the waitress for more coffee.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Beca, you’re being weird.”

“I’m definitely never weird.”

“Well, that’s a lie. Do you not want me to go get him?” Chloe actually looks a little concerned, so she concedes, cheeks alreading reddening in pre-embarrassment.

“I already added you,” she mumbles, sitting back at the table.

“Pardon?”

“I already added you.” This time it’s verging on too loud. “To the list, I mean. Like, a while ago. Just in case.” Her cheeks feel too warm and the sensation of the rising heat makes her feel even more embarrassed, somehow.

“Aww, Becs. I’m honoured.” And she really does look it, like it’s some kind of special reward to fetch Jamie. Though Beca supposes she did just make a big deal of telling Chloe, too, so maybe it’s all her fault.

So instead she smiles warmly at Chloe, and Chloe smiles back, until their gaze is interrupted by a sudden squeal from Jamie.

“Dog!” He shouts, pointing out of the window at the man passing with a labrador trotting neatly beside him. He clambers awkwardly onto Beca’s lap so he’s closer to the window, pressing a sticky hand up against the glass that leaves a tiny print. Beca strokes her hand over his little shoulders as he sits there, staring until he the man and dog move out of sight around the corner.

“Please can I have more pancakes?” He tilts his head backwards to look his mom in the eye.

“Do you have time Chlo?”

Beca looks over to find Chloe aiming her camera at the pair of them, and her smile grows gradually as she concentrates on the screen before answering. “Super cute. And yes, I have plenty of time. Spoil that cute boy of yours with pancakes, Bec.”

Beca’s in a surprisingly good mood. She not entirely unconvinced it’s not some kind of delirium brought on by exhaustion, but either way right now she feels bubbly and happy as she clambers up the stairs on her way home, her crazy week finally over. She wonders if this is how it feels to be Chloe everyday, this warm feeling of optimism and general effervescence about life. It’s nice. She has a day off tomorrow, she’s going to spend it spoiling her favourite boy with attention, the sun is shining and she’s just sung along to five Beyonce tracks in a row on her way home. It’s a good day.

She even greets Chloe with a self-initiated hug when she opens the front door to find her house smelling like cookies baking, and sees Jamie with a streak of flour in his hair trying to run away from the washcloth in Chloe’s hand.

Once they’re settled on the rug with a plate of still warm cookies, Jamie on his belly flipping through his favourite book about dinosaurs, Beca’s happiness hasn’t diminished at all. She’s put one of her favourite records on in the background, and this, she realizes, is exactly how she wants to spend Friday evenings. Relaxed, with good company and good music, with the windows open and the smell of freshly baked snack foods in the air. Somehow a giggle slips out, and Chloe looks over, cocking an eyebrow.

“What’s up with you, giggles? And what have you done with Beca?”

Beca shakes her head, not even embarrassed about her uncharacteristic behaviour. “I’m just happy.”

“I can see that.” Chloe’s looking at her like she’s about to say something else but she doesn’t, leaning forward to pick up another cookie instead.

“Are you?” She looks at Chloe, who pauses with the cookie halfway to her mouth.

“Am I what?”

“Happy.”

“Yeah.” Chloe bites her lip for a minute, lost in thought as she gazes absent-mindedly over in Jamie’s direction. “More than you ever could have convinced me I could be just a couple of weeks after breaking up with the person I thought was going to be the love of my life.” Chloe shuffles slightly closer, bunching up the rug a little, so that their legs are touching.

“You’re going to be awesome.”

“So are you.”

“I already am, excuse you.” Beca kicks at foot softly at Chloe’s.

Chloe laughs, openly and loudly. “Seriously, where is the Beca coming from? I sort of love her.”

“You mean you don’t sort of love my moody yet adorable usual self?” Beca frowns dramatically.

“I guess that’s pretty okay too. I mean, it’s okay enough that I was going to ask you to my little housewarming gathering next week. I mean, I had to think hard about it. But I decided you passed as an acceptable guest. Just. We’re going to have a barbecue.”

“A barbecue? Where?”

“On the balcony.”

“You have a barbecue small enough to fit on that balcony?”

“Yep. It’s taken me trips to four different stores, but I measured it and it’s snug but it works. You kinda have to stand inside to use it, but, eh.” Chloe shrugs her shoulders, looking excited.

“You drove across LA measuring barbecues?” Beca throws her head back to cackle loudly. “You’re something else, Chloe Beale.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment. So you’ll come over?”

“Well, I’m going to have to see this barbecue now, dude. But, ugh, hanging out was much more convenient when we lived together. Going places to see you seems like a chore now.”

“Don’t be such a lazy bones. I’m worth it.”

“But Chloeeee. I have responsibilities! Life is hard.  The least you could do it be at my disposal whenever I need you. I mean, really now. Get it together Chlo.”

“You just want a slave at your beck and call.”

“A personal assistant.”

“A slave."

“A buddy. A best buddy.”

“Well, that I can do I suppose. You might have to let me look over the contract before I sign it though, I feel like you might be having me sign my life away by accident.”

“Not your whole life.”

“Just most of it.”

“Exactly. She’s on the ball, this one.”

“You’re trouble, you are. I don’t even know why I like you.”

“I’m a joy."

“You and your crazy son. The pair of you, absolute trouble.”

“Dude. Shut up, you love it.” Chloe flings a cushion at Beca, which Beca immediately flings back, though her aim is better than Chloe’s so it hits her square in the face. Chloe retaliates with a screech, launching herself towards Beca and hitting her around the arm. Beca grabs at the cushion again, flumping it multiple times into Chloe’s belly, whilst trying to twist and avoid Chloe’s madly waving about hands.

“Mommy! No hitting!” Beca flops backwards onto the ground, nearly landing on the half-empty plate of cookies.

“Sorry Jamie,” she squeezes out between laughter as Jamie slides over so that his face is peering over his Mom’s, still on his belly.

“Hitting is not nice, Mommy,” he says when their faces are just inches apart, a serious expression on his face.

“I’m sorry Jamie. I won’t do it again.” She leans up to press a wet kiss to his nose, and recoils, screeching.

“You know who will do it again, though?” Chloe adds, an ominous expression on her face that even Jamie recognises, suddenly scrambling up onto his hands and knees, and then feet, before launching himself away from Chloe with a shriek. “The tickle monster!” Chloe squeals, flinging herself towards Jamie, and so Beca’s little home once again descends into noisy, sugar fuelled chaos as she ponders how on earth she became so attached to the sort of person who would willingly proclaim themselves a "tickle monster" for someone else's child. Laying there on the floor still, she grabs blindly for another cookie and eats it with a smile on her face as she listens to the madness and thumping feet of Chloe and Jamie chasing around her. 

Chapter Text

Beca’s sat watching Jamie play with a pair of matchingly dressed twin girls he’s befriended in the park sandbox when Chloe calls and does her now customary screeching into Beca’s ear.

“OMG! Beca! I just heard the song you guys have been working on, it just came on in the staff room! It’s happening right now, can you hear it?” Beca hears a muffled sound as Chloe obviously holds the phone away from her ear for a moment, but it doesn’t sound recognisably like music.

“Woah, woah, you did? I haven’t even heard it on the radio yet.”

“I definitely squealed.”

“Obviously.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s pretty exciting. Maybe next time it’ll be something I’ve actually had some more creative input on though, hey.”

“Mmm, Becs, you’ll get there. They’d be idiots not to let you make music. And you pressed some pretty Goddamn important buttons on that track.” Beca barks a laugh, grateful that Chloe knows gentle teasing is always the easiest way to get her out of the mini work funks she's been falling into occasionally lately.

“And got some pretty Goddamn important burritos. Can you maybe ring them up and tell them that though, because I think you’re the only one who thinks so right now.” Beca is nothing if she doesn’t feel useful, and as exciting as the projects she getting to work on right now are, she kind of doesn’t, not enough, anyway. It could be anyone, doing the things she did on that track and she’s been mulling it over for the past few days, after she’s somehow slipped back into an even more minor role again on the current big project.

“Sure, text me their number, I’ll get on it.” Chloe giggles into the phone. “You should be proud though Becs. I am, at least.”

“Yeah I am. I know it’s a big deal to have worked on it at all. I’m just ready to make something, you know.” Beca hears a shrill bell ring in the background of Chloe’s call.

“Oh shoot, Becs. Lunch is up, I gotta go. Tomorrow yeah?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Bye bye bye bye.”

Chloe’s balcony barbecue turns out to be an interesting night. It’s mostly populated by a rowdy bunch of Chloe’s friends from work (turns out teachers really know how to let their hair down- Beca’s not sure why this was a surprise to her, having met Chloe), plus a smattering of their respective partners, a couple of people from Chloe’s yoga class and also a trio of baristas from Chloe’s favourite cafe because Chloe apparently can’t go anywhere semi-regularly without being Chloe-ish enough to make friends.

Chloe insists on Beca bringing Jesse and Fat Amy, and then diligently and excitedly introduces Beca to literally all of her friends, as though she’s some kind of guest of honour at Chloe's party. It should be weird, but somehow it’s not at all, because they greet her like an old friend, as though they’ve already heard far too much about her (“It’s so nice to put a face to the name!” several of the teachers say, as though that’s normal ) but it makes Beca feel all sorts of warm and tingly that she’s pretty sure is unrelated to the number of margaritas she’s consumed.

It’s an altogether pleasant, giggly, over-excitable evening (Chloe, but in evening form, Beca thinks alone in the bathroom about two drinks past the limit she’d set, and she laughs sharply to herself when the thought pops into her head).

Beca finds herself laughing longer and harder than she has in ages between Fat Amy’s tales, Jesse’s surprisingly successful attempts at flirting with Maya and the weird and hilarious stories the group tells about “their kids,” as they all insist on calling them, Chloe included. Beca willingly joins in on the endless supply of cocktails and hot dogs, even if she doesn’t really keep up. She even offers up some stories of her own, about crazily demanding artists or weird shit that Jamie does. Chloe seems to beam with pride every time Beca makes one of her friends laugh, for some reason, and it makes Beca want to try to be nice and friendly and interesting to these people, and that’s a new feeling, for sure, one that she doesn’t bother to question in her happy, alcohol-saturated state.

When Beca finally drags herself away from the fun to return to Jamie and his babysitter, Chloe says goodbye to her with an extended hug in the doorway, hands running up and down Beca’s back in a very much margarita induced touchy-feely kind of way, like normal Chloe but concentrated. If Beca were more sober she would feel awkward at this level of affection in front of other people, and she knows as it’s happening that she’s never going to hear the end of it from Amy on Monday. But she’s also just the right level of drunk to know that there’s no way she’s turning down a hug, so she squeezes just as hard back and presses her face into Chloe’s shoulder, breathing in the slightly smoky smell of Chloe’s hair. Chloe’s voice is lilting and drunken as she talks directly into Beca’s ear so that she can feel her hot breath against her skin, wishing Beca “a lovely week” and “nice dreams” and “a great breakfast tomorrow,” in her strangest, most earnest Chloe fashion.

They talk on the phone a lot over the next couple of weeks, between visits, and Beca finds she doesn’t really feel like her evening’s complete any more until she’s spoken to Chloe and told her tales about Jamie and his new imaginary games, or vented about her currently very frustrating and inept management, and all the music she wishes she could be making, and in return heard about what song Chloe’s teaching her kids, or what mischief Brandon, the naughtiest boy in the class (but secretly one of Chloe’s favourites), has gotten up to.

“-and, ugh, I just know I could have helped it they would have let me have more control, you know. It would have been better.”

“It must be really frustrating.”

“It’s so frustrating, Chlo. I’m still just a dogsbody half the time. And I love it, I love my job, but ugh. I wish I got to actually make some music sometimes, and not all the other crap that goes with it. The crap is all I do lately. Just pressing buttons for some man."

The weeks pass in a rush of Beca working extra shifts, barely getting a chance to squeeze in seeing Chloe, and she can’t help but count them down guiltily, knowing that she’s going to be going away so soon. So when Chloe comes around on a Friday evening, nearly at the end of her school year, Beca feels almost giddy with excitement and it’s strange and nice, so she embraces it wholeheartedly, playing a silly, rambunctious game with Jamie as they await Chloe’s arrival. When she does get there, armed with a full bag of Chinese takeaway, Beca’s red in the face and panting when she answers the door.

“Have you been exercising, Beca Mitchell?” Chloe says with her eyebrows raised.

She shakes her head, smiling, as she catches her breath. “Chasing Jamie around, if that counts.”

“Definitely not.” Chloe grins at Beca before being ambushed by a similarly rosy small boy in a pirate costume, screeching incomprehensibly as he bounces over to Chloe and grasps firmly onto three of her fingers to drag her where he wants her.

Chloe wordlessly passes her bag of food over to Beca as she’s guided away, eyebrows raised, and Beca cocks one of hers at Chloe in return.

“You’ve been summoned for playtime. Bye then.”

“Laters.”

Beca listens to their conversation as she lays out plates and the cartons of food on the table, pulling two beers from the back of the fridge and pouring out a cup of water for Jamie into the special yellow cup Chloe had given him, after he had obsessively admired Chloe’s own version of the same cup every time he’d visited her in the past few months. It had quickly become the only thing he would drink out of and at least one overly-dramatic tantrum had already ensued when Beca had accidentally served him his morning juice in a glass.

“-Jack, Jeremy,” Beca can hear Chloe saying from her position sat on the living room rug. “No? Are you sure? Then is there a Joseph who lives here? “How about Joshua? Jacob?”

“No!” Beca can hear Jamie’s repeated, indignant response, the edge of laughter in his voice. “That’s not my name, Chloe!”

“Are you sure though?”

“Yes!”

“Oh! Is it...Jenny?”

“That’s a girl name!”

“Jim?”

“NO!”

“Jimbob?”

“ Chloe!"

“No I don’t know, that’s all the J names I can think of, are you sure it’s not Jimbob?”

“It’s not!”

“Oh wait, I remember! James, right?”

“Yes, Jamie!” And Beca looks over to see Jamie clambering awkwardly onto Chloe’s lap, laughing, where she’s sat on the floor, bringing his face right up close to hers, as though to somehow berate her for having forgotten his name.

“I can’t believe I forgot." Chloe holds her hand over her heart, as though genuinely horrified at her own actions, and Beca can just imagine the look of pretend shock that must be on her face right now.

“You didn’t!”

“I did! I thought you were Jimbob!”

“You didn’t! I don’t believe you.”

Beca almost doesn’t want to interrupt them, listening with a smile on her face and two opened beers in her hands, so she waits for a natural lull in their back and forth banter before calling “Chloe, Jimbob, food!” over at them and laughs as she hears Jamie scramble over at his top speed to tell her off.

“How are you so good at this?” There’s an advert break in the episode of Brooklyn 99 they’re watching, so a lady chatters in the background about the shine benefits of some shampoo as Chloe twists her head to look quizzically at Beca.

“What?”

“This.” Beca gestures around her body, indicating the way they’re sitting so close, so that Jamie- already pyjama-ed and teeth-brushed- is asleep on Beca but has his bare feet draped across Chloe’s lap too. “Just slipping seamlessly into people’s lives like you were always there.”

Chloe looks at Beca, an unreadable expression on her face as she considers the question, chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know. It’s never felt this easy before though.”

“We’re going to miss you, when you go away.”

Chloe reaches across to grasp one of Beca’s warm hands in her own slightly cooler one. “Yeah, same Beca.”

The feel of Chloe’s soft, cool fingers running over her hand as she grips onto it is soothing and weirdly comfortable, so she lets it stay.

When Beca wriggles a little, a long while later, her legs numb from Jamie’s weight across them, Jamie stirs from his slumber, sinking further into his mom as he blinks his heavy eyes owlishly at Chloe.

“Come on then Jamie, real bedtime now.” Now that he’s awake anyway Beca can move him without worrying about disturbing him, so she takes her chance, wanting some of the feeling back in her legs. She wraps her arms around Jamie, moving to stand up with him in her arms, but Jamie resists, shaking his head frantically.

“No, no, no.” To Beca’s surprise he scoots with his arms held out straight across the small gap between them and into Chloe’s lap instead, sinking in comfortably the second he’s there.

“Um,” Beca says, dumbly. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Chloe leans her face close to Jamie’s kissing him lightly on his rosy cheek. “Come on little guy, bedtime.” Jamie just shakes his head and clings even more forcefully to Chloe, little fists wrapped into the fabric of her t-shirt.

“No.”

“Come on J.” Beca stands up and tries to gently wrestle Jamie from his grasp around Chloe, where he’s arranged like a little koala.

“No, no, no, Chloe,” he says, gripping even tighter.

“You want me to put you to bed?” Jamie nods twice, before burying his face in Chloe’s top again with a wide yawn.

“Um,” says Beca again, uselessly.

“It’s fine, I can do it.” Chloe blinks up at Beca, confusion playing across her face. “As long as you don’t mind?”

“Of course not.” Chloe grins up at Beca, who's still standing up on the rug, hands stuffed in the pockets of her jeans. Chloe tucks a safe hand gently behind Jamie’s head, the other arm wrapped tightly around his midriff as she clambers awkwardly up from the sofa. Beca reaches out as the pair of them pass her, running a hand over his hair.

“Goodnight Jamie,” she says softly, not quite sure how to deal with the weird warm feeling that is seeing her best friend carrying Jamie to bed. She’s seen Chloe carry Jamie hundreds of times at this point, but the sight is somehow heart-warming nonetheless.

“Night Mommy,” he says, without opening his eyes.

“He loves you,” Beca says when Chloe returns just a few minutes later and flops onto the sofa next to Beca again.

“I know.” Beca turns to look at Chloe quizzically, and is greeted by Chloe sporting a sweetly excited grin. “He just told me.”

“He did?” Beca can’t help but return the grin now.

“Yeah. Good job I love him too right? Otherwise it’d be really awkward.” Chloe smiles lopsidedly at Beca with her joke, and Beca huffs a laugh.

“You do?”

“Of course I do. Both of you mini Mitchells.”

“Oy.”

But Beca doesn’t know how to respond with appropriate words for how weirdly content that makes her, so instead she reverts to Chloe’s usual language of choice, and slides up the sofa until she’s pressed into Chloe’s side, resting her head against a warm shoulder and grasping those cool fingers again, as the television transfers from another ad break into the second half of the programme they were watching.

“-But then the boy saw something in the water ahead of him. Closer and closer he got, until he could see...the penguin!” Beca pauses whilst Jamie leans in closer to put his hand over the picture of the little penguin lovingly, before helping her turn the page to finish the story. “And so the boy and his friend went home together, talking of wonderful things all the way.”

They’re both quiet for a moment whilst Beca twists around to slot the book back onto Jamie’s nightstand.

“Mommy?”

“Mmm?”

“Why is Chloe going away?” She’d been bringing Chloe’s trip up with Jamie regularly for the past few weeks, trying to condition him to the idea of his favourite friend not being around for a little while, and he was still getting his head around the idea. His sad little confused face, when Beca had brought it up the first time was etched in Beca’s mind. Chloe herself has been frequently asking for Jamie’s opinion, showing him maps and atlases, pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the Alps and Big Ben, telling him elaborate stories about Vikings and Romans and royal families.

She’d even taught him how to say ‘hello’ in French, through an extensive Beauty and the Beast related education programme that Beca was thankful to have not been part of, and Beca has been treated to little choruses of “Bonjour! Bonjour!” in Jamie’s terrible accent every morning ever since.

“She’s going on holiday, Jamie,” Beca responds eventually. “She’s going to have some amazing adventures, you know like the boy and the penguin in the book we just read.”

“But why can’t she have adventures here with me?”

“She does that all the time. She’s going to have some different adventures.”

“But-”

“She’ll come back, and you know what?”

“What?”

“You’ll be so happy to see her when she gets home that your adventures will be even better than before.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Can we go to the moon, when Chloe comes back?” He twists his head to look up at Beca with wide, hopeful eyes.

“I don’t know about that, Jamie.”

“But that would be a good adventure.” Jamie blinks heavily a couple of times, leaning more solidly into Beca.

“Yeah, it would sleepy boy. Come on now, why don’t you dream about that tonight, yeah?” She slips off the bed onto her knees to allow Jamie to lie down, and wraps his sheet around him more neatly as he closes his eyes. “And you can tell me all about your trip to the moon in the morning, okay?” Jamie nods ever so slightly, without opening his eyes. “Love you.”

Beca gets some news, the day before Chloe’s early morning flight. That afternoon has been officially designated Chloe Time ever since she'd started planning the trip properly weeks ago, with Jamie fully prepped about it. Beca can’t quite believe it’s come around so quickly, but here she is, greeting an excitable Chloe and wondering how she’s going to share the news without ruining the mood. Because Chloe’s practically bouncing, and Jamie, sponge that he is for anyone’s moods, naturally joins in, and somehow they’ve put music on and are having an impromptu dance party.

How is this her life? Beca has no idea. She doesn’t even know if she cares to pretend that she doesn’t love these silly parts of it, anymore.

But the frown her face had been contorted into all morning is gone instantly upon Chloe turning up at the door, and she doesn’t want to think about it, if that can be avoided. So she embraces the singing and laughter and silly games that come with hanging out with her best friend and her son, embracing them before they slip from her life for a little while and it becomes altogether quieter.

Chloe puts Jamie to bed again, that evening, and again his little hands fist into Chloe’s top, eyes wide as he pleads for “just another minute up, Mommy,” but Beca can tell that he’s already approaching over-tiredness, his eyes heavy-lidded and shining.

“Nope, come on, Chloe’s going to read you a story, then you can tell her all about the adventures on the moon you’re going to have when she gets back, yeah?”

“Mmm.” He nods enthusiastically.

“The moon, huh?”

“Yeah, we’re going there together. And Mommy too.”

“Of course.”

Then the pair of them step into Jamie’s bedroom so Beca can’t hear the rest of the conversation beyond soft mumbles, which eventually merge into the unmistakable sound of Chloe enthusiastically doing all the voices as she reads a Dr. Seuss story to Jamie, and she listens to the gentle background noise of the rhythmic rumble of Chloe’s voice, interspersed with Jamie’s giggles as she traipses around the slightly chaotic apartment putting things back in their places and the washing up from their pizza dinner in the sink. She’s leant by Jamie’s doorway as Chloe finishes up the book, not even pretending to be surreptitious as she takes in their comfortable chatter for the last time in ages.

“What shall I dream about tonight Chloe?”

“How about you dream about that trip to the moon.”

“I already did that.”

“Okay, how about you dream that you...Meet a friendly dragon in the forest, and he lets you ride on his back on an adventure around the world.”

“What’s the dragon’s name?”

“I don’t know, what do you think it should be?”

“Chloe.”

“You want to name the dragon Chloe?”

“It’s a nice dragon. A girl dragon.”

“Okay then. Well you dream about dragon me and-”

“It’s not dragon you, it’s just a dragon called Chloe.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Well you dream about that and I will too okay, and maybe we’ll see each other on our dream adventures, hmm?”

“Okay.”

“And time will fly by and it’ll feel like so soon when we see each other again, little man, especially if we have dream visits too.”

“Okay.”

“Gimme a kiss goodnight then.” Beca hears the unmistakeable smacking noise of Jamie giving a big, wet kiss.

“Love you,” Jamie says in his muffled, little boy voice, so that it come out like ‘luff’ in the way that always makes Beca wish he would say it like that forever.

“Love you too Jamie. Sleep tight and nice dreams okay?”

When Chloe re-emerges a few minutes later, Beca’s had enough thinking time to know that she has to say something about what’s on her mind.

“I got some news this morning, Chlo.”

“Mmm? Good news?”

“I got offered a promotion at work and-”

“Beca, that’s incredible, congratulations!” Chloe spins around to fully face Beca, a proud grin on her face and it makes Beca bashful, for a moment, to see it directed at her. But then she remembers how she’s supposed to be feeling about this promotion, and her face sets back into frown it was wearing all afternoon until Chloe showed up. Beca watches as Chloe’s joyful expression turns to a matching expression of concern when she sees that Beca’s not smiling. “Wait, why are you not happy about this?”

“Because I can’t accept it, I just can’t.”

“Beca-”

“No, don’t, Chloe.” And she can tell already, she’s ruining the jolly, excited mood of their evening and she wants to go back in time and not say anything and just mull over it alone, like she used to when things were just her and Jamie and much simpler (but lonelier, the voice in the back of her head adds).

“Bec-”

“It’s an extra day every week, it’s longer hours every day. It’s more responsibility so more chance of overtime-”

“And it’s more creativity, right? More control? More chance to actually make music? More everything that you want out of your job?” Chloe approaches Beca with every word, so that they’re nearly toe to toe when she stops. Beca takes a step back away.

“Chloe. Yes, I’d like that someday, but that bit’s not important.”

“How is that not important?”

“Because I have a son, Chloe, and I have to put him first. I made my choice and I don’t get to push him to the side now, just because of some job thing. It’s a job, he’s my son. He comes first every time, you have to understand that, Chloe.”

“I do, of course I do. But you’re not abandoning him if you take this promotion. You’d find a way to make it work, it’s not like you’d be sending him away to boarding school and never seeing him again, or working twelve hour days every day of the week. And you know I can take him an evening a week, if that helps, I don't mind. Have you spoken to your mom? There’s loads of options, Becs.” Chloe’s speaking fast, frantic, as though Beca’s mind needs to be changed right this very second, and it just makes her feel even more stressed about the whole thing for a moment. She closes her eyes and balls her hands into fists, trying to calm herself before she speaks again.

“I don’t want her to have to bail me out every two seconds. Or you. I’m an adult, I’m a parent. I can’t be relying on other people and shunting my problems onto them all the time.”

“Beca it’s not shunting, it’s sharing, and with people who want to help you.”

“Everything I do is to make sure he is happy. That's what I need. Nothing else can matter.”

“Are you happy though? Totally happy with your life? Because that does matter, Beca.”

Beca’s quite for a long while, staring at her feet. “It's not where I thought I’d be, with my career, not totally. But maybe I’m not as important any more. I have to think of him and what I want from life is for him to be happy.”

“But you still have to do you Beca.”

“I can't, Chloe, there's not enough hours in the day. I have to choose. And I choose him.”

“But the best thing you can do for him is to be happy and successful- however you choose to measure success- and to live life fully.” Chloe’s arms wave around with the voracity of her words, and it makes Beca’s heart beat faster as she closes her eyes and tries to take a deep breath before responding. It doesn’t do much to help the ferocity of how her next words come out.

“Well, then I’m doing a shit job, but you know what? I am trying. I am making him my priority and it feels like that's all I can right now. That's all there's room for and I don't know how to make it different okay? I don’t know how.”

Chloe’s face just looks more and more concerned with everything Beca says, her eyebrows a hard slant, lip held between her teeth, and that only serves to make her feel more frustrated, somehow. “You don’t always have to just be Jamie’s mom, you know? Sometimes you can just be Beca and that’s okay. You’re not letting him down or abandoning him or anything like that. I don’t even mean just with your job now, with everything in your life. You deserve to just be Beca. We can help you, there are so many people who would help you, if you asked, Becs. Don’t be afraid to give yourself a chance to be you.”

“Chloe, please, just stop.” Beca looks down at her feet again. She can feel that telltale tingling in the corner of her eyes, and she is one hundred percent sure she’s not going to let herself cry in front of Chloe but if she keeps looking at that concerned expression that she just doesn’t deserve she knows she’s going to.

“Just tell me you’ll at least think about it.”

“Chloe!” Beca knows that she’s being unfairly snappy, in that moment, and she hates herself for it. She knows she’s scared- about the promotion and what it means, sure, but also about being lonely for months when Chloe leaves. Chloe, her main confidant, her best friend, someone she’s come to rely on so, so much for companionship, for fun, for silly conversations and support. She knows it, but somehow she just can’t voice it to explain.

“Okay, okay. Look Beca, just…” Chloe pauses, and sighs deeply, and Beca can see her twist one of her feet around her ankle in the way she usually only does when she’s standing at the kitchen counter, washing up or helping Beca cook. “Just come and watch the rest of this episode with me. Before I go?”

Beca bites her lip, braving a look at Chloe again, taking in the furrow of her brow that she’s embarrassed to have caused, before nodding tentatively. “Sure.”

They sit further apart on the sofa than they have for months, and Beca’s aware of it the whole time they’re sat there, like it’s a flashing neon sign saying good job, Beca, you fucked up a great thing again by being an idiot! Soon Chloe’s not going to be there at all, for months, so just say sorry, she tells herself over and over again, but all that serves to do is make herself more frustrated at her stupid stubbornness that she can’t quite push past. She taps a nervous, complicated beat over her thighs with her fingers, barely taking in a word of the programme they’re watching.

When Chloe pushes herself up off the sofa to leave, it’s the most awkward they’ve been around one another probably ever, and Beca hates herself, in that moment, looking at Chloe’s wide, blue eyes and wishing she was not the sort of person that had the ability to make them look as sad as that.

“I have to go Beca.” Beca nods in response, trying once more not to cry, but this time she doesn’t even really know why.

“I...I’m going to….I’ll miss you, Chloe.” She has to look at her feet as she says it, eyes roving over the repeating pattern woven into her socks, feeling so ashamed of herself her belly aches a little.

“You too Beca.”

“Have a really great time?” She manages to look at Chloe for this, knows that she’ll regret it if she doesn’t make herself. Chloe’s chewing on the corner of her lip again, hands stuffed in her pockets as she plasters on a smile Beca knows is mostly forced, and Beca wishes for a second she could reach up and stop Chloe from hurting her lip like that, and put a real smile on her face.

Maybe crack a stupid joke.

Tell her sincerely how thankful she is to have such a great friend.

Or...apologise.

Anything but stand there in silence staring, which naturally is exactly what she does.

“Yeah. Yeah I will. I’ll send postcards, and I’ll put my pictures on Instagram and Facebook and, well, I’ll call you, yeah?”

“Yeah. That’d be nice. Thanks.”

Then Chloe envelops Beca in a tight hug, and Beca claws her fists into the back of Chloe’s t-shirt and doesn’t want to let go.

Beca goes straight to bed after Chloe’s left, finally letting her tears of frustration fall as soon as her face is pressed into the pillow, and wonders if this is how she ruins her friendship with Chloe. She spends the next few hours composing and deleting approximately thirty different variations of the same apologetic text message, and hates herself even more when she doesn’t have the courage to send any of them. Maybe it’ll be easier to apologise when Chloe is thousands of miles away, she ponders as she drifts into uneasy sleep.

She’s fallen asleep with tears in her eyes and her phone in her hand, so that when it vibrates and lights up suddenly just after four in the morning, she’s jolted awake immediately.

Chloe- Hey, I’m outside. Are you awake?

Beca urgently heaves herself out of bed, practically jogging to the front door. She’s not sure why she feels nervous, but her heart’s thumping loudly in her chest.

Chloe’s on the other side, wearing a large backpack and looking far more beautiful than anyone has any right to at this hour of the morning, especially when dressed simply in comfy travelling clothes, and Beca feels briefly self-conscious about the scruffy, just woken up state she’s in.

“I’m sorry it’s so early, I just couldn’t go when...you know.” Chloe bites her lip as she looks up at Beca questioningly, her eyes shining and hopeful.

Beca, still half asleep, just pulls her straight into a tight hug. Chloe’s giant bag is in the way, so Beca has to wrap her arms around Chloe’s neck, burying her face in the gathering of hair at Chloe’s shoulder and holding tight.

“I’m sorry,” she says, the sound muffled into Chloe’s hair, and Chloe pulls back just a little.

“No, Beca, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. It’s not fair to you at all, I know that you-”

“No, no, stop Chlo. You’re right, I know you are. It’s just...really, really hard.” Beca pauses, swallowing as she gathers her thoughts. “But it doesn’t mean you’re not right, just because it’s not the simplest option, you know?” Beca looks at Chloe, dropping her arms from around Chloe’s neck, and Chloe immediately grasps both her wrists in her cool hands, running a thumb over the soft skin. “I’m going to try. I’m going to try to give myself more of a chance to just be me.”

“I...Beca, I’m glad. You should.”

“I will, I promise.”

“Good. You deserve wonderful things Beca, you really are amazing.”

“I don’t know about that.” Beca looks down at her feet, shaking her head, and somehow not looking at Chloe makes it easier to say the next bit. “But sometimes you make me feel like I do. So, um, thanks I guess.”

“You’re very welcome.” Chloe’s smiling so warmly at Beca when she looks up again, and that- yes- that’s what she’s going to miss the most. “Becs, I...I should go, I asked another cab to come, and my plane-” She doesn’t bother finishing the sentence.

Rather than letting go of Beca’s hands, Chloe runs them up Beca’s arms and across her shoulders to wrap around her and pull her back into another tight embrace which Beca returns willingly, not loosening her arms until Chloe starts to pull away, and for a moment they just stand there, smiling at each other softly. Beca finds she doesn’t really want to let go of the couple of fingers of Chloe’s she’s somehow ended up with, wrapped in her hand.

“Have an amazing time, Chlo.”

“I will.” She nods confidently, grinning excitedly now, and Beca takes in her eyes and her smile and the wispy hairs around her forehead for the last time for a few months, eyes roaming over the familiar sight. Chloe just stares back, eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiles.

Then Chloe leans forward and presses a firm kiss to Beca’s cheek and it makes her stomach swoop to her toes for a moment, her grip on Chloe’s fingers tightening.

“And Becs?”

“...Yeah?” She’s surprised to hear her voice sounding oddly breathless.

“Have an amazing time too, yeah?”

“Okay,” Beca says, nodding, as Chloe starts to walk backwards down the hall and Beca’s forced to let go of her fingers at last. “Yeah. I will.”

Chapter Text

The next day Beca sits down to help Jamie complete a jigsaw puzzle, the radio blaring out a happy, summery tune in the background. “Do you miss me when I’m working lots?” She asks Jamie, careful not to make the question sound overly serious.

“Mmm, yes. But you always come back.” Jamie doesn’t even bother looking over at her, concentrating instead on working out which way around to place the giant piece he’s holding in his hand.

Later that day Beca rings the studio and tells them she’ll accept the promotion, and at the same time books out every day of holiday she has left for the year.

I feel bad about being hyper for so long and now I’ve gone and left you behind Chloe sends Beca over Facebook messenger later that day whilst she’s deathly bored sat in some airport somewhere waiting for a connecting flight.

Don’t be silly, don’t feel guilty about being excited. I’m used to being on my own, so it’s cool. I have other friends, you know ;-)

But none as cool as me

Duh
I wish I could get a chance to just be young and crazy with you for a while though

I’d really show you how to party

Yeah. I’m sure you would, it’s a terrifying thought actually

Do you think Jamie will forget me?

Are you serious?

...yeah

No, Chlo. I don’t think he would forget you even if you came back five years from now

:-)  Oh shoot I gtg my gate just got announced
Speak soon <3

Bye
Be safe, have fun

Beca takes Chloe’s words to heart.

She’s determined to try, to try and make time for herself amongst the chaos of single-handedly looking after a toddler, but it helps that she finds her satisfaction with work goes up almost immediately with the upgrade in her work situation, and the increased creativity the role comes with.

She’s not even sure why she’s so incredibly determined to prove that she can balance her life properly, other than she always imagines how proud Chloe’s face would look, if she could see Beca and Jamie right now and with that she keeps ploughing on, and trying, and having what she guesses Chloe would call 'adventures'.

There’s a day, a couple of weeks into her promotion, where not quite used to the increased workload she crashes when she gets home, head throbbing, and she just wants to curl up in a corner and deny any and all responsibility for just a day or two. Jamie is restless and noisy, bouncing off the walls and refusing to stay still for more than two seconds as he flits from room to room, stripping off items of clothing, for some reason, in various locations and leaving a trail of destruction behind his whirlwind form.

“Jamie, can you just be quiet for one minute, please,” she snaps, when Jamie ignores her first couple of requests to stop using two wooden spoons as drumsticks at the kitchen table, now dressed only in a hat and his pants.

Snapping at Jamie and nearly bursting into tears over the pot of pasta she’s boiling on the stove is the first time she really, truly misses Chloe.

But Chloe’s in Amsterdam, at that point, and Beca’s here in LA.

Then Jamie shuffles back over, as Beca’s wiping her face and draining the pasta into the sink, and he grabs onto her leg, stuffing his face into the worn fabric of her jeans.

“Maybe we can play drums tomorrow, Mom?”

Beca looks down at him, his eyes wide as he stares back, confused by her silence.

“...Mom?”

“Yeah. Yeah we can. Actually, we can do one better than that,” and she reaches out on the phone to send a quick text before plating up their dinner.

The next morning finds them standing outside Jesse’s sort-of apartment, and she’s never been more grateful that this nerd is so serious about making noise with his drums that he purposefully rented out the crummy couple of rooms above someone’s garage instead of a real apartment like normal people.

“Woah,” Jamie says when he first encounters the full size drum kit, squeezed into the corner of a room Beca thinks was probably meant as a closet before Jesse got his hands on it, clinging to Beca’s leg as though completely intimidated by it.

“Come on Jamie, you wanna play?” Jesse asks with a grin. He bites his lip, clinging tighter to Beca’s leg for a moment, suddenly shyer than Beca’s seen him in months. Jesse clambers around the awkwardly placed high hat to throw himself on the stool, grabbing two drumsticks and passing one out to Jamie, who tentatively takes a step forward to grasp it in his fist with the hint of a smile on his face.

Beca sits in Jesse’s sitting room whilst they mess around for hours, helpfully completing a couple of missions for him on Skyrim, and eating all the good snacks out of his kitchen.

When she gets home, Beca peels the first postcard she’d received from Chloe off the fridge. It’s sent from LAX, which is something that had made Beca’s eyes roll when she’d fished it out of her mailbox not two days after Chloe’d left, because why the fuck do they sell specifically airport-themed postcards anyway?

“Don’t forget to be BECA,” it says on one line. “ & have some ADVENTURES!!” on the next.

So she removes it from its position amongst the growing collection of postcards amongst Jamie’s drawings on the fridge, and sticks it the other way around, this time- picture to the wall- underneath the light switch in her bedroom.

And then somehow life becomes great just because it kind of is, and not because she’s trying to make Chloe happy in some weird, roundabout way. Exhausting, sure, and busy, but...she doesn’t even need Chloe’s reminder any more, though the sight of it makes her smile every morning nonetheless. She guesses she doesn’t have to try so much, anymore.

It’s Jesse that makes her realise this, in the end. And if anything great has come from Chloe going away, it’s her realisation that she does have some pretty great friends, all along.

And maybe if she’d stopped being so Beca-ish about everything earlier, she’d have realised that sooner.

But regardless, it’s Jesse who notes that she seems different.

“You’re happy.”

“What?”

“You’re happy, it’s weird,” he says one day in their office, kicking his heels up to stop the spinning chair he’s being playing around in from going around a third time.

“Um.” Beca puts her coffee down to peer at him strangely between their computer screens.

“I mean, good weird, but still weird. I always figured that you were, I guess. I mean, you have Jamie and your music, and you know the wondrous man that is me and we get to interact on a regular basis, but now it’s weird. You’re like...oozing it.” Jesse raises his hands up as he says the words, wiggling them in front of him in the air.

“Ew, Jesse.”

“You are.”

“Oozing?”

“Yep.” At this point, Fat Amy walks back into the room holding a stack of papers with a lidless paper coffee cup perched precariously on top of them. The set up partially obscures her face as she reaches out blindly for the desk in front of her, before Beca and Jesse both hop up to assist. “Isn’t Beca oozing, Ames?”

“Duh. It’s almost gross, actually.”

“It is gross when you keep saying oozing,” Beca whines, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Oozing,” Amy repeats. “Mmm, good word Jess.”

“Oozy ooze.”

“The oozer is oozing the ooze.”

“Dude! Stop! I’m trying to eat.”

“Ooze, stop, she’s trying to ooze!”

“Just say it Beca, just say that you’re oozing!”

“Say it Beca! SAY IT!”

“Fine, fine, I’m oozing, now shut up! Fuck, I never want to hear that word ever again.” They’re all agreeably silent for a couple of minutes, settling back into work, when Amy whispers “Ooze,” and all bets are off as Beca throws her nearest writing utensil over the top of their screens towards Amy’s face.

She visits the beach with Jamie multiple times over the summer and they swim in the ocean and build sandcastles so epic that people walking past stop to admire them.

Jesse and Chloe’s roommate Maya accompany them on one of these trips, because that’s somehow a thing now, and Beca wonders with a sly smile how Chloe will react to that little snippet of news when she next email updates her. Jesse and Jamie set about building the most epic sand kingdom Jamie has ever seen, and he doesn’t stop bouncing the whole day, rushing around collecting pebbles and shells to decorate it with, running back and forth to the edge of the ocean to fill up his little bucket over and over again in increasingly futile, but unerringly optimistic, attempts to fill the castle’s moat.

Beca writes a song with words for the first time, and though she’s not sure she’ll ever let anyone hear these first attempts, she’s glad to have put anything like that down on paper at all, instead of just leaving the words swimming hopefully and secretly in the back of her mind.

She teaches Jamie the very basics of the music programme she uses on her laptop at home, and together they create a mash up of the Adventure Time and Thomas the Train themes that has Jamie rolling around with peals of laughter, especially the part where Beca replaces the name “Finn” with a recording of Jamie saying his own name. She records some tracks with her singing and Jamie doing silly backing vocals, and tries to teach him the rap part of No Diggity to send to Chloe on her birthday.

Chloe spends her birthday in Budapest, and once again tries to ruin Beca’s eardrums with the voracity of her squeal when they Skype late in Chloe’s evening (it’s barely lunchtime where Beca is) and for a moment Beca feels really, really far away from her. But it’s the first time they’ve seen each other’s faces in weeks and so Beca can’t keep the smile off her face at the blurry, pixelated sight of Chloe lounging on a hostel bunk in pyjamas, as though there’s not actually an ocean, a continent and several thousand miles between them.

Beca takes Jamie into the studio on a Saturday, and her, Jamie, Jesse and Amy record a weird dance style track that has Jamie singing terrible lead vocals on. It makes Jamie laugh for days when he hears it playing back at him. It truly is awful. But they eat pizza in the studio, secretly and rebelliously, and turn the music up achingly loud, and by the time Jamie falls asleep sat upright at the desk on the spinning office chair, Beca’s belly and face are aching from too much laughter.

She takes Jamie on a mini-adventure- their first ever holiday- all on her own. They spend their days at the beach and walking around the harbour and waterfront of Santa Barbara, choosing which of the boats they’d have, if they could just have one, as Jamie comments on every single new thing he sees and becomes insistent he’s going to be a “boat driver” when he grows up. That is of course until they go to the zoo and he remembers his desire to be a penguin keeper (though that wavers again when they visit the sea center and he encounters jellyfish for the first time. “Mommy! That animal looks like a pretend thing! Can I be one? You know, when I’m big?”)

“But I want to have purple stripes!” Is Jamie’s heartbroken response when Beca suggests that becoming a jellyfish might not be entirely possible, so she relents easily.

“You know what? You would have such great purple stripes, I bet they would let you be a jellyfish.”

“Cool,” Jamie says, disappointment immediately replaced by a lopsided grin as he trots off to peer into the next tank.

Sometime in early August Beca takes Jamie to stay with her mom for a whole five days. She uses the time home alone utterly unproductively, as was always her plan, and slobs out on the sofa in sweatpants, eating cheetos, binge watching Orange is the New Black with the curtains closed against a bright summer’s day, and going out to get drunk with Jesse and Amy and the rest of the gang from work. She drinks shots and makes out with someone whose name she immediately forgets on the dancefloor of a Sunset Strip bar. It's fun. It's perfect. It's twenty five.

Beca’s mom, for her part, is thrilled to get so much quality time with her only grandchild, so they arrange to do the same thing again in a couple of months, and Beca marks it on her calendar with unbridled glee. Beca’s not felt this weirdly relaxed since she was dating that guy back in her late teens with the never ending supply of weed and a penchant for baking (Ro, she thinks his name was. She's not even sure what it was short for).

Chloe comes back just a couple of weeks before school starts again. By this point both Jamie and Beca have received at least a half dozen postcards each, detailing various highlights of Chloe’s many and varied adventures, all of which are stuck up on the fridge amongst Jamie’s drawings. His repertoire has increased vastly at this point, expanding to include jellyfish, boats, fish, dogs and even (just the once) actual people, as well as his signature trains and penguins. Beca, for one, is really appreciating this new diversity in her fridge decor.

When Beca finally throws open the door to Chloe, after fidgeting around the house for the whole day to the extent that even Jamie had said “Mama, just sit down ,” exasperatedly at her, she can feel her hands shaking a little.

And then there she is, looking perfectly sunkissed and freckly, her hair much lighter than Beca remembers, streaks of strawberry blonde peeking out from the messy bun it’s thrown up in. But Beca doesn’t get much of a chance to take in more than that, at that moment, because then her eardrums are assaulted by one of her now signature squeals, and Beca’s being swept up in a tight hug that lifts her from the ground. She basks in the feeling, for a moment, of Chloe back in her apartment, in her arms. It’s pretty nice.

Then it’s Jamie’s turn, and he’s shy for about two seconds, standing politely next to Beca in his shorts and socks (Beca’s not sure at what point between her getting up to answer the door and now he lost his shirt, but oh well) and then he’s being swept off his feet too and spun around.

“Um, hi,” Chloe says, when she’s done spinning, her cheeks a little flushed now from the excitement and exertion.

“Hi,” Beca grins back.

It’s almost an ordeal, when Chloe tries to put Jamie down. He clings to her shirt, pulling the fabric into tight bunches in his fists.

“No, no, no, no.”

“Okay then little guy. You can stay. I’m not going anywhere.”

She's got practically a whole bag full of gifts for Beca and Jamie, some of which she's carried in her rucksack for literally months. Jamie’s eyes grow especially wide when Chloe produces a Kinder Egg, a mythical chocolate his mom had told him about from her one trip to London in her teenage years.

“There’s a toy?” He says, biting his lip briefly. “Inside the chocolate?” When Chloe nods at him he suddenly rearranges the egg in his hands, holding it now in his palms as though it’s utterly precious. “Woah.”

When Beca tells Chloe about her and Jamie’s adventures, and the songs she’s written and trips she’s taken, enthusing and waving her arms about with her stories, Chloe beams back with pride, as though Beca’s run a marathon or saved someone’s life. It’s exactly how Beca hoped it would go, and it makes her whole body feel warm.

They eat takeaway pizza at the kitchen table and listen to Chloe ramble excitedly about castles and beaches and the people she’s met from Ireland, Brazil, Australia, Japan. The bikes she rode around Amsterdam and Bucharest. The mountain she walked up in Spain. Beca is just overwhelmed with the thrill of having Chloe back. It feels like nothing’s changed- except actually, no. That’s not true. It’s better.

“Did you see any jellyfish?” Jamie asks excitedly.

Chloe manages to only look confused for a moment before answering “Actually, yeah, I did, J. We were swimming in the ocean and there were a whole load of them floating nearby.”

“Wow. Jellyfish are cool.”

It’s a hyperactive and chatty few hours as they nibble at the pizza in slow-motion, talking and listening and sharing stories, whilst Jamie flits between the table, to insert comments about the new friend he made in preschool, or ask Chloe to show him where Austria is in his atlas. Beca can’t stop smiling, and she thinks Chloe’s going to worry she’s gone mad, in the few months since they last saw each other, if she doesn’t reign in her face soon. But then she looks at Chloe’s smile again, at how her eyes seem even shinier when there’s a tan on her face, and she can’t help it. It’s futile.

Besides, Chloe and Jamie are doing exactly the same thing, so.

Later, when lunch has been cleared away and they’re all coming down from their bouncily hyper states, they settle instead in the living area, Beca in the armchair, finding music to put on from her laptop, whilst she watches Chloe on the rug next to Jamie, teaching him a clapping game before he skips off to find something else to show her.

Chloe pulls her hair out of its messy bun, throws her head back as she pulls her fingers through it roughly, and Beca watches- watches as the red curls splay over Chloe’s shoulders, as her neck stretches back, and her fingers as they move so purposefully. She watches as Chloe moves her head back down and makes eye contact with Beca again. As a smile forms on Chloe’s face. Watches as the corners of Chloe’s eyes crinkle, how the freckles across her cheeks are distorted slightly by the movement. And, because there is nothing else she thinks she’d be able to do in that moment, Beca smiles back. She feels the warmth of the smile she’s giving spread deep into her bones.

Beca knows where this sudden compulsion to look- to just take Chloe in- is coming from. Somehow she hadn’t noticed how much she’d missed Chloe’s physical presence in a room.

Beca was aware, of course, that she missed talking with Chloe, doing things with Chloe, taking Jamie places with Chloe, but this, no. This is something else, and it makes her insides squirm not-unpleasantly. She’d had no idea that she missed Chloe , the physical living being that is Chloe inhabiting a room, But she sure is aware of it now, and her eyes can’t help but stare, as though they’re topping up on what they missed out on. Chloe’s renewed presence in the room (in her life) hits her like a thud as she observes her movements in more detail than she ever has before. As Beca basks in whatever Chloe is radiating outwards that makes Beca feel a weight in her belly, a contentedness.

Chloe is, somehow, both comforting and intoxicating.

Chloe, sat comfortably on the floor, has her attention fully taken up by the small boy who has no qualms about showing her how much playtime she needs to catch up on. So she’s obligingly taking part in some imaginary scenario he’s set up, that seems to involve clambering over her knees and touching his little hands to her face as often as possible. The sun’s so bright in the sky today that Beca had left the voile curtain pulled across the open window of the living room, and the way the light filters through it gently casts a haze over the scene.

And Beca watches. Chloe’s quiet now- a lot quieter than Beca imagined she’d be (but then maybe Chloe’s thinking the same about her too, or maybe they’ve just got all their talking out in a rush of overexcitement) but there’s a gentle smile that never leaves her face. Every now and then she looks up from her interactions with Jamie and makes eye contact with Beca. Her smile seems even warmer somehow when she does so, and it floods Beca with a happiness she feels tingling through her limbs.

It’s all Beca can do to smile back. And so she does, over and over and over.

Shit. I’m in love with Chloe, Beca thinks, and the revelation’s like a warm glow spreading from her belly to the tips of her fingers.

She sits there, utterly still, aware of her heart thumping everywhere in her body somehow, taking in this information her brain’s kindly just supplied her with. Holy shit. I love her, I actually love her.

And she grins, when Chloe looks up at her again and sticks her tongue out for the briefest of moments.

She wonders if something’s changed in her face, as she looks at Chloe now. Really looks at her, because Chloe furrows her brow ever so slightly as if to ask if Beca’s okay. But Beca just smiles again and shakes her head slightly in response, before dropping to the floor to sit next to Chloe. She decides to take a page out of her son’s openly affectionate book for once, and okay maybe it’s mostly selfish because she’s been struck by the desire that she really just needs to be touching Chloe a little bit right now, actually, or she might combust.

So she sits down right next to her, grabs Chloe’s hand in hers and feels the warmth of it, the warmth of this hand of this person who she (oh my god) who she loves grounding her, as Jamie, now splayed partially over both their laps, babbles about the class trip he’d taken with daycare last week to the splash park. Chloe, for her part, grips the hand back just as tightly and they sit there together for a long while.

“What’s up with you today Becs? I thought you’d be bouncing off the walls Jamie-style to have your Chloe back.” They’re standing in the little smoking yard out the back of the studio, though neither of them smoke, because it’s a lovely day and Jesse had dragged her out there on their break claiming “I promised your mother I’d keep your vitamin D topped up, and she can be scary when she wants to be, so don’t leave me to her wrath, please.”

“She’s not my Chloe.” Beca can feel her cheeks flush at that, at the weird warmth it spreads through her body. “But, um, can I talk to you about something?” Jesse takes a few steps closer to her, holds the back of his hand to her forehead, which Beca swats away with a smile.

“Are you sure you’re not ill or dying? Where’s that Beca I know and love who’d let herself get eaten by rabid crocodiles before share an actual emotion?” Jesse’s grinning, looking not even secretly thrilled.

“Shut up. You’ve been spending too much time with Amy. And I talk about things.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Shut up.” Jesse takes an overdramatic sigh, plonking himself down on the small bench and patting the spot next to him, which Beca obediently takes.

“So, what’s up with Chloe?”

“It’s not...how did you- what?”

“Ha!” Jesse claps his hands together like an excitable seal. “It is about Chloe. Come on, talk to Uncle Jesse.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, it’s weird when you call yourself that and-”

“-And I’m not even half as handsome or cool or smouldering as John Stamos, I know, I know.”

“And your beardy man stubble-”

“And my beardy man stubble looks like a person without access to proper grooming equipment whereas on him it looks dashingly handsome, I know, we’ve been over this many times. Come on, Beca, spill.”

“Right. Okay.” Beca takes a little time to compose herself, staring down at the scruffy, almost worn-through toes of her Converse, and nibbling on her lip. “Um I kind of realised a thing? Like uh. I think I might be in love with Chloe a little bit.” She rushes the sentence out, the first time she’s said it out loud, and looks up at Jesse with her heart thumping hard in her chest. The overexcited joy and shock on his silly face somehow gives her the confidence to ramble on, wringing her hands together. “And I think I should be terrified, but I’m not, so instead I’m a tiny bit terrified about the fact that I’m not terrified, and just like, maybe talk me down here dude.”

She looks up at him with wide eyes, now gnawing nervously on her left thumbnail. Jesse’s expression is what can only be described as utterly gleeful.

“Oh em gee! Beca!”

“You did not just say that, seriously, Jesse I-”

“Calm down, calm down, it was the only thing that felt appropriate ok, keep your hair on.”

“I am. I think. I don’t know. I can’t tell if I’m panicking or not?” Beca’s forehead twists and furrows, her face looking decidedly panicked.

“Beca this is...this is great. You don’t have to second guess yourself about everything you know? You can just let yourself feel stuff. Sometimes it really is just simple.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. I really do. You know Beca, the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.” He puts on a voice as he says it, like he really is in some kind of romantic comedy.

“Ew. Did you just quote a movie at me?”

“She has bewitched you body and soul.”

“Jesse, you are the soppiest motherfucker, I swear to God, what is wrong with you-”

“If she’s a bird, you’re a bird.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she had to walk into yours.”

Beca just gapes at that one. “What even..? Are you trying to suggest that I should use some of these lines on Chloe?”

Jesse sits down again abruptly, with a heavy thud. “No, you should just act like Beca with Chloe. Beca is what she likes.” He looks at Beca with a more serious expression briefly, before the crooked grin falls back into place. “She thinks your imperfections are the good stuff,” Jesse adds in that airy voice again, waving his arms around.

“I just don’t even know what you’re saying anymore, Jess.” Beca shakes her head, taking a deep breath whilst Jesse throws his head back and laughs hard. “But this is a good thing right? I mean, it feels like a good thing.”

“Beca it’s an amazing thing. I mean...I’ve seen the way you two interact, there’s obviously something there. There always has been. So you’re going to tell her right?”

Beca looks at Jesse for a long moment, trying to process that information and to swallow down her fear.

“Yeah. Yeah I think I am.”

Chapter Text

Chloe’s nervous, on her way to Beca’s apartment for the first time in months.

She’s not sure why, but there’s something roiling in her belly as she makes the drive across from the apartment she’d barely spent a couple of hours in. Just enough time to shower and throw all the clothes from her rucksack into a massive pile of laundry to do some other day, ring her mom then sit and jiggle anxiously until a time that seemed more acceptable to visit Beca. As in, not barely hours after landing back on US soil. Because that might be weird, even for Chloe. But she’s restless and excited for it, practically vibrating with nervous energy she can’t explain.

The three cups of coffee to conquer the jetlag probably aren’t helping.

 By the time Chloe arrives at Beca’s front door, she’s got herself into an over-caffeinated anxious mess, convinced that in the intervening time Beca will have reverted ten steps in their friendship, and she’ll have to start all over again with getting her feeling comfortable in Chloe’s presence.

But the instant the door opens and she sees the grin on Beca’s face she knows that hasn’t happened at all, and she lets herself sink into the warm familiarity of the whole situation. The comfort of being back here, in LA, with one (two) of her favourite people, of being back home. Of shucking the weight of her rucksack off her shoulders and enjoying some of the simpler pleasures again, after a summer of relative decadence in her adventuring.

The way Beca looks at her, that day and those after it, like she’s just utterly thrilled to have Chloe back, make her feel happier about herself, as a person, than any look she thinks anyone’s ever really given her before. She feels important, and special.

Cal used to have a look, one that makes her heart ache when she remembers it, lying in the bath a few days after arriving home. It was a look that made her heart feel funny, like they were always on the cusp of something spectacular. It gives her a sudden swoop of sadness, to think of it. His bright, soft eyes. His smile. That feeling it used to give her, tingling over her body.

It’s just an echo of a feeling now, a memory. She feels the ghost of it, of that feeling, like it’s just barely touching her, sending a soft shiver down her spine in the cooling water.

It’s weird, to have once loved someone, and feel it slipping away, to be replaced with some other kind of feeling. Some other kind of love.

Beca’s look is somewhat like that, she figures, scrubbing a loofah over the tanned skin of her back and nearly dislodging the glass of wine set carefully on the side of the tub. The way Cal’s used to be.

Like she’s excited, and can’t quite hold it in. Like Chloe is somehow super interesting to her, for some reason.

It makes Chloe feel warm and satisfied, to think that she could be that important to Beca, and she can’t help but smile as she brings the wine glass to her lips to drain the last drops, wondering if Beca gets that, from how Chloe looks at her .

She hopes she does.

She deserves it, Chloe thinks.

They fall back into their routine with practised ease, as though no time passed at all. Except there’s something different, as though they sunk even further into their friendship somehow, in the process of separating and then reuniting.

 At least, that’s how she tries to explain it to Maya over dinner one evening. Maya’s sharing details about her last date with Jesse which, naturally, had made Chloe squeal with joy when she’d heard the news, this strange crossover of her friend groups into one joined-up mishmash of people. It makes Chloe vibrate with excitement- it’s the kind of thing she lives for, these new human connections, of friendship and like and love, forming and developing newly every day. Life and humans are just so exciting and she can’t help that feeling from bubbling up and fizzing out sometimes, especially with the sweet delight of new relationships.

 So Chloe’s hyper, during their dinner, listening to tales about Jesse, with all this buzzing in her head. It spills out of her brain in her babbling about her trip, then Beca, and Las Ramblas, and Beca, and Neuschwanstein Castle, and Jamie, and Beca, and-

She’s so caught up in the conversation that she doesn’t even notice Maya’s smile get wider and wider as she chatters away contentedly.

“So, Lovely, when are you going to do something about it?” Maya’s put her cutlery down to lean her elbows on the table, chin resting on her hands, a teasing look in the crooked smile she’s wearing.

“About what?” Chloe pauses her fork halfway to her mouth.

“Beca.” 

“Beca what?”

“Chloe, Sweetie, tell me you know about this giant crush that you have?”

“Wait, what?” She drops the fork awkwardly, so it clatters against the china and spreads a splat of sauce onto the table.

“Aw, shit, you didn’t? Chlo I-”

“Are you serious?” 

“Chlo.” Maya reaches a hand between the two wine glasses on the table to hold onto Chloe’s wrist. “You talk about her all the time.”

“She’s my best friend!”

“You went to see her two seconds after you were back home.”

“I missed her, she’s my best friend!” 

“Okay. Just...maybe think about it, okay?”

Chloe looks at Maya for a second, chewing on her lip, and Maya stares back determinedly, eyebrows raised. “Maya.”

“Chlo.”

Chloe takes a deep breath and exhales slowly as she tries to right her weirdly thumping pulse. “Right. Sure. Yeah. I guess I’ll...think about it.”

By the time she clambers into bed that night, she’s beginning to wonder if she’s actually going to be able to think anything but that, for the rest of time.

The more she thinks about it, the more she can’t stop thinking about it, until it’s a constant in the back of her mind, running over and over.

To the extent that the next day, when she’s driving to Beca’s she feels nervous again, wondering if these thoughts are going to somehow spread into Beca’s mind. If she’s going to do or say something weird, or telepathically communicate her crush through her eyes.

If it even is a crush at all? Maybe she’ll be able to tell when she sees her.

And this is what’s going through her head as Beca opens the door to her, and the minute Beca opens the door, Chloe knows Maya was right.

Because now she’s aware of it, she can feel how quickly and vehemently the smile grows on her face. How her heartbeat races a little bit when she pulls Beca into their customary greeting hug.

How she doesn’t really want to let go.

How when she does let go, she can’t stop looking.

How the compulsion to touch Beca is stronger than ever, and she grips her fingers into fists in an effort to hold back, just a little, even though it goes against every instinct she knows, especially when she sees Beca’s eyes flit nervously to the tight fists, before returning to Chloe’s face with a slightly smaller smile.

Chloe leans down to pull off her shoes, but Beca reaches forward, grabbing the arm that reaches down to stop her.

“No, don’t.” Beca pulls back again, letting go, looking red and flustered, and it makes Chloe feel weird. Some kind of emotion she doesn’t fully recognise, pulling at her belly, all tingly and nervous and excited. “Um. We’re going somewhere. If that’s okay.”

“Yeah, of course. Where’s Jamie?”

“Oh. He’s hiding. Apparently you have to find him.” Beca smiles warmly at Chloe, rolling her eyes. “He’s under his bed,” Beca adds with a whisper. “So don’t go in there yet.”

Chloe grins at Beca, and immediately and loudly starts calling out for Jamie as she dramatically stomps around to find him, and for a while every worry is gone from her head again.

Once a brightly giggling Jamie has been extracted and wiped down from his dusty hiding place, and the trio are safely strapped into Beca’s car, Chloe finally thinks to ask where they’re going. 

“Um. It’s kind of a surprise, but we’ll be there soon, so.” 

“Ooh. Okay. I love surprises.”

Beca tilts her head towards Chloe as they stop at a red light, smiling in a soft way that makes a small shiver run down Chloe’s back, even though it’s ridiculously warm in the car because Beca’s air conditioning is broken. She tries to look normal as she smiles back, before reaching behind her to tickle Jamie’s knees and try to teasingly extract information from him as to their destination.

She doesn’t really care.

She does love surprises, and she’d go anywhere, with these two, she thinks.

Even so, when they pull up into the empty car park of Beca’s studio, she is surprised.

“We’re going here?”

Beca looks sort of nervous, as if unsure, for some reason, how Chloe would respond. “Yeah, if you want to. It’s empty. I’m allowed to ‘practise’ at the weekend. I, uh, know you love to sing, so I thought...you might want to practise with me?” She looks at Chloe with a hopeful crooked smile.

Chloe’s mouth falls open. “In a real recording studio?”

“Yeah, if you want to.”

Chloe doesn’t bother with words, just screeches, as she flings herself towards Beca to wrap her arms around her neck.

“I take it you’re in, then?” Beca replies, laughing into Chloe's hair.  

“Duh. Of course I am, idiot.” 

“Idiot!” Jamie adds helpfully from his car seat, as Beca tries to look less embarrassed and flustered, eyes turning to meet Chloe’s, then rapidly flitting away again several times before she reaches to her door handle and misses, her cheeks warm and pink as she does so, and Chloe watches as Beca tries twice more to grasp it firmly before instead using two hands to free herself. Beca doesn't make eye contact with Chloe again until they are safely through the maze of locked doors and hallways, and inside one of the studios.

Jamie immediately settles in, doing a running loop of the room that involves him climbing over the same chair twice, and squeezing behind a lamp to complete his circuit properly.

“We’re going to sing, sing, sing, sing, sing,” he narrates as he zooms around wildly before coming to a halt grasping his arms around Chloe’s legs. Beca settles into her desk chair, looking completely at home in a way that makes Chloe swell with an odd sort of pride as she switches on computers and unwinds headphone cords.

“Can you help with my shoes?” Jamie leans up from his position resting his head on Chloe’s thigh to look at her as he speaks, and Chloe can’t help but scoop him up to carry him over to the sofa, jiggling him about her arms as she walks so that he bounces and giggles sweetly.

She loves this little guy. 

And the trusting, open way he looks at her as she loosens his laces so he can slip the shoes off himself is one she’s starting to see on Beca’s face more and more often. She tries to picture how Beca herself might have looked, when she was a small and silly as Jamie, wonders whether Beca was as open as her son is once, before life got harder and she started to grow up. 

“Your shoes are so little, J," she says, holding up his scruffy converse, minatures of the ones his mom wears almost every day. "But they’ll be as big as your mom’s ones some day.”

“No, bigger!”

“Yeah, you’re probably right actually.” She takes a minute to tickle at his stripy-socked feet, making him wriggle and laugh, before pulling him into a quick cuddle that he accepts easily. “Just remember to always stay this little on the inside, okay?”

Jamie scrunches up his nose, looking at Chloe’s strangely serious expression with interest. “I don’t understand.” 

“Sorry. It doesn’t matter, little man.” Chloe smiles to assuage his worries, tapping him on the nose, caught just as off guard as Jamie by this sudden bout of feeling. When she turns to look at Beca, who at some point had finished setting up and started watching them instead, there’s the strangest expression on her face, one that Chloe doesn’t recognise or know how to read, but it grows slowly into a smile as Chloe approaches. 

Beca reaches out for Chloe’s wrist as she starts to talk, wraps her fingers around it gently.

“Thank you.”

“What for?” Now Chloe’s really confused.

“For, uh, loving Jamie, I guess.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s hard not too. Loving him is the easiest thing.” Chloe’s laugh has a hint of nervousness to it, and she thinks the one Beca replies with does too, as she basks in the feeling of Beca’s hand on her arm.

Chloe always feels a compulsion to be near to people, to feel the warmth of their skin and their aliveness under her hands. It’s the most wonderful part of being alive, she thinks, to be aware of that fact, and aware of the fact that you’re sharing that with other people, here with you in every way, occupying your space. Sharing in your life physically and mentally. It grounds her, those touches, in space and time. So she doesn’t float away in her excitement.

She’s not really sure where that comes from or if it’s just some kind of Beale trait she came pre-programmed with. She’s never questioned it before, that need to be close to people. But now she’s second guessing every compulsion she has to touch Beca, and to be near her. Questioning the way her heart thumps harder when Beca’s fingers ghost gently over the skin of her wrist.

Questioning why she feels a strong compulsion to always be near Beca, more than any other human that she likes. Why not touching her feels like the worst thing ever, as though there’s something drawing them together that she’s having to physically resist.

 Questioning what it means when Beca looks like she’s about to say something else, before shaking her head and smiling warmly at Chloe, why the way Beca looks at her, as she lets go of the wrist and starts explaining the equipment makes her feel...something.

But soon all that gets lost in the excitement of the day again, as Beca falls into the comfort and fun of doing what she loves, and Chloe internally squeals at the idea of singing in a real recording studio, especially after Beca dutifully lists a bunch of people, some of whom Chloe has heard of, who have shared the microphone before her.

When they’re ready, and Chloe has been led into the eerily quiet space that Beca’s studio looks into, she can see Jamie happily sitting on his mom’s lap, wearing a much too big pair of headphones that match Beca’s. 

“Chlo, can you hear me?” Beca says into her own microphone once Chloe’s slipped on her own pair of headphones.

“Yeah. Wow. Hi,” Chloe responds with an excited giggle, practically shaking with nervous energy as she bounces up and down on the spot to let some of it out.

“Okay, you’ll be able to hear the backing track in your ears, okay, Chlo? And you know when to come in.”

“Sure, yeah. Okay. Let’s do it.”

She watches as Beca leans down to Jamie to say something she can’t hear. Then Jamie’s voice sounds in her ear, bright and loud. 

“Take it away, Chlo,” Jamie says into his microphone. Chloe watches as Beca’s face morphs into the most beautiful, warm grin, and she kisses the top of Jamie’s head before leaning across him to fiddle with some buttons. Then the music starts playing through Chloe’s headphones and she takes a deep breath and starts to sing.

The thoughts never quite leave the back of her mind, even once Chloe’s back at school, kept busy with a new cohort of fifth graders to corral into learning and reading and singing and “reaching their vast and limitless potential!” As the principal likes to declare in their all-staff meeting at the start of every new term.

She still doesn’t quite know what to do with these thoughts. How to address them or understand them, not in the context of her and Beca. What does it mean that she can’t stop thinking about her?

That there’s this fuzzy image of Beca’s face that just seems to be permanently etched into her subconscious, so it’s always there, ready to be returned to when her mind empties of anything else? That thoughts of touching her consume her mind even when they’re not together, now. She longs to feel the comfort of that warm body under her hands so much it makes her skin crawl, sometimes. Especially at night, when she’s lying in the darkness with just her thoughts and the glow of the streetlamp outside her window for company.

What does it mean that Beca’s texts make her grin, and that her phone calls without exception make Chloe’s whole day better? That she longs for the weekend, just so she can share a physical space with Beca again. Just so she can maybe get to touch her hair, or face if she’s feeling cheeky enough. So she can see how long Beca will let her hug her for this time. So that she can hold Beca’s hand as they watch television and feel the pulse rushing in Beca’s wrist.

So she can look at her, as much as physically possible, and try to unwrap what it means when she looks over, and Beca’s already there, staring back.

What does it mean that she can’t stop thinking about how she kind of actually, really wants to know what it might be like to kiss her. 

And this is new, to feel this for a friend. For someone who she thought was just a friend, no matter how deep she knows those feelings of friendship to run. 

Only maybe she was wrong?

Because yes, Chloe usually goes what she wants, all in. Whether for a job or a stranger she wants to compliment on the street, or someone she wants to be friends with, or someone she wants to date. There’s no hesitation, no gradual process of change or courage. Chloe just does. Goes and gets and is and loves and lives.

She’s brave. Always the first to run along the jetty and jump in, to shout back how the water’s lovely! And wait for others to follow her in, confident that they will.

So what Chloe has with Beca sneaks up on her. So somehow, even through this gradual process of awakening, as she’s taken to calling it in her mind, the moment she realises that it’s not just a full-blown crush is still a surprise.

It’s not just an infatuation because Beca’s her best friend and kind of beautiful, actually, in every way, and that these things had somehow become muddled in her head. It’s not that Chloe just loves to love, and has clung on to anyone who might just love her back. It’s not just that Beca is really pretty, okay, and who wouldn’t be sort of really weirdly desperate to kiss her? 

No, it’s not just that. (Or maybe it’s exactly that, and all those things.)

Regardless, when she realises she’s in love with Beca it comes as such a shock she stands up from her position at the sofa in Beca’s apartment, mouth gaping. But it’s so certain, so absolute, that she doesn’t question it for a second.

Everything just suddenly makes sense.

It happens on a normal day. There’s nothing special about it at all, but those, Chloe has come to realise, are the kind of days she likes best. The days where they just exist comfortably in each other’s presence, making the day nicer just for being together. The days when they feel like a family. And it’s at that second, the moment the word family crosses her mind, a fleeting, involuntary thought, that Chloe realises. Realises that she wants them to be her family.

No- more than that. They already feel like they are.

Only there’s one important thing missing. 

She doesn’t kiss Beca.

She doesn’t share a bed with Beca.

She doesn’t wake up every morning and prepare breakfast for them all together, or hold Beca’s hand whilst they walk around the park, or help fold Jamie’s laundry, or kiss Beca’s neck and run her fingers across her cheekbones and her lips and-

But she really, really wants to.

She thinks about the way Beca has been looking at her the past few weeks, as though she holds the secrets to the universe, or something equally precious and joyful and fascinating, and suddenly something clicks into place so fiercely that Chloe’s stomach feels like it flips inside out.

Suddenly she has no idea why she isn’t doing any of those things. Or why she’s been fighting away that feeling for weeks now, since Maya first brought it up.

And it’s at that moment that Beca returns to the room to see Chloe standing in the middle of the rug, mouth gaping with the shock of it all. Of how obvious it all is.

“Chlo?” Beca’s eyebrows knit together slightly, aware instantly that there’s something up, something different (but really, no, not different at all).

I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you runs through Chloe’s head like an old record, stuck on a loop, and she has to fight not open her mouth at that moment, afraid of what might unwittingly spill out. So she nods, smiles, reaches out for Beca’s hand. So she takes deep breaths once she feels the calming effect of Beca’s soft skin between her fingers, and finally responds.

“Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.” She smiles at Beca and Beca returns it slowly, not entirely convinced. “No, I’m actually- uh. I’m really great. Actually. Really great.”

Beca smiles properly now, winding her fingers into Chloe’s so they’re properly holding hands. “Okay. Good.” They both turn to look as Jamie comes bouncing out of his bedroom, and Chloe feels another pang of something in her belly, because God, she loves this little guy too, and she wants to look after and protect both of them.

“You ready?” Beca asks Chloe once Jamie is stood impatiently by the door, tapping his tiny Converse against the doormat as he wriggles.

“Yeah. Let’s do it.” 

They start their walk down to the car still holding hands, Jamie skipping in front, and Chloe can’t stop thinking about it, feeling the lingering excitement of the fact that they’re still touching taking over her brain like a siren blaring, drowning out every other sound. She wonders if Beca’s doing the same thing. If she’s even noticed.

If she minds.

If she likes it?

And that’s the first time she thinks about the fact that maybe Beca could love her back. She’d been so ready to give, to just spread her love outwards in whatever way possible, that she hadn’t even really thought about it. About the possibility of the feeling being mutual. So she grips onto Beca’s hand just tightly enough that Beca could escape, if she wanted to.

She thinks of it like a test, maybe. Maybe if they get all the way to the bottom of the corridor holding hands still, Beca might have feelings for her too?

Maybe if they get to the bottom of the stairs?

Or if they get all the way to the car? Maybe if they do that…

Maybe it means something.

She’s so wrapped up in these thoughts that Chloe barely notices when they do get to the car, other than to realise, with her heart dropping heavily to her feet, that Beca’s trying to pull her hand away.

“Oh. Sorry.” Chloe lets go abruptly, trying not to let the sudden sadness show on her face.

“I just need to get in the car?” Beca’s still standing by Chloe’s side, turning to raise a questioning eyebrow in her direction.

“Oh.” Chloe suddenly feels light as air again, and gives in to the sudden strong compulsion to press a kiss into the hair on the side of Beca’s head. 

“What was that for?” Beca looks oddly flushed, turning her eyes away from Chloe’s for a second to take in Jamie, who has picked up a stick from somewhere and is poking at the car’s tyre with it, content and oblivious to the world around him.

“No reason.” (Because I’m in love with you.) And Chloe’s wondering if she’s lost control of her own body when she somehow leans in to do the same thing again, before reaching out to tuck the windswept hair behind Beca’s ear lightly.

“Chlo I-” 

“Okay. I’m ready,” she has so force herself to look away from Beca so that she can move to the front door of the car, and Beca takes a moment before she realises she needs to unlock it, fumbling in her pocket in a way that makes Chloe wonder what she might be thinking, whether her heart is racing in a way utterly disproportionate to the action, too.

“Aubrey, something happened,” Chloe tries to explain on the phone late the next day, leaning on the balcony railing as the sun slowly sets in the evening sky, casting a fading orange light over the expanse of city she can see.

“It did? What’s up? Are you okay? Is there a man I have to hurt because you know I will-”

“Aubrey.”

“Sorry. You know I get protective. You’re too nice Chloe, and people take advantage, you need protecting sometimes.”

“I know I know. But it’s nothing like that.”

“Okay, but you make sure you’re telling people that your best friend has a black belt in both karate and taekwondo and is not afraid to use that knowledge to inflict physical pain in the balls and any other sensitive area they might present in my direction, if required.”

“I will. I do. I promise.” 

“Okay. Come on then. Spill.” 

“It’s...It’s Beca.” 

“Beca, Beca Mitchell, Beca?” Chloe can hear Aubrey rustling around, as though she’s making herself comfortable for their chat, and she takes the time to try and compose herself. 

“Yeah.”

“Do I need to kick her ass? Because I will, Lord knows I wanted to back in school, always with an obnoxious answer to everything, when she wasn’t being a weird loser in the corner refusing to talk to anyone.”

“Aubrey, we’ve spoken about this, many times now. You know how much she's changed.”

“I know, I know.” Aubrey pauses and sighs. “It’s just weird to reconcile the Beca you speak about with the one I knew. I knew her better than you back then, remember. We actually had classes together.”

“Yeah. But she’s grown up since then, you know that, and so have you. And so have I, and-” Chloe pauses and can hear her heart beat rushing in her ears.

“Chlo?”

She squeezes her eyes shut before she says it. “I...I’m kind of in love with her, Bree.”

“You’re what?” 

She takes a slow breath, gripping her free hand around the balcony railing firmly. “No, not kind of. Am.”

“With that hobbit? Are you sure you’ve not got sunstroke? I know it gets warm in LA and you never drink enough, not without me there to remind-”

“Bree -”

“Sorry, I just...Beca? Are you sure?”

“Um. Yeah. Completely.” 

“Wow.” Aubrey turns quiet for a moment, and Chloe gives her the time to process her thoughts. “That’s what you wanted to tell me?” Aubrey says, voice still disbelieving, but softened slightly, though the harsh edge to her voice is not completely gone.

Chloe takes a deep, calming breath in, nodding even though Aubrey can’t see her. “Yeah.”

“I have to say, it makes a lot of sense. But fuck, Chlo, isn’t it crazily complicated? She has a son! Are you sure you want to get yourself tangled in something like that?”

“Well, I kind of already am.”

“I suppose that’s true. So you’re going to do something about it right? You’re going to talk to her? I know you Chlo, you only double check things with people when you’re not sure whether you’re going to follow through. I’m pretty sure this is only about the second time ever I’ve heard about something before it’s happened.”

“I think so. Yeah. I’m pretty sure.” Chloe looks out to the distance, over the rooftops and apartment buildings and to the distant palm trees she can see lining an avenue a few streets over, the trees tinged in the pale orangey light of sunset. “I mean...you say it’s something I’d get tangled in, that it’s complicated, but...that’s not right at all. It’s not. It’s really not. It feels like the simplest thing ever.”

There’s a pause, and when Aubrey finally answers the harsh edge has gone from her voice, replaced instead with something much warmer, gentler. “Well it sounds like you have your answer Chlo.”

Chapter Text

Maybe it’s just because she’s been thinking about that kind of thing a lot, lately.

Or maybe it’s new and she really isn’t just totally oblivious.

But either way, when Beca and Jamie visit their favourite cafe that week, Beca suddenly registers that the hot barista’s flirting with her. (She’s noticed his hotness, obviously- she’s potentially oblivious, not blind.) But then, as that thought passes through her head, she thinks maybe she was a little oblivious to Chloe’s hotness. Because as crass it might seem, there’s really no other word for it. Yes, she is beautiful and pretty both inside and out, and that Beca had been aware of. But hotness? Attraction? That’s new.

(And yes, Beca is well aware of the fact that almost everything that passes through her brain connects to Chloe these days. She tried to fight it for maybe an hour. It was futile.)

But regardless of whether the barista has always been this flirty in their past interactions, he’s definitely flirting now.

“You must have good taste in music,” he says, handing Beca some coins for her change.

“Huh?”

“You always have good band shirts on.” He gestures to the one she’s wearing now, a crooked sort of smile on her face that Beca might have found oddly charming a couple of months ago.

“Um. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he grins now, and makes sure Beca notices that he purposefully moves around the brownie pieces laid in the display so that she gets the biggest one. “Does your boy like colouring?”

Beca looks down at Jamie, who’s clinging shyly to her leg, his Princess Anna doll gripped firmly into his side. He’s still feeling a bit delicate about the tantrum they’d had before leaving the house, over Jamie’s blatant attempts to circumnavigate the only one toy gets to leave the house with us (and it has to be a size you can carry in one hand) rule by shoving trains into his shorts pockets. There had been tears once Beca had stifled her laugh at the little train faces poking out on each side and asked Jamie to take them out.

“Jamie?”

Jamie just looks up at her with wide eyes.

“Sorry. Yeah, he loves it.”

“Well then, I have something cool today.” The barista bends down, shuffling around under the counter before standing up proudly holding two different colouring pages and a pack of crayons. He looks seriously chuffed with himself and Beca would think it adorable, probably, if she weren’t just, you know, terribly in love with someone else. She tries to tell him that through her eyes, as an apology.

“Hey buddy, do you want the sea picture or the castle?” The barista pops around to the other side of the counter and kneels down in front of Jamie so he can study them. Jamie finally moves his grip from Beca’s legs to gently and predictably claim the underwater scene and the small packet of crayons.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome buddy.”

The barista stands up straight again. “He’s cute. So are you.”

Beca gapes at him.

“Would you mind if Mommy ever got a boyfriend or a, uh, girlfriend?” Beca asks Jamie quietly when they’re sat in the comfort of their booth. She doesn’t want the barista to overhear, lest the poor boy get entirely the wrong impression about this conversation. Jamie doesn’t look up from his colouring as he replies, hand fisted around a red crayon, tongue poking out slightly as he tries and fails to colour in the lines.

“What’s a boyfriend or girlfriend?”

“Uh, um. It’s like a really good friend, a special friend. One that makes Mommy really happy. And they would spend lots of time with us, and I guess we would kiss sometimes. Maybe.”

“Gross.” He looks up at Beca, scrunching his face, before turning to Anna, who he has propped neatly in the booth next to him, and pushes her upright where her position had slipped sideways a little. “Is Chloe your boyfriend or girlfriend?”

“I don’t kiss Chloe,” is Beca’s reflexive response, mouth falling open a little. She pauses before carrying on, heart beating a little faster than it was before. “But yeah, kind of like that. I suppose.”

“Would you still play with me?” Jamie’s colouring again, not looking at her as he speaks, his nose close to the drawing and hair bobbing with the vigorousness of his scribbles.

“Of course.”

“And tuck me in?”

“Yes, Jamie.”

“And, and, have cuddles and stories and ad-ad-advent-ures?”

He has been struggling to say that word properly for weeks and it still requires all his concentration, Jamie dropping his crayon to the table with a clatter.

“Jamie, it would be just the same,” Beca says emphatically, glad that Jamie’s looking at her now so she can try and impress on him the sincerity of her words with her face. “Because you’ll always be my best one, okay? I promise I will always do those things with you.” And I promise that you will stop wanting them long before I do, she thinks.

“Okay.”

She’s struck with the sudden urge to cuddle her boy, so she slips around to his side of the booth and slips him onto her lap, where he settles back into her and picks up the yellow crayon. Beca presses a kiss into his hair.

“And Chloe would be a girlfriend. Because she’s a girl.”

She thinks about Chloe whilst she’s bathing Jamie, the two of them chatting about what would happen if all of his dinosaur toys suddenly became real, and if the other toys became real too, do you think they’d be friends with him?

She thinks about Chloe when she’s cooking dinner, chopping potatoes to make wedges, Jamie chattering away to himself at the table.

She thinks about her at night when she’s falling asleep, and in the morning when she’s driving to the studio.

She thinks about her at work, when she spends her lunch fiddling with some utterly sentimental tune that she intends no-one to ever hear, until she accidentally pulls the headphones out whilst she’s twisting to say something to Jesse, and the ridiculous way he scrunches up his face and laughs tells Beca she’s completely busted.

(“Fuck off, Jesse.” “ CAN you FEEL the LOOOVE -”)

She thinks and thinks and thinks and the picture of her is imprinted permanently into her mind, always there under everything else. It’s wonderful and sort of disconcertingly burny at the same time.

“I just keep doing these idiotic moon eyes at her Jesse, and she’s going to think I’m a complete moron.”

Beca’s outside a West Hollywood bar with Jesse, forehead resting despondently against a rough wall. Chloe had selflessly volunteered to watch Jamie so that Beca could properly enjoy the occasion, something Beca was required to show her face at because they were celebrating the birthday of Zach, one of the most influential producers at their label.

So she probably should be several fewer drinks in, (rather than already drunk and trying to forget about Chloe), to devote attention to her friend and colleague on his birthday, but it’s kind of hard lately. Especially so when she knows that Chloe’s currently in her home, probably on her sofa, probably looking absurdly pretty, probably just being a generally wonderful person, and for a moment Beca’s incredibly glad that Jesse can’t read her mind.

(Because it goes something like this- Chloe, Chloe, Chloe, Chloe)

“Beca. Beca, Beca, Beca.”

“What?”

“God you’re hopeless when you’re pining over someone.”

“I’m not pining.” Jesse just raises his eyebrows at her. “I just really love her. God, I’m disgusting. Where is Beca? This is all wrong. Bring the other Beca back.” She groans and grimaces at herself. What a hopeless case.

“The other Beca left years ago after that tiny boy of yours made his appearance. Face it, Bec, you’ve been a sap ever since.”

“Ugh. I’ve been broken. These two people have broken me, and I am not cool with it.” She pours the rest of her half-drunk beer down her throat before depositing the bottle on a windowsill with a clunk.

“You are though.”

“Am what?”

“Cool with it. Come on Beca, sure emotions still make you squirm, sometimes. But you know and I know that you are about a thousand times happier now that you have those two in your life.”

Beca sighs, feeling suddenly sombre. “I don’t want to lose her, Jess. I can’t risk it.”

“I think you have to risk it, Beca. I think it’s too late not to. And you’re not going to lose her anyway.”

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. I blame you for this.” Beca scrunches her hands into her hair, totally messing it up, before looking wide eyed and hopeless up at Jesse. Stupid, stupid Jesse with his romance and his film quotes and his friendship.

“You do? Why?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I just do.” Jesse throws his head back and guffaws madly, and Beca snorts as she tries to sip her beer and laugh at him at the same time. “Don’t you have some kind of film to quote at me?”

“I don’t but I can think of one if you want me to.”

Beca shrugs noncommittally.

“Really? I thought you hated it when I did that.”

Beca has to look away from Jesse, throwing her eyes up to the murky sky for a moment. “I love it really. I love all of you stupid nerds. Ugh. I hate this! I’m broken!!”

“Wow Becs you’re really drunk. We should do shots.” He grabs her by the elbow and bumps his hip into hers to push her back towards the front door of the bar.

“Ugh, God Jess, just why is she so beautiful? And perfect?” Beca pushes her empty glass back onto the bar before leaning onto it and accidentally putting her forehead into a small puddle of beer, or something equally wet. She sits back again and grasps Jesse’s shirt sleeve, wiping her face with it. It’s a testament to how many drinks he’s had too that he doesn’t even seem to notice.

“You are such a goner,” he says, pinching her cheek. “It’s adorable.”

“Fuck off.” She hits Jesse a couple of times in the belly with the arm of his she’s still holding. “This is stupid. There’s no way she would want me, I’m a mess. With a kid. And bad decision making skills and terrible friends.” She flings his arm out of her grasp and Jesse lets it swing by his side.

“She loooooves you.”

“Jesse. Don’t.” Beca closes her eyes for a second, swaying a little on her stool. “I should just do it. I should just do it right now.”

“Beca, that is a terrible idea.”

“But I can’t, when I’m sober. She’s too perfect, Jess. Have you seen her? Have you met her?”

“You can! I believe in you! You can do the thing!” Jesse grasps her shoulders and shakes her as he speaks, voice loud over the thump of music.

“I can’t, I very much definitely one hundred percent certain surely absolutely can NOT.”

Then Jesse’s distracted for a moment by Zach leaving with his girlfriend, just sober enough to actually politely say goodbye, unlike Beca who instead has got her phone out and is busy attempting to thumb something coherent into a text.

“Woah woah woah woah, what are you doing?” Suddenly Jesse’s pulling the phone out of her grip, slipping it into his back pocket and dragging her off her stool with two firm hands. “Friends don’t let friends drink and text. Now come on you lovesick fool, the dancefloor beckons and we must heed its disco-y call!”

“Shit, fuck, fuckity, ow.” Beca’s sure her door is usually wider than this, and maybe a little less...wobbly. Still, she valiantly tries to get through it anyway, and is somewhat successful, closing the door gently behind her, though for some reason it seems to make a really loud noise anyway. She admonishes it appropriately. “Shhhhh!”

“Beca?”

Beca spins around quickly, and has to put a hand to the wall so she doesn’t stumble over at the overly enthusiastic action. “...Hi.” She grins widely at Chloe, who raises her eyebrows and quirks her mouth at Beca, and wow, she’s really pretty. “Hello. Hi.” Beca grins even harder.

“Wow, Beca, you’re really drunk.” Chloe’s mouth moves into an amused smile, and Beca follows it with her eyes. “Is this why you weren’t answering your phone? Have you lost fine motor control in your fingers?”

“You were trying to ring me?”

“Yeah. Jamie’s got a bug or something but it’s okay, he’s sleeping now.”

“Shit. Is he okay? Jesse took my phone, he was cockblocking me, fuck that fucker.” If Beca were more sober she might have noticed the flash of fear that crosses Chloe’s face at that. “I mean, cockblocking me from sending drunk texts,” she rambles on. “What’s the word for that? Drunk text blocking?” She closes her eyes for a second, thinking hard, but the room still seems to be spinning in the darkness in her head, which is confusing, and hooks a little at her belly.

“I don’t know that there’s a specific word for that, Becs.”

“Oh. Wait, is Jamie okay?”

“It’s okay Beca, he’s fine. Just a bit fevery and nauseated.”

Suddenly Beca feels much more sober, trying really hard to concentrate, though her body’s still betraying her with a gentle sway that she can’t seem to steady. “Did he ask for me?”

“Of course, but it’s okay, he calmed down quite easily with snuggles and a song.” Beca stalks wonkily over to Jamie’s room, pushing the ajar door open slightly more so she can slip in and check on him. She looks back once she’s sat at Jamie’s bedside, stroking his clammy forehead as he sleeps, seeing Chloe standing silhouetted in the doorway. When Beca holds out a hand hopefully Chloe immediately comes and takes it, sitting herself by Beca on the floor.

“I’m the worst parent ever. Getting drunk whilst my baby’s here being ill without me?” She thinks she’s whispering and Chloe doesn’t tell her to be quiet so it’s probably okay. Chloe looks at her and it’s dark but she still looks lovely and Beca wants to kiss her.

“Don’t be silly Beca, it’s okay. He’s fine. We were fine.” Chloe squeezes her hand and Beca hopes she doesn’t let go of it. Wonders if there’s a way she can make it so she can leave her hand in Chloe’s for the rest of the night. Or longer. She feels a sudden sway of guilt, for trying to take so much from Chloe. From Chloe who will just give and give selflessly, and Beca just keeps wanting more . She frowns, angry at herself for being so greedy.

“Fuck, and I’m a terrible friend too, leaving you to look after my sick son, and thinking all these things-”

“What do you mean?”

Beca choses to ignore the question, instead clambering up and crawling across the room until she can pull herself up by the door handle and step back out into the hallway, Chloe following with quiet footsteps. “You should go home, shit, I’m the worst, I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me.” She looks down at her hands and finds one of them has somehow now attached itself to Chloe’s wrist.

“Don’t be silly, of course I don’t, and I’m not going anywhere. I feel like you’re going to need just as much looking after as Jamie soon.”

Beca groans pathetically, already feeling sorry for herself in anticipation of her hangover. Her stupid, lovesick, tequila hangover. She flops her head forward so that it falls onto Chloe’s shoulder, and it’s just intensely comforting how much like Chloe it smells when you’re pressed this close. She nuzzles her face further into Chloe’s neck, revelling in it.

(It’s greedy, so greedy, she’s just too greedy for more of Chloe. More, more, more.)

Chloe wraps her free arm around Beca’s back and Beca sinks into the embrace until she’s pretty sure Chloe’s actually just holding her up.

“I’m so drunk.” She feels her belly swoop around as the world seems to spin even with her eyes closed and ugh. She’s already regretting those shots and she wants to kiss Chloe.

Chloe chuckles close to Beca’s ear and the sound washes over her like the best piece of music might, and she doesn’t know if the churning flutters in her belly are hangover-y or well, love-y.

“Come on drunky, PJs, water, bed.” She tries to nod, and immediately regrets that sharp movement.

“Mama?” They both turn around at the little voice, and see Jamie standing there, pyjamas ruffled, looking as pale as Beca’s ever seen him.

“Hey little man, how are you fe-”

Beca’s interrupted by the unpleasant sound of Jamie vomiting over the floor in front of him and Beca dearly wants to run to him, swoop him in her arms and wipe the sweet, sorry tears from his eyes. But all she can do instead is spend a quick moment staring at the mess on the floor before she’s rushing for the kitchen and vomiting herself.

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Beca can hear Chloe say as she retches into the sink.

When Chloe re-emerges, a pile of laundry in her arms that she shoves straight into the washing machine, Beca’s sat at the kitchen table with her head in her hands, nursing her fourth glass of water and feeling much more sober and utterly ashamed with herself.

Chloe had sternly forbidden Beca from helping clear up, (“I can deal with this. Just. If any more sick ends up on the floor I might vomit too. That would not help. So- water. Stay. Do not move.”) and now Beca looks up at her, expecting exhaustion, or a frown, or at least a grossed-out face. That seems appropriate.

Instead when Beca pulls her face from her hands Chloe’s sat opposite her, looking at her with a small smile on her face, her own glass of water on the table half drunk.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Thank you.”

“Bed?”

“Yeah. Chlo, I’m so sorry.”

“Bec. It’s okay. You’re still an idiot though. And I’m taking the bed.”

“Seems fair.”

Beca finds, when she’s drunk, that she either sleeps like the dead or tosses and turns all night and barely sleeps a wink. Tonight, it’s the latter. It doesn’t help that she’s on edge trying to listen out for Jamie as she rests. Funnily enough, she finds she can’t do both. Instead, about half four, when she’s given up all hope for getting any rest she gets up and heads into Jamie’s bedroom, where she can hear him shuffling about too. She finds his sheets twisted, face pale and clammy and the sight breaks her heart a little bit. His eyes open when she steps in the door, and arms immediately rise in the air to call her towards him.

“Mama.” Then he bursts into tears.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, baby boy.” She holds him in her arms, rocking him gently in exactly the same way as when he really was just a tiny baby. “You’ll feel better in the morning, little James. You will. Shh, shh. Rest now.” She continues to whisper soothing words at him as he falls back to sleep, and eventually Beca does too, propped uncomfortably against the wall.

She doesn’t wake again until it’s sort-of light out, and Chloe’s maneuvering a now deeply asleep Jamie off her, and yanking her up, dragging her back to the sofa silently. Beca barely even opens her eyes, in a haze of dehydration and sleep as she complies easily.

“Chlo?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Strange bed. Too big,” Chloe must not be properly awake either, because once she’s pushed Beca onto the sofa she’s climbing onto it too, back against Beca’s front so that they’re spooning close to fit on the small space, and she pulls the blanket over both of them.

If she’d been more awake in that moment, Beca might have had a heart attack at the feeling of having Chloe so comfortingly and excruciatingly close. As it is, she’s so sleepy she just falls right back into it.

It’s properly light when she wakes up again, and Chloe seems to be fidgeting a little. They’re still in the exact same position and Beca feels tingly and safe, and happy even over the throb of her hungover head.

“Morning,” Chloe says softly, obviously feeling Beca stir, or her breathing change. Some sense that Beca’s awake, and that’s sort of weirdly thrilling, somehow. Beca thinks, or maybe imagines, that she can hear the smile in her voice too.

“What time is it?” Beca asks, not even bothering to open her eyes, feeling Chloe’s arm move presumably to pick up Beca’s phone. She hears the click of it being unlocked, and then a quick intake of breath, a sharp jerk of the elbow pressed into her as Chloe moves. “What?”

“....it’s, um. Late. It’s ten to nine. Coffee?”

“Please. I’ll check on Jamie.”

She sits up when Chloe’s in the kitchen and she’s had a chance to catch her breath from the strangeness and loveliness of waking up to her body pressed into Chloe’s, and reaches for her phone automatically to check quickly for messages. There’ll probably something teasing from Jesse. Instead, when she unlocks it, she finds a sight that makes her heart stop for a second, before resuming again at a terrifying pace. Open is her draft drunk text, the one she hadn’t sent yet when Jesse had confiscated her phone, Chloe’s name blaring in the recipient line.

“Yuore besutiful,” says the first line.

“I likeyou,” the next.

“Alot alott and i want” the final, unfinished line.

And Chloe had seen it. Shit.

She runs into Jamie’s room to hide her face, which she can feel burning, and it’s only then that she realises just how head-thumpingly hungover she is.

Jamie, for his part, looks better albeit clammy and obviously very sleepy. She doesn’t think he’s ever slept this late in his life.

“Wakey wakey, sleepy head,” Beca says softly, stroking his hair as he stirs, feeling immediately calmer. “You ready for some breakfast? It’ll make you feel better.” Jamie stares wide eyed and blinking up at his mom, before weakly raising his arms up like last night and floppily sinking into Beca.

“Mama,” he says, face pressed into her chest as she carries him into the kitchen.

“Hey sleepy head,” Chloe says when she spots him, pressing a kiss to his hair that means Chloe’s face passes extremely close to Beca’s own. When Chloe pulls back Beca notices that they’re both a little pink, at that. She saw it. She saw the text! Does she know what it means??

“Chloe,” Jamie says softly, reaching a hand out to swipe gently at her face, before smiling just a little.

“Hey, I saw that smile,” Chloe teases gently. “Didn’t I say you’d feel better in the morning?” Jamie nods, smiles again and really, why are these two people trying to kill Beca.

When breakfast’s been eaten, showers had, coffee downed (three cups for Beca, two for Chloe) and Jamie placed in the prime spot on the sofa with a blanket, a swathe of teddies and Adventure Time playing on the television, it becomes apparent that Chloe’s not planning on going anywhere any time soon. It makes Beca’s heart swell and ache in equal measure. I have to tell her , she thinks, staring at Chloe as some of her hair falls over her face and she pushes it back with careful fingers. I have to.

She saw the text. Maybe she already knows.

And Chloe looks up at her, at that moment, smiling in a weird way Beca doesn’t recognise but that makes her aching head feel magically much better.

I have to tell her.

Tell her.

Tell. Her.

Instead she just smiles, and Chloe looks back down at her phone, thumbing through something as Beca watches and tries not to look like she’s watching.

“Hey, Bec it’s our one-year-aversary.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t appear to be speaking English.”

“Hush. One year since we met. Re-met. Facebook just told me so.” Chloe smiles crookedly at her and Beca wants to kiss her so, so badly.

“Huh. That’s pretty cool, I guess.”

“Yep.”

“It’s been a big year.”

“It’s been a great year. One of the best.”

“Even though you broke up with Calvin?” Beca puts down her book. She was only pretending to read it anyway, and she’s sure Chloe will have noticed she hasn’t turned a page in ages. When Beca looks back at Chloe she’s got up and is moving to sit right next to Beca instead, so that all three of them are squeezed comfortably on the sofa.

“Yeah,” Chloe continues after the interruption, grabbing Beca’s hand and playing softly with her fingers, and when Beca glances over she’s looking at the television, at the evil penguin plotting something again, but her eyes are glassy, not registering it at all. “I loved him, but I don’t anymore. Not really. I’m not in love with him. And the year brought me you, and Jamie, and I seriously love you guys so much, like, you would not believe.”

Beca feels like she’s probably glowing. “I probably would, Chlo. I mean, I can tell. That’s one of the, uh, one of your best, things. You can tell, when you feel something. I wish I could be more like that. More like you, and like Jamie. Not afraid.”

“You can tell? What I’m feeling?”

“Yeah, or I could I guess. You spread outwards, Chlo. Like...shiny or something. But I don’t know. Lately I’ve been trying to...trying to tell. But I don’t know if I can. Anymore. Or...about some things.”

When she glances at Chloe again, she’s already looking at her. The fingers that were playing with her own have stilled but not moved away. Beca’s heart thumps. I love you and I don’t know if you love me back.

I love you I love you I love you.

Please love me back.

And her heart thumps and thumps as Chloe grips her hand and their thighs press into one another, the warmth of it burning.

Jamie’s back in bed, taking the first afternoon nap he’s had in a few months, regressing a little with the exhaustion of his illness. It makes Beca feel weirdly nostalgic. Her little boy’s growing up and it’s so strange. She misses little him at the same time as she desperately yearns to know what bigger him will be like. Teenage him, adult him. What wonderful things he’ll do.

When she tries to explain as much to Chloe, Chloe’s eyes go weirdly shiny and she shuffles into Beca, pushing their bodies side by side and wrapping an arm around her back so that Beca can rest her head against Chloe’s collarbone. Chloe presses a kiss into her hair, and Beca just loves, so, so much.

“Do you think anyone will ever date me, you know, because of Jamie?” She goading Chloe, she knows. She’s being a child. But the thought still scares her, it’s still a thought that plagues her worries, even though she can see that Chloe loves Jamie. The mailman could see that Chloe loves Jamie.

“Don’t be silly, Beca, of course they would. Why would you think that?” Chloe sounds so sincere Beca’s afraid to look at her face, so though she leans slightly away so she could twist and see Chloe if she wanted to, she doesn’t turn her head.

“It’s one thing to accidentally get pregnant, it’s a whole other to take on that on purpose, you know. Especially when he’s not your kid, and you have no reason to love him.”

“Why would anyone need a reason to love him? And anyway, I could think of a hundred, Becs.” Chloe says it so casually, not even looking over at Beca, that Beca doesn’t know how to respond. When Chloe does turn her head, intrigued by Beca’s silence, she wonders if Chloe can tell just how lucky she feels.

God, I am so in love with you.

And then she thinks that thought must be playing across her face, because Chloe’s still staring at her, and Beca stares back.

“I saw your text,” Chloe says softly, as though she’s trying to keep her voice steady.

“Huh?” Beca’s heart nearly skips right out her throat. Their faces are so close. I want to kiss you.

“The one you were writing that Jesse made you not send.”

“You...you did?”

“It was an accident. I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“Beca, why did you-”

“I talked to Jesse about you, you know. He thinks I’ve gone mad.”

Chloe smiles warmly at Beca’s confession. A there’s a short pause before she responds. “I talked to Aubrey.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“What about?”

“...You.”

“What about me?”

“Beca…”

“Yeah?”

“What did you talk to Jesse about?”

“Chlo, it’s, um.” Beca’s heart’s thumping in her chest. Beat, beat, beat, beat. She can feel it so much it’s like she can hear it.

“I want to tell you something. Something really important.” Chloe twists slightly, so that she’s more comfortably facing Beca.

Tell her, tell her, tell her.

When Beca looks at Chloe, at the warm and nervous expression on her face, she thinks maybe she knows. And somehow, for a brief moment that makes it far less scary.

Beca lifts a hand up, runs soft fingers over Chloe’s cheek and thinks she might explode.

Then Chloe’s lifting a hand, brushing fingers softly across Beca’s forehead, eyebrows, down her nose, her cheekbones and down the side of her jaw. Beca can do nothing but stare. Chloe’s hand trails softly across her lips, and she presses the softest of kisses to it, watching as Chloe watches her.

Beca feels the racing of her heart and the press of Chloe’s skin against her own in the various places they’re pushed together. Lets the feeling of it consume and combust her, like it’s been daring and urging her to for weeks now. This love, this crazy insane amount of love that is just brimming over and spilling out, uncontrollable now. Unstoppable. She feels utterly giddy with it.

So she kisses Chloe’s fingers again, before reaching up and softly grasping them in her hand, manoeuvring Chloe’s hand until it’s touching her own face. Beca presses the two fingers she kissed into Chloe’s cheek, which is warm and glowing, before letting go of Chloe’s fingers to stroke at the skin there again.

They both jump a little when they’re interrupted by an unmistakable cry from Jamie’s room. A shuffling, words indecipherable as he calls out to someone, for something, and before Beca can even react Chloe’s jumping up.

“I’ll go,” and Beca watches her practically run into Jamie’s room, her body tingling.

When Chloe steps out of Jamie’s room, Beca’s standing in the middle of the rug. She turns abruptly to look in Chloe’s direction, stony resolve on her face that she’s sure Chloe can recognise.

“I was happy when you first came into my life, by the way,” Beca begins abruptly, heart thumping in her chest and giving a wavering edge to some of her words, a slight shake to her hands. She hears the words fan across the room, and Chloe’s face react minutely to them, and thinks this is it, it’s starting. Chloe takes several steps closer, so that they’re standing in front of one another, before she responds shakily.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Beca takes a deep breath, running through the thoughts she’s gathered in her head, begging them to come out in some semblance of order. In some way appropriate to the level of words Chloe deserves. I can do this, I can do this. I have to do this. “Life wasn’t perfect, or in any way how I imagined it, but I was happy. And life still is absolutely not how I imagined it, because there’s no way I could have imagined something this-” She pauses, reaching for the word with her mind and hands.

“-awesome. Something this awesome.” She huffs in laughter at her poor word choice, but it’s all she’s got right now that even comes close to describing what she’s aiming for, and it makes Chloe smile regardless.

“Okay, I’m going to ramble,” Beca continues, trying to tame the shake in her hands. “So I’m sorry, but. Okay. You deserve to hear these things and I’m dying right now, by the way, and this is so rambly and I haven’t even started with the actual thing yet.” Beca looks up from her socked feet to actually look at Chloe again, and her heart nearly jumps out of her chest at the expression on Chloe’s face. At the feel of Chloe’s fingers suddenly twisting around her own, steady, stabling, safe.

“Beca, you don’t have to say anything.”

“I know. I know, but I want to. You deserve these words. If I can make them come out.”

“Okay.” Chloe nods, looking dumbfounded and wide eyed and beautiful.

You can do this. You can do it. Look at her, Beca. She wants you to. Shit!

Beca takes another deep breath.

“When you came into our lives you took something great and you basically just made it...the greatest. Somehow, the three of us, as a gang, became this incredible thing that’s way more than the sum of its parts. Like, way more. You took something happy, and made it happier, Chloe, and I think that’s probably what you always do, for everyone that’s lucky enough to know you. You make their lives happier, simple as that.” She pauses for a moment to catch her breath. She wants to say this part properly, because she’s never meant something so emphatically before, and Chloe’s looking at her like she knows exactly how much she means it and that thought is just thrilling . “And you make my life the happiest, and I’m pretty sure you make Jamie’s life the happiest. And you make me want to be the kind of person that can make your life happier too. You make it really easy to be happy. Okay, that words starting to lose meaning.” Beca grins and Chloe returns it, rolling her eyes teasingly and it’s perfect.

“Beca am I allowed to just say ‘same’?”

Beca laughs properly, and Chloe does too, and she wasn’t really expecting that- to laugh- but now it’s happened she’s not really sure why. It’s what they spend half their time doing anyway.

Chloe beams as her laugher settles, and there Beca is, glowing under that spotlight again. Chloe takes a deep, steadying breath, reaching out to pull both Beca’s hands into her own now, taking them another step closer to each other, before she starts to speak.

“It’s like we were both already so happy that what we have- what we could have- is even better. Taking two happy people and combining forces? I mean, that’s going to create something pretty special right? We don’t need each other to be happy. But we want each other to be happier. Does that make sense?”

Beca nods, dumbly, because yes . That makes sense and it’s just so utterly simple. It’s everything that this is, and that it is about to become as she takes another step towards Chloe, so that they’re practically touching. Completely simple.

“Loving you two is like, the easiest thing in the world. It’s so easy to love Jamie. It’s so easy to love you. There’s nothing that’s felt more natural. I mean, once I realised what was happening.” Chloe rolls her eyes at herself again, and Beca somehow manages another laugh. She feels like her limbs are no longer properly attached, but in a good way. “You two make my life better,” Chloe continues, her voice dropping barely above a whisper, but they’re so close now that Beca heard it, and felt the weight of it as though it was shouted in her ear and she just stares into Chloe’s eyes, unable to process any further reaction.

“You already knew that I loved both of you right? How could you not? Maybe that should be enough, but it’s not. I want all of you. I want to love you more, because it’s the greatest thing I have. I want more of it. I want everything.” Chloe grips Beca’s fingers insistently, tugging at them lightly so that they swing towards Chloe, and Beca releases them gently from her grip to instead place them across Chloe’s cheeks, in the way she’s imagined doing so many times now, the way she was doing just now, and just holds them there delicately, caressing the soft skin across her cheekbones with the tips of her fingers.

They’re close enough now that Beca can feel the unsteadiness of Chloe’s deep breaths.

Chloe moves her hands up from where they had been resting loosely against Beca’s upper arms, sliding them over the bare skin until they reach her collarbones, resting them lightly there but never stopping, instead moving so slowly, so lightly, just exploring with her fingertips. Beca feels the goosebumps forming with every touch, the tingle that’s spreading from Chloe’s fingers to somewhere deep within her. Chloe’s fingers slide lightly up the sides of Beca’s neck, over her thumping pulse, and the shiver they elicit causes both sets of eyes to pull up to one another again, holding each other's gaze firmly.

Chloe smiles at her, wide and beaming. She smiles back, a thrill running through her at the way that she can see the love that’s coursing through her own body clear across Chloe’s face and she wonders, briefly, how she could have missed that look so many times before?

Then Chloe’s hands on the back of her neck become a firmer touch, and she’s being pulled further inwards, until she can feel Chloe’s breath across her lips, and suddenly there they are standing in the middle of Beca’s living room, kissing.

An old, slightly scratched record playing in the background. A selection of trains, dolls and plastic dinosaurs scattered across the rug near their feet. A stack of picture books from the library sitting on the table, waiting to be returned. A pile of washing-up in the sink. And Chloe and Beca, standing in their socks in the middle of it all, kissing.

Chapter Text

Beca pulls Chloe closer and closer, their bodies pressing together. The kiss is slow and sends warm shivers down into Beca’s limbs so that she’s suddenly aware of every single body part she owns, and the fact that most of them seem to be swirling around, twisting and dropping and rolling over one another. Her chest feels achingly warm, like whatever’s in there is too big to fit.

Chloe’s lips are so soft, and she's kissing back with such delicate fervour that Beca shivers again, passing her fingernails up the back of Chloe’s neck and into her hair in the process. They break apart as if in slow motion. Beca feels mesmerised by the sight of Chloe standing in front of her, lips pink and cheeks flushed, eyes wide and intense. She can’t look away, and her heart’s in her throat like she’s at the top of a rollercoaster, just waiting to drop.

“Um,” is all Beca can manage to get out. Then they’re just staring at each other, and they both look so deliriously happy and surprised that there is nothing to do but laugh, still clinging to each other’s shoulders and necks with their hands.

“This is ridiculous,” Chloe says, once they’re slightly less hysterical, face pressed into Beca’s shoulder.

“Yeah," Beca agrees readily, listening to the soft music that's playing in the background whilst she just holds Chloe to her, arms wrapped around her back. 

“This is so not what I expected.”

“From today, or in just…in general?”

“From today. From meeting you. From this friendship. I can’t believe that just happened, and that we are doing this. We are doing this right? This is a thing?”

“It’s definitely a thing.”

Chloe lets out another huff of laughter that for some reason nearly becomes tears. Beca can see her eyes shining. “I can’t believe this is happening.” Chloe laughs lightly again, and Beca feels her own eyes becoming dangerously tingly as she watches Chloe’s crinkle up with her laughter, with her love.

How is this real??

“Can I kiss you again?” Chloe says, and wow okay, Beca wants to hear that coming from Chloe’s mouth every day forever more.

“Uh, yes please.”

When Jamie wakes up, feeling drowsy and delicate rather than ill now that his temperature’s gone down, it’s as though he can tell that Beca and Chloe are weirdly exhilarated and giddy. Chloe carries him out whilst Beca’s making a cup of soup for him, holding him in the most tender, gentle way- tucked under her chin in a fresh pair of pyjamas- that Beca thinks her heart’s probably not going to last until the end of the day. Which is an awful shame given that not only is this the second greatest day she’s ever had, after Jamie’s birth, it’s also just the start.

Beca wants to vomit, only in a happy way this time.

She settles instead for grasping at Chloe once she’s tucked Jamie onto the sofa and put on Thomas for him quietly, pulling her into the kitchen and pressing her up against the counter with the force of her kiss.
It’s different this time, the kiss. Caution replaced with wanting and it's hot, so that they’re both breathless when they break apart, grinning at each other with hands still grasped into each others tops. They only separate when the microwave bings loudly next to Chloe’s head, making them both jump.

The rest of the day passes with absurd grins followed by sweet kisses, intense gazes followed by further mini-makeouts in the kitchen. Touches and hands and hugs and fingers running down arms every time they pass one another. Smiles and forehead kisses and Chloe standing next to Beca as she pours soup into a cup with her arm round her waist, just watching, holding.

It’s an unspoken agreement- they don’t really say much at all, all afternoon, existing in a quiet world of this new form of communication they seem to have developed and got remarkably adept at very quickly- but they keep their interactions out of sight of Jamie for the most part. A quiet sort of caution, just existing in the own little world for a moment.

Even so, Jamie eyes them slightly suspiciously from his blanket throne all day, whilst absorbing the excessive amounts of love and kisses and television time he’s getting with a sleepy contentedness. 

Beca and Chloe both finally settle next to him as evening approaches, the three pressed as close together as they ever have been on the sofa, Chloe’s legs half draped over Beca on one side, Beca’s right hand safely grasped in both her own, and Jamie tucked into Beca’s other side. It’s absurd, how content she feels. How much her face feels like it’s going to crack open every time she looks over at Chloe and they can’t help but just gaze giddily at each other, passing words silently with each look, saying plenty. Saying everything that they need to say.

And because she can, and though they haven’t talked about how they’re going to address this with Jamie, Beca can’t quite help herself when she leans forward to press a kiss to Chloe’s lips in full sight of her son.

“Mommy?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“Um. Jamie, I’m...kissing Chloe. Is that okay? You remember that thing we spoke about?” Beca can feel Chloe turn her head to fully look at her as she says that, obviously intrigued.

“You’re boyfriends and girlfriends now?” Chloe laughs loudly and the sound warms Beca.

“Yes,” Beca is surprised to hear Chloe say, voice sounding completely certain. “But only if that’s okay with you, Jamie.” Beca’s still staring at Chloe, gaping. Heart thumping. Chloe squeezes her hand, but keeps her eyes on Jamie.

“Yeah s’ok.” Beca thinks that if anything he sounds a little put out that they’re disturbing David Attenborough’s narration of this documentary about whales with their crazy adult chatter.

And then suddenly Chloe’s leaning across Beca to press a kiss to Jamie’s forehead and pulling Beca out of her seat all in one swift movement. Beca finds herself dragged into the kitchen, before Chloe turns around and pulls Beca to her, hands sliding up into her hair, the kiss intense immediately. Beca breaks away breathless and flushed to say questioningly, “Girlfriend?”

“Yep.” Then she’s being kissed again, and really that’s completely okay, actually.

Jamie looks utterly thrilled when he makes a request for banana pancakes for dinner and Beca says yes straight away, even though she knows she has no bananas, no eggs and still hasn’t actually got dressed properly today. With the combination of her delirious happiness and Jamie's sorry for himself sickness, she'd basically do cartwheels down the street if he asked her to. 

“I’ll go pick some things up,” Chloe says, car keys in hand before Beca’s even had a chance to think about putting actual pants on.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

Beca hesitates by the door as Chloe slips her shoes on, noticing that Chloe hasn’t picked up her bag, just plucked her wallet from it. “You’re staying for dinner, right?”

“I’d really like to, if that’s okay.” Her smile is ridiculously charming and Beca doesn’t want to look away from it. She briefly wonders how she’s ever going to be able to get anything done ever again.

“You, uh, you should go back to yours and get a change of clothes or whatever.” Beca feels herself flush bright red, and this is ridiculous because she’s not been embarrassed being herself in front of Chloe in ages, and now she knows- or at least is pretty sure- that Chloe’s in love with her.

Which is insane, but Beca’s starting to believe it. To let it sink in. She tries to channel that feeling instead.

“Um-” Chloe sends out into the silence. 

“I mean, if you want to stay, you can, I know you were here last night too, but-”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think I should stay?”

“Yes. It always feels wrong when you leave.”

Chloe grins, gripping at Beca’s shirt to pull her suddenly a little closer. “Now I know why Jamie’s such a happy kid, it feels good to have Beca sappiness directed at you.”

“Shut up.”

“You love it.”

“I love you.”

Chloe looks a little like her heart might have stopped beating, staring at Beca for a second like she can’t quite believe what she just heard. Then Beca’s being pulled in for another kiss, and yep, she could definitely deal with this being her life now. “You’re not doing anything to help your argument there, Becs,” Chloe says against her lips, their noses touching, bodies pressed into one another. “And I love you too.”

Beca makes lots of discoveries that first day. She discovers that Chloe kisses like she lives- how she does everything- with openness and unguarded passion and conviction, vibrantly full of life and it draws Beca further and further in every time.

She discovers that this is somehow one of the least scary scary things that’s ever happened to her.

She discovers that Jamie reacts to this change in status between Beca and Chloe with...well, the instant acceptance of someone who really couldn't care less as long as he still gets banana pancakes, some of that bright pink kid medicine he weirdly thinks is “super yummy,” and a story or two or three.

She discovers that she’s excited about the prospect of a capital R Relationship with someone for maybe the first time ever, instead of just instantly fretting about how one day it’s all going to go wrong. Which in itself is sort of scary, but also somehow really not.

(Love is confusing okay- she discovers that too.)

It all makes so little sense and yet so much sense. Because there’s some kind of settled sense about them, already. In the way that Chloe opens drawers in the kitchen and already knows where to find the whisk. In the way that Beca hums and sings and bounces to the tunes in her head in the same way she does when it’s just her and Jamie around. In the way Jamie wants a hug and kiss from Chloe when he goes to bed, as well as from his mom, so they have to take it in turns.

It’s exactly the kind of thing that Beca never imagined she would have, but it’s somehow happening right in front of her eyes, utterly unexpectedly, with her best friend. With the person who yesterday was just a friend. (???!)

Beca discovers that she doesn’t just feel ludicrously happy, she feels safe.

And Chloe- wonderful, kind, crazy Chloe- is not only happy about this turn of events but loves Beca back , and is currently letting Beca lead her into her bedroom with one steady hand clasped in another.

It feels like they’ve entered another world, somehow, when the door’s closed behind them, and the only light is the glow of the lamp Beca had turned on earlier. Beca turns to look at Chloe, studying her quietly, both standing at the foot of Beca’s bed.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“So. Today has been a day.” Chloe smiles up at Beca shyly, before holding her bottom lip between her teeth in a way Beca can't keep her eyes off. 

“That is...very true.”

“I’m...I’m really happy about this, Beca.” She looks so excited, eyes crinkled at the side, a sort of buzzing joy whirling about her, and Beca knows her own smile at that moment is probably equally obscene. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Chloe takes both of Beca’s hands in her own.

“This is not going to be weird is it? You know, because you’re my best friend, and I...I wouldn’t want to ruin that for anything,” Beca says in a rush of tentative panic.

“Does this feel like it’s going to ruin anything?” Chloe waves a finger in the gap between the two of them, looking at Beca calmly like she already confidently knows the answer, and Beca finds that she does too.

“No.” Beca shakes her head. “No it really doesn’t.”

“Yeah,” Chloe breathes, before leaning in to capture Beca’s lips in that way that makes her think her stomach’s never going to stop flopping around ever again. “Yeah I agree.”

They stand and kiss for long minutes, simple and open and warm, not leading anywhere but just because they can. Because they want to touch.

“We should get to bed, Becs, neither of us slept much last night,” Chloe says softly when they finally pull back from one another.

“Yeesh, I know, I’m so sorry about that, Chlo.”

“Don’t be." Chloe shakes her head, hands gripped into Beca's tshirt, and leans in to press a kiss to Beca's forehead. "You should have noticed by now that I kind of love when you let me look after you, Beca Mitchell.”

“There’s not many people I’d even let know I ever needed to be looked after," Beca says, filter on herself completely switched off in the safe, closeness of the semi-dark bedroom, Chloe's body pressed close to her own.

“I know.” Chloe smiles crookedly at Beca, looking slightly flushed for some reason, and Beca finds herself doing that thing she’s being doing for the past couple of weeks where she somehow falls more in love with Chloe even when she thought there’s no way that could be possible. There just couldn’t be room for more.

“So, uh, shall we get this slumber party on the road? Take two, I mean. I brought my pyjamas," Chloe says, indicating her rucksack on the floor with a quick nod of her head. 

“Do you, uh, want me to go so you can change?”

“No.”

And then Beca’s mouth’s suddenly as dry as it was when she woke up hungover earlier, because Chloe’s pulling her top over her head and popping the fastening of her jeans out of the buttonhole so that she can slip them down her legs. Just like that, Chloe’s standing in her underwear in Beca’s bedroom and Beca’s reaching forward blindly, unable to recall giving her brain permission to move but somehow now touching Chloe anyway, splaying hands over the skin of her abdomen. Skin she’s never touched before.

Chloe reaches up and brushes Beca’s hair away from her face, running a thumb over her cheekbone as she does so, and Beca leans in to kiss her again, pulling her in with soft hands on bare sides.

“I don’t, um-” Beca flushes. She’s such an idiot, because Chloe is in her underwear letting Beca touch her right now and she still is embarrassed to say the word. “I...can we wait? For, like, things.” Beca rolls her eyes at herself and Chloe giggles, leaning in to Beca and pressing a kiss just under her ear. “I just, I really would like to not be hungover and definitely not wearing-” Beca pulls open the front of her sweatpants for a second, earning her a very interested quirk of the eyebrow from Chloe- “Where’s Waldo underwear.” Chloe’s burst of laughter is loud and genuine and Beca grins up at her, suddenly confident. “And I definitely think it would be pretty great if we were home alone.”

Chloe strokes her hand across Beca’s cheek again, expression full of mirth. “Maybe Where’s Waldo underwear turns me on.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Depends who’s in it, you know?” Chloe winks at Beca and for a moment she’s seriously considering immediately backtracking on her previous statement, especially when Chloe reaches behind herself for the clasp on her bra and suddenly is completely topless in Beca’s room. Beca’s jaw might sort of be on the floor a little bit, at the unexpected sight.

“Um.” Beca blinks wildly, and when Chloe’s emerges again from the long pyjama top she’s thrown on, she’s got her tongue held between her teeth in the most excruciatingly sexy and teasing manner Beca thinks she ever seen.

“Just giving you a little preview.” She winks at Beca again before laughing softly at the probably hilarious expression on her face.

“Um, you are ridiculous, and wow, like outrageously hot, I mean what the fuck, Chloe.” Beca’s impressed she can get anything that vaguely resembles a sentence out at all, because her tongue feels too big for her mouth and her head's full of highly distracting buzzing. Chloe giggles again, reaching for the bottom hem of Beca’s top tentatively, holding the fabric between her fingers.

“Can I?”

Beca nods dumbly, then her t-shirt is being pulled over her head, her sweatpants pushed over her hips, and she’s standing being openly appraised by Chloe’s roving eyes. Chloe takes the top elastic of Beca’s utterly ridiculous underpants between two fingers for a second. Beca’s silently cursing herself for being such a mess of an adult, and rueing the day she ever thought it would be a good idea to stock up her lingerie from the 'characters' section in H&M. Good lord, of all the underpants to be wearing. She’s pretty sure she has some lacy ones in her drawer somewhere too, goddamn it.

But then she looks up properly at Chloe, who is smiling at her like she’s sort of...perfectly adorable or something, even in stupid knickers and a bra she bought before Jamie was even born.

“You’re so cute.” Then Chloe swallows, runs one finger from Beca’s sternum all the way between her breasts and down her abdomen to the hem of her underwear again. “And, like, ridiculously beautiful.” Chloe smiles at her like she’s just as struck dumb by Beca as the other way around, which is ludicrous, but okay, because the warm feeling it gives Beca leaves her a little breathless.

And Beca remembers, in the sudden realisation that Chloe really couldn’t care less what she was wearing on her body, why this is the one she fell in love with. Her chest feels full and heavy as Chloe reaches around behind Beca to unsnap her bra, before reaching for the top Beca had already laid out onto the bed and carefully, gently sliding it over Beca’s head.

It’s the first time they’ve ever properly shared a bed, but it doesn’t feel weird once they’re laying on their sides, facing one another, smiling stupidly. It just makes Beca feel strangely giddy when she stretches out her toes and accidentally finds another set of feet under the covers. It’s been such a long time since she’s purposefully just gone to bed with someone.

Chloe’s running a finger down the ridge of Beca’s nose when Beca speaks for the first time since they got horizontal, voice cautious and quiet. “I don’t know what I’m doing, by the way.”

Beca thinks Chloe’s going to ask her to clarify but she doesn’t, just sighs and smiles as her finger continues on its path across Beca’s face, and Beca’s a little bit grateful for that.

“No one does, Beca. You just have to do it with best intentions and see what happens.” Chloe shrugs as well as she can whilst laying on one side. “I don’t know what I’m doing either.” She smiles wide at Beca, as though leaping into the great unknown is exciting rather than terrifying.

“How...how are you so perfect, Chlo? How do you know exactly what I need to hear always? It’s kind of creepy actually.” Chloe just smiles again, her finger now trailing down Beca’s neck and across one collarbone, her eyes following its path so that she’s not making eye contact with Beca when she speaks again.

“Are you scared?”

“About us?”

“Yeah,” Chloe says softly, looking up at Beca again with an earnest expression on her face. Like she trusts Beca with whatever this is, what it’s going to become. Before answering Beca reaches her feet towards Chloe’s, tangles them together and watches the smile grow on Chloe’s face as she does so. Lets herself be consumed in the feeling of Chloe’s warm skin on hers, of Chloe’s sleepy, content smiles that she’s causing.

“Terrified. But also really...not. I just don’t want us to change, you know? Well, I do, obviously, but-”

“The same but better, right?”

“The same but better.” Beca closes her eyes and concentrates purely on the wonderful sensation of Chloe’s finger, now softly mapping a path back up Beca’s neck and up to her ear, the gentle tickle raising goosebumps everywhere. Beca sighs softly, eyes still shut and Chloe traces across her eyelashes. “This feels so natural.”

“It’s pretty weird isn’t it?”

Beca cracks open her eyes to take in Chloe’s slightly sideways grin, and lifts a hand of her own to run across Chloe’s hair. It’s definitely going to take some getting used to that she can just do this, that she doesn’t have to fight the twitchy impulses her hands have had for weeks now, seemingly separate from her brain, to just touch, touch, touch. So she touches Chloe’s hair, her ear, the side of her face.  “Really fucking weird.”

“But not weird.” Chloe smiles with laugher in her eyes, and Beca just leans in to kiss her, because she can.

“I love you,” Chloe breathes, when they break apart, mouths still close together, and Beca can’t help but kiss her again and again and again, holding onto her hair and her shoulders and the back of her neck.

She pauses only to kiss up the side of Chloe’s jaw until she can whisper “I love you too,” into her ear. Then it’s just kissing, kissing, kissing and Beca’s heart thrown somewhere up in the clouds, probably, for how light and airy and breathless it feels.

“What are we going to do tomorrow? Like, how do we do this? How do you be in a relationship?” Chloe’s tucked under one of Beca’s arms, resting her head on a collarbone, arm draped across Beca’s stomach. Beca runs her fingers softly through Chloe’s hair, soft and quiet in the now dark, peaceful bedroom. Chloe’s voice is slow and mumbled, like she’s already half-dreaming.

“Kiss. Hang out. Play with Jamie. Take him to the park. Kiss. Grade spelling tests. Kiss. Oh, we should definitely take a shower together-” She perks up a little at that, hand grasping a little firmer at Beca’s side.

“Mmm? I’m interested.”

“We just do the same stuff as before, Becs, except with more kissing, and I’m going to ask you on a date, and you’re going to arrange a babysitter for...sometime soon.”

“So the same but better?” Beca stifles a wide yawn and shuts her eyes.

“Yeah. The same but better.”

Chapter Text

It’s still dark, and Chloe’s head feels soft and cotton wool-filled when she hears the click of the door and tap tapping feet of Jamie sneaking into the room. The bed bounces a little as he gently throws himself against it, and Chloe can feel him clamber up behind her back until his head’s nearer the pillow, whispering as he goes.

“Hey, Mommy. Mommy. Mommy.”

“Mmm?” Beca groans eventually, stirring a little, rolling over.

“Guess what?” Jamie’s whisper seems loud in the quiet of the room, hissing softly through the blanketed silence.

“Uh, what?” Beca whispers back, her voice croaky with sleep.

“I’m better.” Chloe smiles easily, facing away from the whispering pair, and allowing their voices and the feel of the fidgeting weight of them in the bed to wash over her.

“That’s good Jamie. You getting in?” Beca sounds half asleep, unwilling to be fully woken from her dreams.

“No. I’m better.”

 “I’m glad, but it’s still sleeping time. So you either have to get in here or-” Beca pauses to yawn widely,  “-go back to your bed.”

There’s an overdramatic sigh, before Chloe feels the bed start to move again, the cover pulled away from her shoulders slightly as Jamie clambers under it ungracefully.

“Ow, Jamie, elbows, elbows, careful.” She feels the shuffle of mother and son settling into position. “You have the spikiest little elbows, little man.” Chloe hears the sound of lips on skin, two quick kisses (on on each arm, Chloe thinks).

“Spiky like a dinosaur.”

“Mmmhmm.” She can imagine the smile on Beca’s face and though she can’t see it, there it is, clear as day behind her eyes, making Chloe feel warm inside.

“Is Chloe sleeping?” 

“Yeah. Don’t wake her. We both kept her awake last night, so she needs to sleep.”

“Wasn’t me!” Jamie sounds mortally offended, his whisper a hiss of indignation and Chloe thinks she’d be laughing if she wasn’t still half-dreaming.

“Okay, yeah. You got me, dude. It was mostly me. But come on, come close so you don’t disturb her.”

Chloe can feel the soft kick of little feet against the back of her thighs briefly as Jamie curls closer to his mother.

“Ow, ow, ow, what is that Jamie?” Her voice, barely a murmur before, rises a little.

“Thomas,” he says, as though that is a totally obvious answer, and she can hear the click-swoosh of him rolling the little wooden wheels under his finger.

“And why is Thomas in the bed?”

“It’s sleeping time, remember?” There’s a bank of silence for a moment, Jamie and Beca each waiting for the other to speak until Jamie eventually gives in. “Trains have to do sleeping too.”

Chloe smiles into her pillow, and falls back to sleep to the sound of soft whispering.

She wakes up to the same sound, and for a moment doesn’t realise she’s slept at all until she registers the sun shining through Beca’s thin curtains onto her face, and that she’s rolled onto her other side, facing Beca. It’s warm and peaceful and so, so content, and Chloe lays there with her eyes closed just a little longer, going back over everything that happened yesterday in her head. She lets the remembrance of the fact that Beca is her girlfriend embrace her, because it feels pretty wonderful, to remember again, to have sort of forgotten, in the haze of sleep and get to learn again how happy and lucky she feels.

She wonders if she’ll forget every morning, or if she’ll always wake up and get this feeling, this joy, like she’s just realising over again that this is actually going to happen.

“Breakfast Mommy?” Jamie says suddenly, with a bounce that moves Chloe from her wandering thoughts.

“Yeah, I’m coming, little man.”

There’s a pause before Jamie replies in his most serious voice. “Mommy, you know I’m not such a little man anymore.”

Chloe opens her eyes just in time to see Beca’s crinkle with some mixture of amusement and heartbreak. 

“You’re such a big boy now.” It’s then that Beca notices that Chloe’s awake, and her whole face changes somehow, as she stares at Chloe. Or maybe it’s Chloe that’s changing, under the force of that look. Either way, she lays there and feels like she’s melting and if she could wake up like this every day forever more she’d be quite happy.

Jamie seems to notice his mother’s eyeline, the shift of her attention, and twists in his position between them to grin up at Chloe.

“I’m a big boy, right Chloe?”

“I don’t know little man, you still seem pretty little to me.” When Jamie huffs and frowns, Chloe adds “But little is the perfect size for a Jamie. You’re exactly right.” 

He scrunches up his face and squirms off the bed, apparently done with the conversation, his feet hitting the floor with a thud. 

“Please breakfast?” He says again. “I’m so hungry.” 

“Alright, as you’re such a big boy go on and wait and we’ll be up in a minute.” Jamie’s flinging himself at the door before Beca’s even half way through her sentence, gone in a blur of stripy pyjamas.

“Well, someone’s better.”

 Beca rolls her eyes. “He’s going to be trouble today. I can sense it.”

“Like a spidey sense?”

“Yeah, but less badass.” Beca chuckles, then looks at Chloe and her face turns serious for a second before falling into a shy grin. “Um, hi. Morning.”

“Good morning.” Chloe can feel her face break out into a matching smile, and she reaches out to touch Beca’s cheek, rubbing her thumb under the still sleep-warm skin. Beca rests a hand over Chloe’s wrist and just the ghost touches of her fingers barely moving send shivers down Chloe’s spine.

“You’re still here. We didn’t scare you away yet.”

“Not possible.” Chloe shakes her head softly, before leaning in to press a soft kiss to Beca’s lips.

And maybe she’s taking back what she thought not five minutes ago already- maybe this is what she wants to wake up to. Because even this gentle, slow, barely there kiss is enough to send a fiery warmth to her belly, so that her toes curl involuntarily into Beca’s sheets. So that she has to grasp a hand up into Beca’s knotted bed hair and kiss and kiss.

 “I’m sorry, I wanted to wake you up like that, not to Jamie being a little monster.” 

“Beca, don’t be silly” 

“What?” 

“I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to apologise for Jamie. I’m serious. I meant everything I said yesterday, and I adore him. He doesn’t get in the way, for me, so I know that that’s the kind of thing that you obsessively worry about, but it’s just really not a thing, like at all. It’s an honour, that you let me spend time with him too. Because I know how precious he is. I see how precious he is.”

Beca looks bashful, silent for a long moment as she stares at Chloe. “Thank you”

“No, thank you, Beca. Thank you for trusting me. With your family, I mean.” Chloe curls herself closer into Beca, brings her feet up so they’re nestled amongst Beca’s. “And maybe it’s weird to say this on, like, day two, but I’m Chloe and I say things like this, and it feels weird that I went along being so in love with you and not saying it. So I’m just going to say things, from now on, okay?” Beca laughs and nods. “I love your little family. All of it, everything about it, and I...I want to be part of it.”

Beca looks like she’s about to say something, opening her mouth and scrunching up her eyebrows several times in succession, before instead she just leaps forward in the bed and kisses Chloe again, not stopping until they’re both breathless, hearts racing. 

“I love you, Beca.”

“I love you too. But you need to stop saying nice things or I’ll never get anything done,” Beca says with a wide smile as she leans in to kiss Chloe again.

They’re interrupted by a loud crash from the living area, an unmistakeable “whoops,” from Jamie following it.

“Ah fuck.” Beca tucks her head into Chloe’s shoulder for a second before reluctantly sliding out of bed to investigate. She turns in the doorway to take in Chloe again before she leaves, still just wearing a big tshirt, her hair all mussed, and it’s almost unbearably attractive. “Come get breakfast when you’re ready?”

Chloe nods, her tongue feeling too heavy in her mouth for words, and tunes in to the rumble of the ensuing conversation in the kitchen.

“Oh my- Jamie. How many times have I told you now, no using the kitchen unless you’re with a grown-up.”

“I don’t know. Six?” 

“Jamie, this is serious. The kitchen is dangerous ok?

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t mean to come in the kitchen?” 

“I didn’t mean to break the thing.” 

“Then you shouldn’t have come into the kitchen.”

It’s at this point that Jamie bursts into a howl of dramatic tears, and Chloe thinks Beca’s parent-spidey sense was probably right as she clambers out of the warmth to investigate the chaos.

“Look at all the sheeps!” Jamie seems to be enamoured with Shaun the Sheep, so much so that it’s the first time he’s sat still all day, finally exhausting some of that mischievous energy that has already earned him a time out and an early exit from their trip to the park. He pokes his finger at Beca’s laptop screen, marking each position of the little plasticine sheep in the field, and Chloe can see Beca trying very hard to restrain herself from freaking out about his tiny, sticky fingers touching her other baby.

“It’s sheep, little man, even when there’s lots of them.” 

“Oh. Like Pokemon?”

“Yeah, like Pokemon.” Beca looks up at Chloe. Mouths “He’s never even seen a Pokemon.” with a curled lip, incredulous face and yeah, where do kids pick up this stuff? But also, I really want to kiss you.

She carries on their wordless conversation, flicking her head towards the bedroom as she gets up, and Beca obediently follows.

“Sorry for interrupting your sheeps time," Chloe says, pushing the door ajar behind her. "I just really want to make out with my girlfriend right now. Do you think she’s up for it?”

“You’re such a dork.” 

“Well, you’re dating me, so.” 

“Yeah, and it’s fucking madness, Chlo. Cause you’re just like, fuck." Beca gestures uselessly with her hands and it's way more adorable than Chloe should think it is to watch Beca babble. "You’re...Chloe. And so hot. It's insane”

“And you’re so eloquent.”

Then Beca licks her lips, shaking her head, and Chloe’s overwhelmed with the feeling that she needs to be touching her immediately. So she reaches out and kisses, presses Beca up against the wall, and there are hands everywhere, touching her skin and enveloping her in the pleasant, prickly heat of their touch.

Her own hands can feel warmth, and softness, and the hard juts of Beca’s hipbones, her collarbones, her spine. The way the skin pulls around them in perfectly smooth curves. The downy hairs of the back of her neck, and the heat of Beca’s breath on her skin as she presses hot, wet kisses up Chloe’s neck.

“Fuck.”

And if Chloe wasn’t already completely gone for Beca before they’d so much as kissed, this is the point where she would have fallen completely down the rabbit hole, with Beca’s hands racing over her body then slowing, slowing, into a touch that’s exploring instead of whatever frantic madness it was before. 

It becomes relaxed, and full palms are replaces by soft fingertips. Tongue replaced with butterfly kisses up Beca’s cheekbone. Breathlessness replaced with sighs and whispers, until Chloe’s arms wrap around Beca and just hold her there, safe.

When Chloe arrives home, it’s with a glow and a smile that she knows Maya will be able to pick up on immediately. She feels different, like there’s no way that someone who knows her could look at her and not just read this chick’s in love with Beca Mitchell (and Beca loves her back) just flowing right off her skin as though it’s written there.  

“Chloe? You’re home?” She hears as she slips her shoes off, and turns to spot Maya draped over the sofa, head flung backwards to look at Chloe with a cheeky quirk of her eyebrow. “And where the hell have you been all weekend missy?” 

“OMG.” Chloe’s thrown when Jesse suddenly sits up, apparently hiding the whole time behind the back of the sofa, flopped across Maya’s lap. “You’ve been gone all weekend? You didn’t say she was gone the whole weekend. Oh my God.” 

“What?” Chloe tries her best to sound nonchalant, but she’s not great at that at the best of times, and she can feel her mouth pull into a smile before the word’s even fully out of her mouth. She should probably get used to that feeling, she thinks. She’s got a lot of smiles she can’t really hold in right now. 

Jesse lets out what can only be described as a screech, bouncing onto his feet and looking back down at Maya with his mouth open into an excitable grin. “Maya!” He exclaims, and Maya just shakes her head at him, obviously entertained before he turns his attention back to Chloe. “Did you...were you..?”

“Maybe.”

“That means yes! Maya that means yes!” Maya chuckles at him, her tongue held between her teeth as she turns to Chloe again.

“Is he right Chlo?”

Chloe’s not sure if she should say, if she should take the pleasure of this reveal to both Jesse and Maya, but then- she can’t stop smiling. She can tell that she looks even giddier than usual, and yes she did come in after two whole nights in someone else’s apartment wearing their favourite hoodie, wrapped in the smell of them, glowing with happiness. She knows she must be, she can feel it in her chest.

“Yes, I was at Beca’s.” 

“And??” 

“...Yes.” She flashes one more winning grin at them, feeling a rush of affection for the pair of them- silly, excitable idiots that they are. Then she strides firmly to her room to start sorting her life out before work tomorrow morning. “Jesse, you should call Beca!” She shouts over her shoulder as she clicks the door closed behind her, laughing as she hears another screech and a crash and Jesse exclaiming “Where the frick is my phone?!”

They communicate over the next few days with what can only be described as a barrage of texts. They’re mostly for no reason other than to reach out- “hi” and “sleep well :)” and “Jamie just drew you a picture” and “<3” but each of them feels precious to Chloe and she wants to somehow permanently lock them into her phone forever.

Chloe holds out until Wednesday- it feels like an achievement to her, like something that she ought to do, given that they’ve been in a relationship for less than four days. Even if the other half of her brain- the one she usually lets herself be controlled by, if she’s being honest- has been mentally walking her to Beca’s door instead of her own each evening after work. So she makes it to Wednesday, and that’s about all she can resist. She loves Beca. She doesn’t really want to- or know how to- keep away.

(And Beca loves her too, so why would she, anyway?)

She’s been in an incredible mood at work this week. So much so that even her students have noticed a difference, the cheekiest (why is there always one?) demanding in the bluntest way possible when they’re supposed to be doing quiet reading- “Miss, why are you so happy? Did you get a boyfriend or something?”  

“Nope,” Chloe answers truthfully, chanelling her best impression of Beca's sarcasm voice. “Maybe I’m just happy because I have the best class in the whole school who do all their homework-” she looks pointedly at her repeat offenders- “-and bring me gifts in the morning and sing every note beautifully and are always an absolute joy to teach.” 

“No that doesn’t sound right,” Izzy, the cheeky one, replies with her face full of mirth, making the whole class laugh. And goddamn it, why is it always those ones Chloe loves best of all? Because of course she can’t help but grin back too.

“Shush you, now get back to work, those books aren’t going to read themselves,” she raps her knuckles on the desk, pretending to look fierce. “Or maybe I won’t be in a good mood anymore.”

“Miss Beale’s got a boyfriend,” Izzy singsongs cheerfully under her breath, looking over to make sure Chloe’s still watching and smiling. Chloe approaches the desk, leans down over the copy of Holes that Izzy is about half way through.

“Still not true, now come on, you’re getting to the good bit.”

“It’s all the good bit, Miss,” Izzy replies earnestly, looking a little offended on behalf of the book, and Chloe smiles as she walks back to her desk.

It’s after this encounter, when she’s finally shuffled them out the door at 3pm sharp, that she gives in, picks up the phone and calls Beca. She’s surprised when the sound of Beca’s voice saying “Hey,” immediately makes her feel warm and fluttery, and she perches herself on the edge of her desk, peering out over the playground below where stragglers and parents are still chatting and running around in the sunshine.

“Hey, it’s nice to hear your voice.”

“Is it?” Beca sounds genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, it is.”

There’s a silence where Chloe can easily imagine Beca smiling into the phone, and she hears someone doing some kind of vocal warm up in the background. “Same,” she says eventually. “Do you, uh, do you want to come over this evening or something? I mean, if you’re not too busy with work stuff, but you could bring that too, it, uh, it would be nice just to see you-”

“Becs,” Chloe says forcefully to cut off the rambling, “I’d love to. That’s why I was calling.”

“Oh.” 

“You’re sure it’s okay for me to come over?”

“Of course.”

“Beca?”

“Yeah?” 

“I can’t wait to kiss you again.” 

This time she knows Beca’s smiling, can hear it in her soft exhale, in the tone of the voice that follows after. “Yeah, same.”

Chloe barely gets a chance to register that the door’s opening before she’s being pushed backwards, into the dim light of the corridor, and kissed fiercely. The surprise of it makes her feel almost as good as the kiss itself, as she gathers herself just enough to grasp a hand to the back of Beca’s head and another to her hip, clinging on. Chloe kisses back until it slows into something much mellower, more of the welcome kiss she was expecting, and she so can’t believe that this is real that for a moment she breaks the kiss to just smile against Beca’s mouth.

“Sorry,” Beca says, a little breathlessly.

“Yeah, no, really no need to apologise,” Chloe says, as though the way she’d been kissing back and the warm flush she can feel on her cheeks aren’t signs enough.

They’re still clinging to each other when a door opens just across from them, and Chloe catches the eye of a smirking woman for a second as the sound makes the pair of them pull apart in a way that can only be frantic and obvious.

“Beca,” The lady says, not even trying to hide her amusement.

“Hey Luisa,” Beca says, and Chloe looks at the pink spots on her cheeks and can’t be bothered to care even a little.

“Mommy, is that Chloe?” Comes a little shouting voice from inside the apartment, and then the moment’s interrupted completely because Luisa, now on her way down the stairs, is replaced by Jamie charging out in his shorts and socks and nothing else, and flinging himself into Chloe’s legs.

 “Hey, trouble,” Chloe says, scooping him up in her arms.

“No, I’m a good boy, right Mommy?” He twists a little to look at Beca, whose eyes are soft as she looks at the pair of them, and Chloe gets the feeling that Jamie could get away with just about anything in that moment.

 “The best, Jamie,” Beca says, stroking a hand over Jamie’s head, and grasping onto one of Chloe’s with the other. Beca leads them into the apartment as Jamie turns back to Chloe, jabbing little fingers softly into each of her cheeks.

“See? Not trouble. God, Chloe.”

Chloe thinks it should probably scare her, how much like home it feels to return here with her bag full of math worksheets to mark, still in her work clothes, and be greeted by Jamie and Beca.

But it doesn’t. It really, really doesn’t.

Instead she lets the feeling of it bubble over her. The way she feels so safe and happy and loved here. It’s the way it had felt long before ‘in love’ had ever come into the equation, but now it’s just so much more. She wallows in it, closing her eyes for just a moment as she bends down put her bag and shoes away, listening to Beca turn the oven on and Jamie chatter about how he wants “chicken and peas and bread and that’s all, okay Mommy?”

She listens and she lets that part of her brain- the Chloe part of her brain- take over completely, as she sweeps into the kitchen and pulls Beca into her arms.

“I love you,” she says, and it’s like a relief, to say it out loud again. So she says it over and over into Beca’s ear and Beca holds on tight like it’s just as much of a relief to hear it again too.

It’s later, when Chloe’s tucked into Beca’s side, carefully cutting out laminated self-portraits drawn by her class that Beca’s mom calls.

 Jamie’s busy watching Chloe, enamoured with the big scissors he is not allowed to use. When Chloe moves to get up and give Beca privacy for her call, Beca’s arm grasps at hers, pulling her back down and smiling over at her. Which is lucky really because, yeah, Chloe doesn’t actually want to stop having her body touch Beca’s body either. She sinks back into Beca’s side, and Beca’s right arm reaches up to gently play with the hairs at the back of Chloe’s neck as she chatters to her mom about work and Jamie and life. She’s almost fully lulled by the repetitive click click of the scissors, the murmur of Beca’s voice and the soft hand in her hair, sending shivers down her spine. 

“Yeah actually that would be amazing. I’m sure he’d love that.”

“I kind of have...plans, so that works out perfectly.”

“I finish at five on Fridays.” 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah of course, we can go out for breakfast first or something.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

"I will."

"I know."

 “Jamie, come speak to Grandma?”

Jamie leaps up from his position next to Chloe and skips over to Beca in a series of steps, none of which are normal (a skip, a bounce, a hop), before taking the phone very gently in two hands and holding it to his ear.

“Hello?” 

Beca carefully takes the time to rearrange the phone a little so it’s not quite so awkward against his face before looking over at Chloe, one lip held between her teeth and eyes glimmering with excitement.

“Mom’s gonna take Jamie for the weekend. She’s coming on Friday evening and staying over and then...we’ll have the place to ourselves.” Beca turns towards Chloe on the sofa and tilts her head a little, looking like she can’t quite decide whether to arrange her face to look excited or cautious or teasing, and settles somewhere awkwardly in the middle.

It makes Chloe’s heart flop ridiculously. “Beca?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you go on a date with me?” Chloe beams over at Beca as she says it. At her girlfriend. 

Beca almosts wins the fight against the urge to roll her eyes. But even so, she smiles wide too as she answers more sincerely than Chloe was expecting. “I would love to.”

“Are you free Saturday?”

“I mean, I guess I’ll have to check my diary. Make sure it doesn’t overlap with any of my other hot dates.” Yeah, there’s that Beca Chloe was expecting. 

“Is that so?” She cocks an eyebrow at Beca, shuffling closer so that she can run her hands up Beca’s arms and hold on. 

“Yep. I wouldn’t want you all to find out about each other because of my poor diary keeping skills.” Beca reaches out, runs her finger down the buttons of Chloe’s shirt, watching the trail of her hand before looking up to meet Chloe’s eyes again.

“I think you’re confusing hot dates with scheduled pyjama time.” 

“Hey how do you know about scheduled pyjama time? Have you been nosing in my diary? I knew I should have got one of those ones with a lock and key.”

“I used to have one of them.”

“Of course you did.”

“Shut up.”

“No.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“Dude.”

“I have to go, Mommy and Chloe are kissing,” Jamie says to his Grandma in the background, then hangs up the phone and chaos ensues.

“Jamie!!” Beca scrambles up from the sofa, grasping so fast for the phone that she nearly drops it on the floor as it rings in her hand. Beca’s sort of half sitting on the sofa and half falling off the side of it as she answers a little breathlessly. “Hey Mom, sorry, did you hear-?” 

“Um.” 

“Right.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” 

“Bye mom.” 

“Yeah, same.”

“Bye.”

Beca’s flushed, pink in the cheeks in the most adorable way as she places the phone down in slow motion and twists away from Jamie- who hasn’t moved yet- to face Chloe again.   

“Mom says she definitely heard what Jamie said, but she’ll pretend she didn’t if we want her to.”

“Oh my gosh.”

Chloe watches Beca’s horrorstruck face for a minute, before looking over at Jamie and realising he’s wearing an absolutely identical expression. She feels the warmth on her own cheeks, and the bubble of the moment bursts into hysterical laughter, and it takes approximately one second of Chloe cackling madly before Beca’s joining in too.

Chapter Text

They sort-of plan to have Chloe out of the apartment when Beca’s mom arrives on Friday. Beca knows that Chloe wouldn’t mind, that technically she’s already ‘met the parents’, but still- awkwardness avoidance is one of Beca’s main MOs in life, even if she does somehow manage to do a terrible job at following through.

So yes, the plan- no Chloe. Naturally, then, Chloe’s still there when Laura arrives with a backpack slung over one shoulder, a newspaper tucked under the other arm, and a grin that matches Beca’s spread across her freckled face.

It’s Beca’s fault completely, because Chloe had a couple of terrible meetings with one of those parents and the school principal, and Beca could just feel Chloe’s frown on the phone as they’d chatted- picture the way her eyebrows pinch together even has she tries to rub the stress away with her hand.

So suddenly Beca’s inviting her over for a quick dinner with Jamie, to cheer her up, (because it’s Chloe, and she should always be happy, even on days where she’s got teaching-induced headaches). Then Chloe’s watching “one quick episode” of Pingu with Jamie, and then she’s falling asleep on the sofa, and she’s somehow lulled Jamie- who was wide awake at five AM- under with her.

She’s supposed to break up this scene? To send Chloe away? Yeah, no. Beca doesn’t have the willpower for that. It’s amazing how utterly weak she is, for that sight on her sofa. So much so that she knows she’d be squirmingly embarrassed about it if it weren’t just so goddamn heartwarming.

(Ugh, Jesse would be so proud of her.)

Beca rolls her eyes at the thought, amused at herself for being so predictably sappy. Jesse had always joked that she had it in her somewhere, deep deep down. She glances over at the sleeping pair as she traipses about the house gathering Jamie’s abandoned socks and pieces of wooden train track from apparently random locations. One item picked up, one glance. A book replaced on the shelf, one glance. A pair of trains gathered from under the kitchen table, one lingering look. One reluctant smile.

Chloe’s energy is bright even when she’s sleeping.

Beca’s mom enters the apartment to the sight Beca hadn’t be able to bring herself to break up, of Chloe lying on the sofa, her bare feet tucked under a cushion and Jamie draped over her, one protective hand wrapped around his back to hold him in place.

“So am I still pretending that I didn’t hear what Jamie said on the phone?” Laura says with a quirk of her eyebrow and a half-smile, the second she steps inside the apartment, immediately registering the scene in front of her.

“Shut up.”

Laura just grins, and the more she smiles, the more Beca squirms and blushes, until suddenly Laura’s taking one last glance over at Chloe and Jamie and pulling Beca into a tight hug.

She wriggles away from it, in that automatic way she used to when she was a teenager, but her heart’s not really in it anymore. It’s more the nostalgia of it- her mom hugs her, she wriggles. It’s just the way their life goes.

Beca’s mom simply holds tighter, before letting her go with a smacking kiss on the top of her head.

“What was that for?”

“I’m just glad you’re happy, Bec.”

“Gross.”

“Oh Beca,” her mom sighs, with such a fond, familiar expression on her face that Beca feels a sudden burning surge of affection for her mother. For the one who used to carry her upside down til she shrieked, who soothed her tears with gently rocking hugs followed by much less gentle rock music, bouncing the sadness away. The one who she hated in her teenage years because she just didn’t get it, why Beca didn’t make friends- didn’t appear to want to make friends- and who just so desperately just wanted Beca to be happy that teenaged Beca had thought it annoyingly overbearing.

Now Beca just gets it.

Understands the depth of that compulsion and love and aches with apology for shunning it so often.

Wonders what on earth she did to get so many steadfastly kind people in her life, even through that hazy period of push, push, pushing away.

And it’s still weird to be this Beca, sometimes, especially when she’s so tangibly reminded of the one she left behind (no, the one she uncovered, scraped away at, layer by gentle layer).

It’s sort of overwhelming, especially when Laura leans back towards her and says, “I’m so proud of you, you know.”

“What for getting a girlfriend?” She can’t help but joke, to deflect from her reddening cheeks.

“No, for everything.”

It feels like music, thrumming through her veins in pulsing rhythms and lilting verses.

And God, whatever she was uncovering before Chloe came along, whatever Jamie had already peeled away, it feels like she’s reached the centre of it now, that she’s still oddly tender and raw with it, with what’s left.

She’s not quite grown into it yet, this fresh, pinkly-new skin.

The way it makes everything feel just a little more than she’s used to.

Chloe awakens then, her stirring tilting Jamie over into wakefulness too, his blinking eyes staring in Beca and Laura’s direction for a moment before he registers the sight and jumps up with a start, launching into a bloodcurdling scream of “GRAMMA!”

“Oh, hi Laura,” Chloe says, polite as ever even in her just-woken state, voice a little croaky.

“It’s nice to see you, Chloe.” Laura picks Jamie up, hugging him to her for a moment, bouncing her knees up and down. “Now come on Jamie, are you all packed for this weekend, hmm? Shall we go see?”

And Laura slips into Jamie’s room and leaves the pair of them in peace for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Beca says immediately, as Chloe peels herself from the sofa and makes her way to Beca. “I just didn’t want to wake you.”

Chloe doesn’t respond with words, just cups Beca’s cheeks in her hands and kisses her softly.

“It’s okay, Beca.” Beca kisses her again, can’t help herself when they’re this close. “I should go now though. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

“Beca?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m really looking forward to it.” Chloe grins one of her Chloe grins, beaming at Beca brightly and one of her hands wraps around Beca’s wrist.

“Yeah, me too.”

They kiss again, sidetracked as it deepens and Chloe’s hands slip into Beca’s hair, then down her back, and to her bottom.

“I’m leaving.” Chloe says, kissing Beca again. “See, look.” She twists them round so that she can bend and pick up her bag without separating their bodies, and Beca laughs into the kiss as they wobble in place. Chloe opens the door, leans back into Beca’s mouth. “Totally.” Kiss. “Leaving.”

“You’re ridiculous.” One last kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah you will. Tell Jamie I love him.”

“Rude.” Okay, one more kiss.

“Tell Beca I love her too,” Chloe whispers, a teasing glint in her eyes.

“You nerd.” Beca rolls her eyes, flushes and hopes desperately that Chloe knows that means never stop saying things like that.

Beca thinks she probably does, as she looks at the gleam in Chloe’s eyes. Okay, this really is the last kiss. Chloe steps out into the hallway, grinning at Beca, hair a little messy.

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.” Beca nods, waving as Chloe spins and half-skips off down the corridor.

And Beca’s left with a flush on her cheeks, biting the inside of her cheek as she tries not to smile.

Laura and Jamie reemerge with the sound of the door shutting, and Laura’s eyebrows rise so high as she smirks that Beca has to bite the smile down even harder.

“Shut up,” Beca says again.

“I didn’t say anything.” Laura laughs, and Jamie runs in circles making obnoxiously loud siren noises, and Beca bites her lip, looks down at her feet to hide the wide smile her mom can see regardless.

The next day she flits between terrified and excited every two minutes.

There’s the moment she realises she’s never been on a first date with someone she already knows she’s in love with before.

Then she remembers it’s Chloe, and her and Chloe have eaten out together before. At the same restaurant, even.

But this is Chloe, perfect, lovely Chloe.

Why on earth does Chloe want to go on a date with her again?

With Beca? God, what a terrible idea.

Then Chloe texts her a smiley face emoji and nothing else and she relaxes again.

Her head whirls in circles, and it doesn’t help that after her mom leaves with Jamie the house is weirdly quiet, weirdly tidy. So she calms herself the only way she knows how, when Jamie’s not around- with headphones and a laptop and the careful, delicate crafting of sounds that require her full attention to become music.

It works too well, in the end, and she doesn’t have enough time to do all the outfit over-thinking she was planning on doing. Just sees the tight skirt and sheer shirt she already knows Chloe likes on her, and puts it on. Simple. It seems right, somehow- that it feels simple.

So she fights the urge to second guess herself- to strip it off and clamour madly at her hangers for something else- by ringing Jesse.

“Becaw! What’s wrong?”

“Why would something be wrong?”

“Did you ring just to chat about our day to day lives? Because unless you’ve been replaced with some kind of pod person version of Beca, then I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not a pod person.” How does she always end up saying sentences like that when she’s talking to Jesse??

“Beca, are you freaking out?”

“No, I mean, well...Yeah. A little bit. I think. Fuck.”

Jesse chuckles down the phone, and Beca rambles on.

“Is this a terrible idea Jesse? Shit. What if it is? What if it’s awkward and horrible and I’m already in way too deep and it’s going to be totally shit trying to be just friends again. Fuck.”

“Woah, woah. Breathe.”

“I’m breathing.”

“Well, that’s a start.”

“Dork.”

“You love me.”

“Shut up.”

“Beca, this is Chloe. Chloe loves you. Chloe wants this to work out too, and Chloe’s like, ridiculously nice, remember?”

“I remember.”

“So just chill out. Chloe’s a nice person who loves you and you’re a nice person who loves Chloe. That means it’ll be fine.”

“I think you calling me ‘nice’ is probably the weirdest thing you’ve ever said.”

“I say a lot of weird things.”

“Exactly. Weirdo.”

“It’ll be fine, Beca. And if it’s not, you can just try again. Until it is.”

“Right. Unless I ruin it. I’m pretty good at that, remember.”

“Are you going to be there?”

“What?”

“Are you going to be there, on the date?”

“Um, yes?”

“Well, then you’re not going to ruin it.”

“...I hate you.”

“I love you too. Stop freaking out Beca. It’s okay to be scared, you know. Just, make sure you do it anyway.”

“Right.”

“And that you tell me all the gossip on Monday. All of it.”

“Ew. Maybe.”

“Awesome. Laters, Becs. Jesse out.” Beca rolls her eyes.

“Beca out. Idiot.”

Jesse makes kissing noises into the phone until Beca hangs up.

Huh. She does feel better.

Her and Chloe decide to meet there, so Beca approaches quietly up the street to the sight of Chloe perched on a wall, kicking her legs back and forth, chewing her lip as she gazes at her phone. She looks a little nervous, in a way that Beca wouldn’t have expected, and that calms Beca somehow.

She breathes, and breathes and then Chloe spots her, and smiles at Beca, hopping down from the wall so that her heels click on the pavement.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Beca opens her mouth and accidentally, “I’m scared,” is the thing that falls out of it, and Beca’s once again minorly horrified at the unconscious honesty that seems to flow from her, around Chloe.

Chloe’s face slips into something that looks...in agreement. Halfway between empathy and yeah, me too, before she bites her lip again, eyes shining at Beca. She reaches out for Beca’s hand, grasps it between warm fingers and holds tight. It might be magic, she thinks how that touch makes her feel so, so much.

“But you came anyway.” Chloe tilts her head to the side, and Beca is reminded instantly of an earnest puppy, just lovable in every way.

“Yeah. I guess so.” She smiles at Chloe, feels the terrifying thump of her heart and lets herself be led inside. And she’s still scared. Still feels a little like her limbs might have forgotten how to arrange themselves in a normal, human kind of fashion. But Chloe’s here.

So it’s okay.

It’s okay.

It’s more than okay. It’s pretty damn great.

They’re kissing before they even get inside Beca’s apartment, and Beca has to remind herself, drunk on wine and kisses, that she has to do such time consuming things as take the key out of the lock, and close the door.

“This is ridiculous,” Beca breathes out, as Chloe’s hands pull her shirt out where it’s tucked into her skirt. “Fuck. I love you.”

Chloe grins wickedly, sucks at the skin of Beca’s collarbone before licking a trail up to her ear. “I love you too.”

“This is okay, right? This is okay?” Beca’s breathless already, hands clasping at the bare skin she can reach on Chloe’s back, above her dress.

“Yes,” Chloe says emphatically, kissing wetly up Beca’s cheekbone. “Yes.” She softens her touch, presses gentle hands into Beca’s abdomen as Beca steps cautiously back towards the sofa, Chloe following as though there’s some kind of force holding them together. “ Yes.”

“Okay, yes,” Beca breathes back in response, skirt riding up as she pushes Chloe down and sits astride her lap.

“Yes.” Chloe’s hands are warm on the skin of her thighs, her breath hot against her neck, her skin burning beneath Beca’s wandering hands.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Beca wakes to Chloe clinging to her, limpet like, shivering and goose-pimpled as they lie undressed under a thin blanket on the sofa. Beca wriggles, wraps her arms tighter around Chloe as she stirs too.

“We should move. I have a bed you know.”

Chloe makes a vague noise of dissent and burrows closer into Beca. But when Beca starts to push upwards off the sofa she doesn’t complain any further, simply follows naked Beca silently into the bedroom, wearing the blanket like a towel, and perhaps having woken enough to remember the existence of sheets and mattresses.

They slip into bed quietly, and Chloe immediately pulls Beca back to her. They’d been not-touching for too long, Beca’s at least in agreement there.

“I don’t want things to change.” Beca whispers into the darkness, and then, even though she really already knows the answer, “Will they have to?”

“What do you mean?”

“I still want you to be my best friend.”

“You still are. You still will be. It didn’t feel different, right? Our date?”

And Beca can’t help herself as she grins at the word date, and runs a finger down the ridge of Chloe’s nose.

“No, you’re still an adorable, terrifyingly cheerful idiot with a lack of regard for other people’s personal space boundaries.”

“And you’re still an awkward dork who secretly loves it when I ignore your personal space boundaries.” Chloe smiles, pulling Beca even closer to her.

Beca barks a laugh. “You know me too well, that’s worrying.” She yawns, long and loud. “I’m in danger.”

“Does it really make you feel in danger, to have someone know you really well?" 

“No,” Beca says, the inside of her head all soft with sleep again. “Not anymore. Opposite. Safe.”

She can feel the contradiction of it, swirling inside of her. She feels mad and calm, burning and cool, safe and utterly vulnerable. And it bounces around inside of her in a way that should be overwhelming, but it’s not. And she sleeps.

Beca feels her when she’s gone on Sunday evening, like there’s a hook sunk in her now, and pulling away makes it tighten in her skin, a sharp reminder of someone else, somewhere else, with a hold on her, with a way to reel her back in. With a line to guide her to the place it doesn’t pull anymore.

It’s the same way she feels about Jamie, only with him she’s experimenting with making the line longer, loosening it out.

With Chloe she just want to pull, pull in.

“Mommy, what’s your favourite shark?” Jamie asks, later in the week. He’s laying on the kitchen table, which is confusing because he’d been sat at it like a normal person when she left the room twenty seconds ago. His legs are bent behind him, waving gently back and forth as he studies a book with his face almost pressed to the pages.

He always comes back from a weekend with Grandma with a new book, and Beca can trace his varying obsessions with the stack of them that sit along his windowsill. Train themed picture books, stories about Anna and Elsa, several featuring penguin protagonists. This new one is his first foray into non-fiction, a brightly illustrated encyclopedia of sea creatures that makes all the sharks look surprisingly friendly.

She peers over his shoulder, surveying them. “Dude. This one, obviously.” She points to the weirdly flat, spotty one. It looks kind of dopey and adorable in the drawing.

Jamie presses his nose to it, as though to see it even better. “Can we see one? In the sea?”

“Probably not, J, but we can go to the aquarium if you want though. For your birthday?”

Jamie bites his teeth over his bottom lip, twisting his head around until he’s basically using the book as a pillow. “Yes please.”

“Cool. How old are you going to be, not-so-little man?”

“Four!” So old, Beca thinks, as he scrambles upwards, sliding off the table in an ungraceful flop of limbs.

“Do you need my help?” She asks when Jamie hesitates where he partially hangs from the edge.

“No. I can do it.”

Four. Four is so old. A child, not a toddler. A real little person. She wonders what good things will come, from his newly-forming person-hood.  “I can do it,” is already his new favourite phrase, shoving Beca’s helpful hands away nearly every time, even as he struggles to coordinate himself to do such adult things as zippers and squeezing toothpaste and putting shoes on the right feet.

Perhaps he’s old enough that she can start reading him chapter books. She’s not a big one for reading, for the most part, but that didn’t stop her from making a full basket full of story books one of her first purchases specifically for Jamie. Once she’d wrapped her head around the shock of him existing. Of him being real and alive and growing inside her and threatening to come out and turn her whole world upside down. Back when she didn’t know if that would be a good thing yet, even though she already knew that she had a burning love for him.

(That had been very unexpected. She couldn’t even wrap her head around the idea of him, but she still loved, somehow, even in the abstract.)

Then she’d forced herself to walk through a mother and baby type store. She’d nearly hyperventilated as she passed rows of terrifyingly small clothes and weird jeans with extra elastic and bottles and contraptions and strollers. Then she’d ended up in the toy aisle, and spotted a shelf of tiny, colourful musical instruments.

She’d picked up the drum and grasped it in her hands like a lifeline as she finally breathed.

He or she was real.

And maybe there was something good here.

Maybe.

Maybe.

She’d made her first wish for her future child then. Her son or daughter. That maybe they’d grow up loving something as much as she loves music. That she could teach them to have that kind of passion.

Then she’d gone into the bookstore next door, drum safely in its shopping bag by her side, bought $100 worth of kids books and made her second wish for the bundle of cells that would turn out to be Jamie- that he or she would never doubt that the two of them were meant to be here, together. 

Later Jamie sits by her feet as she works on a new song, humming and nodding his head as he rolls the leg of her sweatpants up and then down again gently. He’s curled into tiny shape of elbows and awkward limbs, just like little Beca had been.

“I like that bit,” he says suddenly, twisting his head to look up at her, hand still on her leg.

“Yeah, with the drums?”

“Da da da DUM tss,” he imitates, tapping it onto the bare skin of her leg, and she wonders how much her neighbours would hate her if she bought him a tiny drum kit for his birthday.

She plays that bit back over and over for him, calculating in her head how she could extend it and build on it and make that part the backbone of the song. Jamie would like that.

She wonders if one day she’ll be able to have a house where he (and okay, her too) could make as much noise as possible without annoying 26 other residents and scaring a bunch of cats. Maybe she would have a little studio, her keyboard set up permanently instead of propped inside a closet next to the ironing board and Christmas decorations. Jamie could have a little desk that matches hers, the same set up but in miniature. She lets herself imagine that Chloe might be there, too. Rows of her sheet music and choir arrangements stacked on the shelves with Beca’s records.

Existing as the three of them, rather than the little pair she’s used to. Herself and Jamie.

She imagines it (not two but three) and suddenly she knows how to finish this song.

It’s Friday evening, and her apartment is working that look she likes to call single mother with a full time job chic. She’s exhausted from a busy week, and all she wants to do is relax and think about music and Chloe and Jamie. She takes in her visual housework to-do list- looks at the crumbled cookie mushed into the rug, and the stain still on the sofa from back when Jamie had been first experimenting with real cups. The dust that skims along her shelves of books and toys and records. The fridge that has beer and old Chinese takeaway leftovers as well as yogurts with cartoon characters on the packaging.

And Jamie is happy and laughing and pretty damn cool.

And Chloe loves her.

Fuck it.

Who cares?

Maybe being a mature grown up is about something more than just being clean and tidy and organised. It can wait, and Jamie’s nearly four.

So she ignores the washing up in the sink for a few more hours, pulls the keyboard out of the cupboard instead.

“You wanna write some music with me little man?”

He falls dramatically onto his back on the rug, puts his hands over his face. “Duh.”

Beca laughs loud, plugs in cables, calls for pizza.

“Chloe could help us,” Jamie says, whilst Beca’s fiddling with the settings on her microphone. They haven’t seen each other since Sunday, though they’ve spoken on the phone twice and Beca thinks about her basically every two seconds. It doesn’t take much persuasion.  

Jamie and I need u to help us write a song , she texts, before following it up immediately with also, pizza.

Chloe sends her a little grinning emoji, barely ten seconds later, followed by another, then on my way.

Bring pyjamas? Beca replies hopefully.

Or don’t, Chloe responds immediately, followed by a winking face and Beca laughs so hard Jamie asks her if she’s okay.

“I’m awesome, Mr Mitchell. Pretty super awesome.”

“ME TOO!” Jamie cries, suddenly hyperactive, and as though his awesomeness is some kind of amazing coincidence they should all be very happy about.

“Well obviously, you’re the Mini Beca,” Chloe says when she arrives and Jamie tries to explain to her earnestly how both him and his mom are “super, super, very awesome.”

“Why does Mommy have two names?” Jamie asks in response, scrunching his face up and holding onto Chloe’s hand as he gazes up at her.

“Because she’s your Mom,” Chloe replies immediately, and not for the first time Beca feels a confusing swell of pride and jealousy at her admirable skill for kid-related improv.

“Do you have two names?”

“No, I’m just Chloe.” Jamie nods, as though Chloe was simply confirming something he already suspected.

“I think my mom likes you,” Jamie whispers randomly, clinging to the bottom of Chloe’s dress and standing one of his feet gently on top of one of Chloe’s. He reaches up in the way he’s done since he was old enough to have any control over his arms, and Chloe obediently lifts him up.

“Well, it’s a good job I like her too.” Jamie smiles and tilts his head to the side, twisting one of his hands into Chloe’s hair. Chloe looks up at Beca, who spots the mischievous glint in her eye before she turns back to Jamie. “What do you think she likes about me?”

“Um...hmmm.” Beca catches Chloe’s eyes again, rolling her eyes and shaking her head as Jamie ponders. “She...she likes your hair,” Jamie says.

“You think so?”

“My hair is brown and Mommy’s hair is brown but your hair is, is, is not brown,” he ends decisively.  

“You know what I think?”

“Nuh uh.”

“I think you’re a little monkey.” Chloe tickles at Jamie until he wriggles out of her arms, and Beca turns her attention back to the laptop, which is still playing the endless drum loop she and Jamie had already made.

“I’m not a monkey! I’m a shark! No, a jellyfish!” He vanishes into his room for a second and comes back holding a plastic sword and no longer wearing his pants. “I’m the ice king!”

The doorbell interrupts them, and Jamie’s shouts turn to “Pizza!” He lunges at the door as Chloe pulls it open, roaring in a way Beca assumes he thinks is fearsome.

“Jamie! Don’t wave weapons at strangers,” Beca says, as both the delivery girl and Chloe laugh, and wonders not for the first time how it can be possible that those are the kinds of sentences that make sense, in this life of hers (and Jamie’s, and Chloe’s now, too).

Chapter Text

She doesn’t know why she was nervous.

It’s not exactly a Chloe sort of feeling anyway, nerves. Excitement, anticipation, love - those are the things that put butterflies in her stomach. But somehow those little flutters this morning - as she picked up Jamie’s neatly wrapped gift and headed to Beca’s in the role of his first ever birthday Guest of Honour - were definitely nervous.

As soon as she sees the birthday boy though, they vanish. The same way they always have, by the time she’s stood on Beca’s doorstep. There’s just something in this apartment, in what it represents, with it’s two special people inside, with it’s softly lived in feel - nothing too perfect, but everything well loved.

You can’t be nervous here.

The little birthday boy commandeers Chloe before she even gets a chance to touch Beca, and she has to hold in that strongly magnetic desire to put her hands anywhere on Beca, just for a few more moments. Jamie is hyperactively bouncing around in only one shoe as he endeavours to show Chloe every one of his seven presents (“Seven Chloe! Because I’m big now!”) in the space of one minute.

“Come on Birthday Boy,” Beca says eventually, sliding over to Chloe and pressing a tentative kiss to Chloe’s cheek. “Shall we go see some sea creatures?”

“But which toy shall I bring?” Jamie’s little face scrunches up in vague distress as he surveys the rug, littered with the spoils of the day - a heavy picture book about fish, a dvd of some series Chloe hasn’t heard of called “The Blue Planet”, a cup with Dory from Finding Nemo on it, three different trains that Jamie assures Chloe are called Emily, Flora and Ferdinand (she has to hold in a laugh) and - his new pride and joy - a purple scooter.

“Not the scooter.” Beca says in a tone of voice that gives away that they’ve already had this conversation at least once today.

Jamie runs his hands lovingly over the scooter’s handles, sighing dramatically.

“Well you haven’t opened this, so you wanna do that first?” 

Jamie actually squeals when Chloe produces another gift out of the bag still dangling by her side.

“Mommy?”

“Yeah, you can open it, go on.”

Chloe sits down on the sofa, and almost melts when Jamie clambers automatically onto her lap with the present in his hands, squeezing it experimentally.

“Happy birthday little man.”

Both parts of Chloe’s present make Jamie screech painfully - a t-shirt with a design of purple jellyfish that she’d had to order especially on the internet from France, and a matching jellyfish soft toy, with a million very annoying tentacle leg things that Jamie keeps trying to tickle both of them with. (Both presents make their way to the aquarium with them.)

Jamie spends the whole day looking delighted at everything he sees. The fish are “awesome,” the turtles are “awesome,” the sharks are “kinda scary, but awesome” and the jellyfish are too good even for words. The three of them stand for ages with Jamie’s face pressed up against the glass as Beca takes a million pictures and Chloe coos at the adorable, ridiculous pair of them.

Jamie practically throws himself at the little touching pool, when they reach it, bouncing his knees up onto the bench in front of it so fast that Chloe thinks for a minute he’s going to fall in head first. The aquarium employee - young and adorable in his neatly ironed blue polo and khaki shorts - seems to agree, leading a steadying hand onto his shoulder as Jamie leans over.

“Can I touch the water?” Jamie asks, pulling back up right before his nose dips into it.

“You best check with your parents first, bud,” and Jamie twists round, not even noticing the use of the plural words, and to Chloe’s surprise his pleading eyes actually do flit between the pair of them.

She turns her head, sees Beca biting her lip and decidedly not looking at her after she lets Jamie know to go ahead.

“Sorry,” Chloe whispers, pulling Beca’s hand to catch her attention.

“What? No. It’s okay.” Beca scrunches up her eyebrows. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah, course.”

“Sorry, I thought you might be freaking out. But I guess that’s just what I would do. I forget that you’re kinda better at that shit, you know, than me.”

“You charmer.”

“Shut up.” Beca squirms but leans her head against Chloe’s shoulder for just a second, in that way she does when she's just been sarcastic but didn't want to be, so Chloe knows she’s joking.

"I love you." Chloe whispers, and Beca turns and grins bashfully. 

"Yeah, same."

Later they sit out on the boardwalk that surrounds the aquarium and, by order of the birthday boy, all eat chocolate ice cream in giant waffle cones with sprinkles. Jamie insists on requiring no assistance, so there’s ice cream dripping in streams down his arms and his face is smeared from nose to chin in melted, chocolatey gloop.

Chloe watches Beca watch him, careful even as she gives him freedom to make a mess, swiping away a couple of wasps that dare come close before Jamie even notices them.

“I’ve got baby wipes,” Beca says when Jamie finishes and Chloe laughs at his proud declaration of “I made a mess!”

“This is good news.”

“First thing I ever learnt as a parent,” Beca adds, with a smirk, “never leave the house without baby wipes.”

“I’m surprised you survived before Jamie without them,” Chloe says, swiping one out of the packet, and carefully wiping chocolate from either side of Beca’s lips.

“Maybe I was saving that for later.”

“Maybe I was saving this for later, Mommy,” Jamie adds, squirming his arm out of her grip for a moment to lick at his chocolatey fingers.

“This was a great date,” Chloe says as she throws away handfuls of wipes and napkins and they walk hand in hand back towards the car, Jamie bouncing along in front of them.

To Chloe’s surprise Beca turns to her, concern on her face. “Shit, I’m sorry I know we don’t get to do many grown up things and -”

“Becs, I wasn’t joking. This is Jamie’s day anyway, but even so this was a great date. Maybe even a perfect one if you let me do this,” and she leans in to press her lips just briefly to Beca’s. “I don’t know how many times I’ll need to say this to make you believe it, but I’ll do it every day if you need me too.” She grasps Beca’s hand again, tugs them closer “I don’t just want you Beca. Your little family- I want in on it, okay? I mean that.”

Chloe barely gets the chance to take in the adoring smile that Beca sends her way - bashful and sweet and awkward in equal measure, before she’s interupted by a small boy grasping his arms around her legs.

“Piggy back, Chlo?”

“Well, you are the birthday boy, sir.” Chloe crouches down as he clambers on ungracefully and clasps his arms around her neck. “Are you ready?” Chloe says, rocking forward once.

“Yeah!” Jamie cries right into her ear.

“I need a countdown, big guy.”

“THREE, TWOOOOOO, ONE!!”

And Chloe sets of at such a clip that Beca’s laughter in the background is soon too far away to hear.

Beca freaks out approximately once a fortnight, calling Chloe at a strange hour of the day, and Chloe can always hear her pacing in the background, feet always on the move across the wooden floor of her apartment as she rambles and whispers into Chloe’s ear about how terrifying everything is, and how feelings are the worst and she is extremely not happy about having them.

(“Don’t let me ruin this, but I’m sorry if I do.”

“Feelings are terrifying Chlo.”

“You’ve broken me, by the way.”

“Being in love is the worst.”

“We’re not ruining our friendship right?”)

Chloe’s pretty sure that Jesse also gets a few of these phone calls. But for all Beca’s talk about freaking out, she never actually does. It’s like she just has to open up the little steam vent and let some of the panic out in phonecall-sized portions every now and then, to keep it contained the rest of the time. So that she never actually runs.

Chloe sort of thinks it’s a little bit adorable, actually, and it makes her heart swell that Beca would come to her with her relationship and commitment panic, instead of running in the other direction.

She used to think of love as something cloudy and foggy, blurring away the bad parts of her life like she’d just moved a different part of the picture into focus. Instead, being with Beca seems to bring everything into sharp relief. Her life is vibrant and full, and best of all, she’s aware of it. She knows to be happy- and how to be happy. And that she is.

Even more so than she ever has been before.

Her job is exhausting but exhilarating, everything she hoped it might one day be. For every terrible day of badly-behaved children and even worse behaved parents, of curriculum bureaucracy and slow, slow progress, there are more of them making music together. Of watching Aliya make her first friend, Brandon finally spelling ‘naughty’ right first time, and running up to her desk to show her, all smiles and pride.

It’s watching Luis run up to everyone who scrapes a knee in the playground and carefully care for them, arms wrapped round a shoulder, and the whole class conspiring together to sing a wrong lyric at choir practise, all excited faces that give the game away every time. It’s the face Jamal makes right after he tries an olive for the first time in their food exploration project, the one that makes Chloe laugh until she coughs, the children eyeing her up bemusedly like they think she might be dying.

It’s spending weekends with Beca and Jamie and Maya and her other friends from work, alternately lounging around without opening the curtains and driving to new places, “just because we’ve never been there,” or “I think you’d like the coffee here,” or “I’ve never seen a full sized replica of Godzilla before (but now I know it exists I want to).”

It’s always having bright lights, amongst stress and anger, amongst exhaustion and traffic and bullies. It makes everything easier, lighter. Things that before could ruin a whole day now just a temporary distraction.

“It’s easy,” Beca says one night, summing the whole thing up with surprising clarity. They’re whispering as they lay in bed, noses almost touching. “It’s easy to be happy with you around.”

Her chest feels like it’s full of warm air, like a subway station where a train’s just rushed through, leaving thick, hot turbulence in its wake and blowing hair back wildly.

They’re going for brunch one normal Sunday, a drizzly, grey day that makes Chloe long for the seasons they don’t get here in Los Angeles - the fall colours and the bite of air on her face, the need to wear scarves and gloves and to wrap up inside under blankets. Jamie is skipping ahead, confident in his path to their favourite cafe and doing his best to splash in every tiny puddle across the sidewalk. Beca and Chloe stroll behind him slowly, holding hands and huddling their heads down from the misty rain.

It’s the call of her name that moves her attention from Jamie, but the thing she notices first is Beca dropping her hand.

She turns to the voice, and Cal is standing there on the pavement, hair longer and floppier, slightly damp in the places it’s escaping messily from under his beanie. He looks like he must have been outside all summer, face as freckled as Chloe’s ever seen it and it’s so familiar and yet - not, now. With its extra freckles and the start of a beard. With the time that’s passed letting his face go from familiar to once familiar.

“Wow, hey Calvin. It’s really nice to see you.”

“Yeah, you too Chlo. Uh, are you..? You and Beca?” He looks struck dumb as he stares in Beca's direction for a moment. 

“I’m gonna just -” Beca gestures to the door of the cafe with her thumb, before grasping Jamie’s hand and slipping inside.

“Yeah. I mean, yeah I’m sorry I wanted to tell you in person but it just...yeah.” Chloe looks down at her hands for a moment, one of them twisting around the other in a way she’s sure Cal will recognise as nervous.

“It wasn’t already happening, right?”

“When were together? Fucking hell, Calvin, no.” She feels the unfamiliar anger rise up through her like heat, and it must blaze strangely in her eyes, or the way she holds herself, because Cal rears back straight away as though her reaction was something physical.

“Sorry, shit, sorry, I know. I know you wouldn’t and I know us breaking up was right and I know it was about us. Sorry. Fuck. Just, can we forget I asked that. I’m a dick.” He takes a tentative step back towards Chloe and rubs his face in his hands. “Sorry, Chloe.”

“Calvin…It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry this is just, kind of weird, you know.” He gestures towards the cafe where Chloe imagines Beca and Jamie must now be sat in a booth, waiting for her. "I mean not because she’s a girl. Woman, whatever. But...”

“Yeah. I know. Because it's Beca. Look, I really did mean to tell you. I know it’s strange that you know her.” Chloe bites her lip, looks down at her soggy shoes for a moment and counts her breaths, one, two. 

“I believe you, Chloe it’s okay.”

“I want us to be friends, and I mean - it’d be nice to see you at some point soon? I’d really like to be your friend, Cal.” She looks back up at him, his eyes wide and heavy with some kind of sadness. 

“Chloe. I...I, look. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. You’re with...someone who was my friend too. You love her, right?” He shoves his fidgeting hands into the pockets of his shorts and scuffs a toe through the puddle that lays between them on the ground. Chloe watches the water splash over his sneaker before daring to catch his eye again.

“Yeah I really do.”

“And Jamie.”

“Yeah.”

Calvin takes a deep breath in, Chloe watches it. “I don’t think I’m ready for that Chlo. I just...I’m sorry. Maybe this makes me a bad guy but…I’m not ready to see you loved up with Beca. I just - it feels like so recently that you loved me, and I loved you.”

“Okay.” She doesn't know what she's feeling, her body feels wrong, she wants to run away from this conversation and it itches in the soles of her feet and palms of her hands. 

“I do want to be friends though. I really do. Just, you know...Time.”

“Yeah I get it Cal, I do. It’s okay. I’m sorry.” I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm really happy.

“No, Chloe. Don’t be sorry. I’m really glad you’re happy. Really glad, this is all on me. And if it hurts you then I am so sorry but…”

“I didn’t mean to fall into this so soon after us.”

“No, stop apologising. It wasn’t even that soon, I just...it took me by surprise is all. But I can see it, yeah.” He pauses and smiles for the first time since they started talking, and suddenly he looks much more familiar to Chloe again. She feels a rush of affection, but it’s different. Different now to before. “I’m really glad you’re happy and you should get back to them, okay? I...I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

“See you soon, Cal.” She nods vigorously as he rushes away. 

And Chloe’s not sure whether it’s actually sadness that makes tears spring to her eyes, but it’s something.

She has to believe Cal when he says that they will be friends someday. She has to. They may have broken up but she’s never found reason to doubt him before. So she takes a few deep breaths and follows Beca and Jamie into the cafe, determined that “see you soon” is a promise she will keep, no matter when that ‘soon’ might turn out to be.

“What’s your favourite song lyric?”

“Lyric? I...I dunno. Gimme a minute, I'll get there." Beca pushes her laptop off her lap slightly, plops a Pringle into her mouth before smiling as she chews. "So while I’m thinking you can tell me all about yours because you have one you know off by heart right?”

“Hello, this is Chloe Beale you are talking to Becs.”

“Go on then, I want to hear.” And Chloe’s not sure why she’s surprised when Beca turns to Chloe and shuts her laptop, full attention ready, but it warms her skin all the way to her fingertips.

“Well first, there’s ‘I want to turn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet’” and she’s thrilled when Beca laughs loudly and slides into her arms.

“Dirty.”

“Mmhmm.” Chloe leans in and licks Beca’s cheek and they accidentally forget about song lyrics for a while.

“If music was the food of love I’d be a fat, romantic slob,” Beca says later, when they’re sat on the sofa, Chloe marking science assignments about frog reproduction and Beca reading over them afterwards, laughing at some of the more terrible answers Chloe points out.

“Excuse you?”

“My favourite song lyric. Until I think of another one I like better anyway. It’s Frank Turner.”

Chloe scrunches up her face. Her and Beca agree with most music, after all, they both have very wide ranging and eclectic tastes, but she’s never been able to get into Frank Turner.

“That’s a Shakespeare quote. Sort of.”

“I know. Twelfth Night. I may have sat in the back row of English and refused to participate on principle, but my dad is still an English Lit professor. You pick up that kind of stuff like osmosis.” Beca screws up her face, deep in thought for a moment before chuckling softly to herself, deep in a memory. “And he used to read me shit like that, sometimes. Bedtimes stories, you know."

“Shakespeare, as a bedtime story?”

“Yeah, all sorts. Like Tolstoy and Austen and loads of poetry. Even before I was old enough to read. I had no idea what was happening, so I guess I just liked the words then.”

“And now you don’t care about the words at all.”

“No, I didn’t used to care about the lyrics, just the music. The way it can make you feel stuff without words. Still kinda don’t. But I get it sometimes, I guess.”

“Words are nice.”

Beca screws up her face again, but looks much more pained this time. “Sometimes they're not, though” she says, rolling her fingers in and out of fists. Chloe grabs at them, entwines them into her own to interrupt the dwelling, the falling into bad memories. She doesn’t need to know what words Beca might be thinking of, or even who said them to her.

She knows you can’t undo them, the kind of cruel or heartbreaking things that embed themselves in a brain for life. She knows this from experience too - surely everyone’s got a few of them, she thinks. You can only pile enough positive words on top to muffle them, to make sure they’re just tiny blemishes across a great swathe of good.

She stares into Beca’s tentative eyes and tries to let her own blaze with the earnestness of her feeling.

“I love you and you’re my best friend and your son is the most wonderful little guy I’ve ever met and that’s because of how you’ve raised him. And you are smart and so funny and kind and mine.”

“You’re a crazy person. I mean, like, sorry -” Beca breathes a sigh, breaking eye contact to stare at her toes for a moment before looking back at Chloe again. “I mean- you’re pretty amazing Chloe Beale.”

“See. Words are nice.”

And somehow it means more, that Beca struggles to put her feelings out there, but does anyway. For Jamie and for Chloe. Because Beca may be very different to the timid, inward facing Beca she knew in high school, who would not even admit something so human as emotions to herself, but she still wants to wear a mask when she feels too much. The words still catch on her tongue, or get stuck inside her head altogether. Chloe’s getting used to recognising this now, can pick out emotions from the slant of Beca’s eyebrows and the way she holds her arms. Can see and feel what Beca’s saying in her head.

It makes her think of Beca and her not-lyrics. Of how what’s more important that the words to the song is the emotion behind it, of the feeling you can express with the way you arrange the sounds.

Maybe Beca’s right, she thinks, as she lays in her too-big bed at home and thinks about not-words. That the words they share are something special, but the intimacy from understanding a person without having to share a single sound. With just a single look into soft, soft eyes. That’s so, so much bigger.

For someone like Chloe, for whom words are everything, and will cheerfully say everything that comes to mind without thought for a filter, Beca is a curious, new thing to understand.

There are some words that still mean everything, though.

The whispers of secrets, shared thoughts, hopes and dreams from hushed mouths, barely inches apart, wrapped under a layer of darkness, softly worn bedcovers and sleepy love.

“Do you think he can be ours one day?”

“Who?”

“Jamie.”

“Ours?”

“...yeah.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course.”

“ Ours. ”

“Yeah.”

“I...I, yeah. Yes, Beca. I really, really want that.”

Then it’s kissing, kissing and Chloe feels like she’s going to burst out of her skin. It’s too full and the sheets are so soft where they brush over their faces, tucked right up over pink cheeks.

“You make me so happy,” and she feels the words with such force she thinks the people in the next flat over ought to be able to feel them too.

And Beca breathes out, bites her lip and looks tentative. Tentative but proud, like she’s finally starting to believe that sort of thing could be possible. Not just to be happy, but to have so much to spare she can spread it around. “Good.”

She feels threads unravelling within her, ones that used to be entwined with other people - Cal, her parents, her first love, no-one but herself - rebuilding elsewhere, somewhere away from her body, stronger and binding.

And so they live, one, two, three:

“Why is it not yellow? Mom? Mom? Why is it not yellow? Why is it not yellow?” Jamie skips sideways along the supermarket aisle, grabbing at the bag of rice she’s just added to the basket and getting his little hands on the packet just too quickly.

“Jamie, please. Oh my God. Can you calm down and put that back?”

“But Mom! It’s not yellow!”  She glances down at the rest of the groceries - a bunch of bananas, a bottle of oil, a lemon, a loaf of bread in plastic packaging decorated by a large yellow sun.

“I can’t only put yellow things in the basket, Jamie. We need to buy other things too.”

“Can I hold the yellow basket?”

“No, I only have one basket.”

“I can get another?”

“No! But here, look. We need some soup for lunch tomorrow. Do you want to pick a yellow one?”

“Yes!”

“That is...way too much information.” Beca’s laying across Chloe’s sofa, a window wide open so that they can hear the soft rush of traffic on the street below.

Chloe scrunches up her face but looks entirely unapologetic.

“You love it,” she says, licking the wooden spoon she’s wandered over into the sitting area still holding so it doesn’t spill sauce onto the floor.

“No, I love when you don’t put me off my dinner with tales of your gross students.”

Chloe must have put the wooden spoon down somewhere because all of a sudden she’s launching over the back of the sofa straight on top of Beca.

“Oof.”

“Hi.”

“Dude.”

“I need your opinion on this sauce.”

“So you lay on top of me because..?”

“You’re my girlfriend and I love laying on top of you?”

“Well get back up or your sauce will burn and you’ll cry.”

Chloe lets out a laugh that vibrates Beca’s collarbone. “Damn you and your logic Beca Mitchell.”

“You gotta keep me around for something.” She squeezes Chloe's bottom with two hands as if to hint at the other thing she's good for, but Chloe refuses the bait.

“What about that boy of yours? I quite like him remember?”

“Shut up. You love me most.”

“Maybe.”

“And you are very glad that Jesse and Maya have taken him to see that shitty superhero film.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, because it means you can lay on top of me in the middle of the day when you should be stirring sauce.”

“You know me so well.”

“Chloe are you sure this is the way?”

“Yes! No. I mean, it’s possible that I don’t entirely know where we are.”

“Oh my God Chloe.” Beca shuffles a little, scrunching the map that’s spread across her knees.

“I’m not good at directions, I failed Geography remember.”

“You said you knew where we were going!”

“I do! Or I thought I did. Anyway, we’re not lost, I just don’t know where we are or...How to get where we’re going.” Chloe peers out of the front windscreen at the identical houses that line either side of the street, as though they are going to magically present some kind of answer to their predicament.

“Chloe that is literally the definition of lost if you look it up in the dictionary.”

“You mean it doesn’t say Lost is a tv show about a plane crash that went severely downhill after a couple of series and inexplicably had a polar bear at some point but I can't remember why.”

Chloe turns to look at Beca and the incredulous look on her face is suddenly one of the funniest things she’s ever seen. Chloe snorts, and watches Beca’s mouth lift up on one side against her will. Then Chloe flops her forehead dramatically to the steering wheel with a sigh, nearly jumping out of her skin when the horn blares sharply.

“Fu - !” She stops herself just in time, and then Beca’s laughing too, loud and full, and Jamie’s imploring her from the back seat to press the horn again.

None of it’s even that funny, but in the moment, sat together in a too warm car, on a scruffy street who knows how many miles from their destination, it’s just the only response that seems right.

“Flirting comes easily with you right, that’s kind of just the way you are. Teasy and friendly. And hot.” Beca eyes the row of people at the bar who had been glancing their way all evening, making eyes.

“I don’t want to flirt with anyone but you, though.” 

“That is very adorable but you could still probably wink your way into their pants. Without trying.”

“You reckon? Why? That work with you?” Chloe winks ridiculously at Beca, stepping forward so that they are almost touching.

“No,” Beca says very unconvincingly, leaning slowly into towards Chloe as though she’s not even aware of it.

“I could definitely talk my way into your pants,” Chloe says, voice low as she presses her mouth close to Beca’s face.

“Well, sure, I wouldn’t say no to any way to you, uh, trying it on…” Beca rambles valiantly.

“Beca you can say sex you know,” Chloe whispers into Beca’s ear, grinning with delight and she can practically feel the warm flush coming off Beca’s skin.

“And everyone already knows you’ve had it. You kind of have the four year old receipts.”

“Shut up.” Beca’s desperately trying to hold in a smirk as she moves her face, but not the rest of her body, a little bit away from Chloe. “But I could resist you. If I wanted to.”

“Liar,” Chloe says, leaning back in and kissing in a firm line up Beca’s jaw.

“Nuhuh,” Beca says, already sounding a little breathless. “I just don’t want to.”

“This is ridiculous, I just can’t believe those, those fu - those, those...noodles!” Chloe growls and stamps her foot and doesn't even care she's doing an impression of Jamie at his most fearsome.

“Noodles?”

Chloe tosses her head to indicate Jamie, the obstacle to her swearing, sat over on the sofa and watching their conversation even as he continues to act out some scene between the two plastic dinosaurs he’s holding.

“Just, take a step back from the edge Chlo. It’s just a choir.”

“Just a choir? Beca. This is way more than that.”

“Yikes, okay.”

“It really means something to the kids. I’m not going to let those bureaucratic idiots ruin it. There’s no way.”

“You won’t Chlo. You won’t, but like, chill, okay?”

“Chill? Beca are you -”

“Today. Just today. We’re here - Jamie and I - and there’s nothing you can do until Monday anyway. So, let us just take your mind off it.”

Chloe raises an eyebrow at that, smirking suggestively and watches as Beca has to struggle to contain her eyeroll before pulling Chloe in for a soft kiss.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly. I love that you care so much.” She presses another kiss to the softest part of Chloe’s cheek and Chloe tries to just concentrate on the feeling of it. “But come play with your family now, yeah?”

It’s the magic words, of course it is. Beca knows it as much as Chloe does, because she’s smiling in a way that is both bashful and proud.

“Love ya,” Chloe says softly, pressing her face into Beca’s collarbone and inhaling the inherently Beca-ish scent of her skin.

She feels the soft chuckle in response jitter against her skin.

She remembers some film, some romantic declaration about how problems suddenly seem inconsequential when you have someone to love, someone who loves you. And that sentiment feels so, so real in that moment it almost overwhelms her.

She clings tighter to Beca, then hears the patter of Jamie’s bare feet as he approaches and reaches up to clasp his tiny, warm hand around Chloe’s wrist.

Even more love, even more to love.

“Can we go to the park?”

And for a moment she just feels overwhelmingly lucky, lucky, lucky.

Chloe returns home from a quick run to the store one night (and yes, she has flashes now where she thinks home and means here, means Beca and Jamie and it makes this sort of fire in her belly, some kind of warm heat.)

Beca has unexpectedly fallen fast asleep on the sofa, her laptop pushed to one side but still softly playing music. Something not in English that Chloe doesn’t recognise but Jamie seems to be humming along to.

Jamie, Mr. Mischief himself lately, is draped across Beca’s lap so that Chloe can’t actually see what he’s doing until she gets close.

He’s got his tongue out in concentration, very gently and carefully colouring in Beca’s grasshopper tattoo with the new markers his grandma bought him for his birthday. Chloe has to stifle a laugh because she’s almost certain that Jamie’s taste in colours does not match Beca’s own. She’s also never seen a pink and yellow grasshopper before.

“Hi Chlo,” Jamie whispers, because he does this now, calls her ‘Chlo’ every time like he's forgotten there's another syllable. It’s adorable. It kills her. It makes her never want to leave this safe little apartment ever again.

“Hey little man. You nearly done? We need to wake your mom up anyway. Gently!” She adds, slightly too late, as Jamie immediately throws himself dramatically into a cuddle with Beca and cries “Mommy!” directly into her ear.

“I’m awake, I’m awak-” She looks down at her arm and the scattering of markers Jamie has left around the pair of them. “Wow okay, that does not look the same as it did when I went to sleep.” She peers intently at Jamie, blinking the sleep away from her eyes. “Jamie, did Chloe colour in our grasshopper whilst I was sleeping?”

Jamie looks at Chloe for a second, as though wondering if he could possibly get away with it. Chloe raises a single eyebrow in challenge, one that she knows Jamie ought to understand from the frequency he gets them from his mom.

“No! I did art, you like it?”

“I love it,” Beca says unexpectedly, looking down at where Jamie is now running his little fingers over the design. He presses a kiss to it, then jumps from Beca’s lap to the floor in one go, crashing off into his bedroom to do what Chloe guesses must be important kid business, given the speed of his exit.

When she looks back at Beca, she’s still inspecting the now-vibrant tattoo.

“Well, his colouring is improving. Almost all of it is in the lines.” Beca smiles at Chloe, that Beca smile that is just hers, just hers.

“Why did you say ‘our grasshopper?’” She settles in next to Beca, ignoring for now the milk still in the shopping bag by the door. There are more important things to be done. Like wait for Beca’s answer, then kiss her.

“Jamie used to be worried that my tattoos meant him and I didn’t match properly. He used to say ‘why Jamie no ‘hoppa?’” She puts on a babyish voice to imitate him, pointing at her own arm.

“Hoppa,” Chloe can’t help but imitate, grinning.

“Yeah, I know. It was the cutest. So I used to draw him a matching hoppa, and I may or may not have been a terrible parent and said when he’s big enough he can get one that matches me for real.” Beca turns to Chloe and blushes. The music has moved on from what Chloe can now read from the screen was Hjálmar to the much more recognisable Sia. 

“Well if eighteen year old Jamie still wants a hoppa then you’ll know for sure you’ve done a good job parenting him.”

“You think?”

“Yep.”

(The ink doesn’t come off, Amy and Jesse gleefully tell Chloe the next day via a snapchat video that features only Beca’s arm and the sound of their squealing.)

She picks Jamie up from daycare when Beca’s working late finishing a track for a TV advertisement, scoops him from the ground and listens to his tales about finger painting and learning new words and a story half real life and half not about his friend Rafael and a purple monster.

They go to the craft store, and browse along the aisles, Jamie excitedly helping to pick different shades of coloured card for Chloe’s classroom’s Halloween display. He runs his little finger along everything on the shelves, as though experiencing the store through sight alone is not quite enough. She wonders briefly if she should get him to stop, but he’s so gentle, it’s so sweet. She trails behind him with her basket, watching with glee as he kneels down in front of a tub of animal shaped erasers.

“Hello miss hedgehog hello, yes okay we can be friends. Hello mr frog yes we are friends now too.”

Jamie bounces up and down on his toes when he sees the ribbon and wool aisle, eyes wide and lip between his teeth in an expression that is so very Beca. “Can we use these stringy things for when I am a jellyfish?”

“You’re going to be a jellyfish for Halloween? I thought you hadn’t decided?” She’s had a running commentary, via Beca.

“I just decided now.”

“Then sure, we can use some of the wool and ribbons.”

“Wooool and ribbons,” Jamie parrots, testing out the words in his mouth before grinning widely.

Can I buy Jamie some stuff to make a jellyfish costume? She texts Beca quickly, whilst Jamie delves into the scrap bin and starts pulling out every piece of ribbon that’s either purple or yellow or both and running his fingers along it to test the feel of the material.

As long as you’re the 1 making it, you can buy him whatever ribbons and shit u want comes Beca’s reply, followed immediately by cos that is so not my area of parenting 

“This wool and ribbons is my favourite,” Jamie says, his little hands full of a mound of deep purple, shiny ribbon.

“Yeah? Then we’ll buy that one.”

They match. They all match, for the “Halloween Spooktacular” at Chloe’s school. The name is ridiculous but she’s taken to calling it that every time partially because it makes Beca roll her eyes and partially because it has Jamie trying to call it that too. He’s not very good at saying ‘spooktacular’ and his attempts make Chloe melt inside.

But yes, somehow Jamie’s homemade jellyfish costume has spread so that both Chloe and Beca are also jellyfish, long pieces of ribbon and strips of bubble wrap dangling off their shiny, bright coloured t shirts. Jamie and Chloe have hats, but that was too far for Beca. Though now Chloe’s wondering whether she might have preferred one to hide under.

“I can’t believe I am literally in public dressed like this.” Beca’s blushing, so that her pink cheeks match the colour of jellyfish Jamie picked for her. It is so very, very sweet that Chloe knows Beca is not particularly comfortable but is doing it anyway, because her boy asked and it’s making him smile. Stubborn, awkward, determined to be cool Beca dressing in a shiny homemade costume for her baby boy. Standing tall, even as her cheeks redden. Holding Chloe’s hand in front of Maya and the other teachers, the students, the parents. The principal. The whole school. Dressed as a jellyfish, because her boy asked her too - because he wanted all three of them to match.

She loves Beca even more for that.

“You look adorable,” Chloe says, kissing Beca’s warm cheek and catching up with Jamie, who is showing off how he makes his tentacles swim to a little girl dressed as Iron Man.

“You guys look so cute!” A young girl dressed as Rosie the Riveter squeals at Chloe, who has a hand on Jamie’s shoulder.

“Thanks Jasmine,” Chloe beams at the girl, and Jamie stares at her, mesmerised suddenly.

“This is your not-son, right Miss Beale?”

“Right,” Chloe laughs.

“Hi, we met before at the choir concert do you remember?” Jasmine says to Jamie, who has suddenly gone very shy and is pressing his face into Beca’s leg.

Just as they’re about to walk away, he pipes up finally. “I ‘member. I like your hair.”

Jasmine beams at him, and Chloe feels a swell of pride that is definitely disproportionate to what just happened. She almost giggles out loud with the joy of it, of the silliness of the three of them walking around in costume. The fact that one of them is Beca. She catches Beca’s eye and squeezes her hand.

Then she leads Jamie and Beca around the stalls, the 'haunted classroom', the jack-o'-lantern display, gathering and giving out candy and compliments. Smiling, laughing, holding hands. Matching.

One, two, three of them. 

Chapter Text

Autumn pretends to happen in Los Angeles, with days of smooth grey skies and a general air of grubbiness that’s hidden when the sun’s shining on everything. Then winter tries to follow it, with days that feel like spring followed by more grey, misty drizzle and then ceaseless blue skies. Beca wonders if she’ll ever get used to the fact that here Jamie can wear shorts every day of the year without much danger of hypothermia - convenient, given his recent disdain for anything that covers his shins.

It’s weird that he thinks it’s normal, to wear shorts through November, to approach Christmas without even owning a real coat. That here they loop Christmas lights between rows of palm trees and Beca has to describe snow to Jamie as “like ice cream with no flavour” for lack of a better comparison.

“Can you eat it?” he asks, a reverent tone in his voice that prompts Beca to take him out for snow cones right then and there.

The fact that he suddenly becomes obsessed with the idea of going somewhere snowy is compounded when Beca learns she will have to fly to Boston for business in late November. Immediately after Beca puts the phone down they look it up together on Google images, and Jamie giggles and squeals through several pages of photographs, prodding his sticky fingers at Beca’s screen.

“Don’t touch the screen, please.” A phrase she has probably said more than any other in her parenthood so far, she thinks, holding in the frantic desire to whisk the precious laptop away and scrub at the marks with her sleeve.

“But I wanna touch the snow.”

“That’s not how screens work, little guy.”

“Maybe I touch it enough and wish it will come real?”

“Then it would snow indoors! It would make a massive mess.”

Jamie slides down Beca’s left leg onto the floor, looking around with all the scepticism of a four year old who knows everything. “Mommy, it’s already a mess.”

He watches Frozen four times in the same week and Beca nearly gets beaten up by Amy at work for humming ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman?’ one too many times. (She contemplates throwing the DVD out the window when she realises she knows all the words in the shower one morning.)

Princess Anna rejoins the A-league of Jamie’s toys and suddenly he won’t go anywhere without Anna and a sea creature and Beca ends up putting an emergency plastic shark in her handbag, just to avoid panic screeching. When one falls out of her bag in the studio, in front of a visiting producer she has idolised for her whole music-producing career, Beca’s pretty sure she’s never turned redder.

“Shit, fuck, shitshitshit I’m so sorry. They belong to my son. I promise I don’t carry plastic animals around for my own enjoyment or like to accidentally throw at people whose work I like, super admire. I have a son. Like a normal person. Not just a big shark fan. I like them just the normal amount. I promise.”

“You know, my daughter once asked at volume if a six foot five fat man was pregnant,” is his response, handing the shark back to Beca and laughing deeply at her red face. “At least this probably won’t get you beat up. It’s Beca, right? I’m glad I bumped into you. I’m getting coffee. You can bring the shark if you like. Coming?”

And somehow Jamie’s under the sea icebreaker has scored Beca a personal invitation to his DJ set, a promise to listen to her demos, and a copy of his business card. Beca should be less surprised, she thinks, when the next week Amy starts coming in to work with three rubber ducks and a fully undressed Action Man in her backpack.

“You need me to look after Jamie again?” Beca’s mom says on the phone later that day, explaining about the trip to Boston and the work that’s taking her there in the mom-level layman’s terms she’s perfected over the years. “You’d have to bring him here, but that would be fine.”

“Actually, I - no. I mean, I don’t think so.”

“No?”

“I’m going to ask Chloe. I haven’t yet, and, um, she might say no, but..I don’t think she will. So.” Beca intently studies the newest drawing tacked to the bookcase, curling a corner with her finger, as though her distraction will somehow make her mom completely gloss over all of this new information.

Instead, Beca can hear the toothy smile in her mom’s voice as she responds. “Well, let me tell you I am not surprised to hear this, to be honest, Beca. You two are pretty serious about that girl, huh?”

Beca lets her body fall back from the arm of the sofa, so that she flomps dramatically onto the seat on her back, covering her face with her hand. “Do you have to be so obnoxiously mom-like about this every time?”

“Of course I do, Beca. This is my moment, let me embrace it. Lord knows you made me wait long enough”

“Mom. You’re the worst.”

“And you’re in love!”

“Mom!” Beca can feel her face stupidly, pointlessly flushing.

“Remember the first time I met her she was looking after Jamie alone in your apartment. I knew something was up.”

“Yeah, well, you beat me to it.”

“You got there. That’s all that matters. Now for the love of God don’t do something scaredy cat and ruin it all.”

“I am holding that urge in with all my might, don’t worry Mom.”

“I have to go away to Boston next week, just for five nights,” she tells Chloe, at the beginning of Jamie’s second Frozen rewatch as they are curled on the sofa with ice cream. Jamie is humming along to ‘Fixer Upper’, tapping one skinny, bare foot along to the rhythm. His pyjamas are rumpled strangely, one leg pulled up to the knee, the other not.

“Ooh! That sounds exciting. It’ll be all snowy and Christmassy!”

“Why is it that you and Jamie are interested in exactly the same things?” Beca drops the spoon back into the bowl they’re sharing with a clink, turning to face Chloe and grin crookedly at her, teasing.

“Is that not part of my charm?” Chloe smiles, absurdly pretty. And yes, always frustratingly charming.

“Shut up,” she says, leaning in for a quick kiss. “But, I mean I’m not just telling you about this to tell you about it, I kinda wanted to ask you something? If that’s okay?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Chloe immediately puts her spoon down too and Beca fidgets them together nervously, so they clink clink against the bowl.

“Don’t feel like you have to say yes, because if it’s not cool then it’s not cool, don’t worry, but like, I thought, because he loves you basically more than I do, I was wondering if you would maybe, um, look after Jamie whilst I’m gone?”

“Are you serious?” Chloe shuffles around so that she’s facing Beca completely, cross-legged across the sofa.

“Yeah.”

“You’d really trust me that much?”

“Of course. Especially with Jamie.” And Beca finds that she means it, completely.

“Shit, I’ve never looked after a child on my own for that long before.” Her bright eyes are wide and worried and kind of mesmerising.

“Chlo, you literally spend all day every day looking after children.”

“That’s not the same! And none of them are ever Jamie. None of them are ever your son.”

Beca’s left thumbnail ends up in her mouth somehow and she nibbles on it nervously. “You don’t have to, I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“No, no. No. That’s not what I mean at all. I will, I want to.” Chloe smiles her glowiest grin at Beca, the one that practically warms her face and makes her chest feel all funny. “I’d love to. I’m just really honoured that you would even ask. It’s a big deal. I mean, unless you’re gonna have a moment and would like me to pretend it’s completely not?”

“Please.”

“Done. Now give me a better kiss whilst Jamie’s not paying attention.”

“I can hear you,” comes the indignant voice from the corner. “I’m four now, you know.”

When Beca flies to Boston, Jamie and Chloe come to the airport to see her off, just two ordinary people wrapped in sweaters against the cool winter air. She can’t stop turning around to stare at as she passes through into departures.

She feels almost giddy with excitement as the plane takes off, fidgeting in her seat and tapping her fingers to the songs playing in her headphones so much the businessman sat next to her asks her to please calm down a bit. But even that doesn't stop her high. Her son is being looked after by the person she loves. Jamie's going to be spoilt, Chloe's going to enjoy the responsibility and opportunity to be in charge of Jamie's wardrobe.

And Beca? Beca is going to make some music and some connections. She's going to live in a dark room full of instruments and dials for a whole week, and barely see that snow Jamie was so excited about. Instead she's going to live and breathe music, in a magical sound proofed box that makes her heart beat faster, her fingertips itch, her whole body thrum with excitement and possibility. She's just going to be a 25 year old music producer for a few days and nothing else. Beca grins at the thought, staring out over the desert that's stretching out below her, tiny and endless and far away, waits for it to turn to white instead.  

Beca sleeps for about 12 hours in total, whilst she’s in Boston. Between several frighteningly official meetings, endless time hidden away in a dark studio and the “Oh, dude, you’ve never been to Boston? We have to go to -” that takes over every evening.

When she returns home, she feels like she’s been reset again. It reminds her of that blessed summer week, with Jamie at her mom’s and Chloe out travelling the world. The breathing space. Only this time, when it’s over, she comes home to something much different. She comes home to her bouncing, excitable boy, but also to an outrageously lovely redhead who just seems to glow right across arrivals at her. Smiling and waving and holding Jamie’s hand. And Beca kisses her, then. Grasps hold of her soft cheeks and kisses deeply right in front of everyone and enjoys the way it makes her belly ache.

“Mommy, how was the snow?” Jamie whispers quietly in her ear when she’s picked him up, carrying him back to Chloe’s car. He’s softly clingy, head pressed close to hers.

“The best, Jamie. I wish I could have brought some home for you.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, it would have melted, Jamie. Back into rain.”

“Oh. It was cold though, right?”

“The snow was very cold.”

“Mommy, I just have one more question.”

“Okay little guy, hit me.” Jamie leans in close again, so she can feel his breath against her ear.

“Did you build a snowman?”

Chloe gets buried deep in work in the run up to Christmas, and Beca finds herself working on more and more important projects too- she’s comes home exhausted but exhilarated, full of beats and notes and detailed arrangements of sounds.

And Chloe comes home full of tales about her choir’s latest songs, the ongoing funding battle she’s fighting (that currently involves her paying out of pocket for ridiculous amounts of sheet music and choir-time snacks and matching t-shirts and even, once, a minibus hire). But Beca can feel her glow with pride at tales of how their singing helps them, how they pay attention in math now because otherwise they have to skip singing, how they all want another choir t-shirt so they can wear them on non-singing days too. How, eventually, there are no non-singing days because Chloe gets them kicking of each morning with a song of their choosing.

And Beca glows with pride with her.

“Beca, guess what?” Chloe’s barely let herself in the front door before she’s excitedly telling the story. “The kids smashed your Christmas medley today. It’s perfect. They’re perfect. You’re perfect.”

“Please, keep boosting my ego.” Beca says, approaching from the bedroom. Chloe kisses her firmly, stroking her hair and Beca clings on.

“You are beautiful.” Beca kisses her again. “And really good at that.” Beca smiles into another kiss. “Where’s Jamie?” Chloe’s used to, at this point, being greeted by a small, curly-haired boy before she ever gets to kissing Beca.

“He’s with Jesse for the night.”

“The whole night?”

“Mmhmm.”

“You make the best small people, and have the best ideas.” It is always wild to Beca how quickly Chloe can go from looking like a perfect angel to making Beca’s heart race for a very different reason, just with the slope of her grin, or a wink. The kind of look that signals that Beca’s about to have something dirty whispered into her ear, or be parted of her shirt. This time, its both.   

And it’s completely fine by her.

“I can’t believe I was stupid enough to get flights home for Christmas,” Chloe says later, sighing, when they’re wrapped in robes on the sofa, sharing a bottle of wine and staring at the twinkling lights on Beca’s tree. “We could have had Christmas sex.”

“We’ll have fake Christmas before you go. Then we can have fake Christmas sex.”

“Okay. Good, because I bought you lingerie.”

“Is it for me to wear, or you?”

“Both.”

“This is very interesting information.”

Chloe raises her eyebrows, and takes Beca’s glass very carefully from her hand, putting it on the coffee table, before much less carefully pushing Beca to her back on the sofa, and climbing across her lap.

“I thought you might think so,” she says before leaning in and biting Beca’s lip with a kiss.

By the time Christmas comes, Beca’s so unused to not having Chloe around that it hits her hard, when Chloe goes home to spend the holiday with her parents. The moment she arrives home from the airport, even Jamie seems subdued, holding her hand as they climb the stairs to the apartment. They did have their fake Christmas together - a full day, as Beca had expected as soon as the idea was suggested. With a stocking for Jamie and special early Santa visits and cookies and a huge roasted ham. With a spoilt little boy and music all day long, and napping on the sofa at 3pm to the sound of Chloe’s newest mixtape and train wheels clacking along wooden track.

Now Beca is hit with a strong feeling, when she opens the door and the apartment isn’t going to contain Chloe for over a week, and God, she’s totally screwed because she’s going to miss Chloe like crazy. It's not that she's in love with Chloe, and wants to spend her days with her. It's that she wants to spend Christmas with her. This one, the next one, all of them.

"Are you home yet?" It’s nearly eight hours after they parted, and Chloe has already sent her Snaps of the airport baggage claim, her dad waiting in arrivals, and their old school as she passed it in the car ('where we met!!' pasted over it in chunky white letters).

"Yeah just got in the door. The dog is still bouncing around me and I'm the worst big sister because I'm ignoring her to ring my girlfriend, aren't I Bluebell, you cutie pie, yes I am, I'm sorry I love you too, yes I do!"

"Uh Chlo?"

"Sorry, you want me to talk to you like that too, Beca Boo?"

"Jesus Christ. Don't you dare. Or like, definitely not in public anyway."

Chloe laughs loudly and Beca can hear the dog huff and bark, its claws clicking on the floor and then Chloe's mom asking a distant question about coffee.

"I'll let you go, Chlo."

"Ring you tomorrow okay? I promise I'll use my normal voice. Love to Jamie yeah?"

"Of course." Beca lets silence ring for just a second before she adds, "love you, weirdo."

"I'm so lucky that you're so charming. And I love you too."

“BeCAW!” Jesse screams across the mall as a manner of greeting, when they’ve finally fought their way to meet him outside a Starbucks. “Come on now, gal pal of mine, turn that frown upside down. Because I know this mall looks like the zombie apocalypse from Dead Rising already happened but it’s nearly Christmas and we are going to have a grand old Christmassy time. Right Jamie?”

“Right.” He nods seriously, looking as dubious about the rabid crowds as Beca feels. Its one of those funny times she really, really sees herself in his face.

“I hate you,” Beca says to Jesse, even though she knows its her who needs to finish shopping, and he was done ages ago. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

It takes nearly two hours of chaos, but they survive, and Beca is forever grateful to Jesse, who had scooped Jamie out of trouble and into a piggy back over an hour ago and is still going strong.

“I’ve been working out, can you tell?” Jesse says with a wink when Beca questions him about it. He reaches out one arm towards Beca, flexing it dramatically.

“Wanna cop a feel, hot stuff?”

“Oh my God.”

There’s a giggle, and to her horror a sales assistant has witnessed the whole exchange and is winking at her. She’s going to kill Jesse.“You gotta keep the magic alive!”

“Oh God, no. No. There is no magic. Absolutely the opposite of magic. He’s an idiot.”

“Well it’s nice to see such a happy couple anyway,” the lady says winking again. “Happy Holidays and all that good stuff!”  She’s wearing a glitter Santa hat with two white braids.

Jesse is laughing so hard Beca’s surprised he’s still got a hold on Jamie. “We’re not a couple, I’m just an honorary family member.”

“My mommy has a Chloe. She doesn’t want to kiss Jesse!” Jamie adds helpfully, scrunching his face up.

“Hey she did once, you know.”

“Oh my God, shut up, it was one time. And Jamie does not need to know about it.” Yep, she’s definitely going to kill him.

“Mommy, when there’s another Christmas, when I’m bigger and five, will Chlo be there?” Jamie says when they’ve left the shop and he’s been put down so Jesse can laugh harder.

“I, uh, I don’t know Jamie. I hope so.” She scratches the back of her neck awkwardly. Beca looks to Jesse first, knowing his face will be a picture. Yep, there it is, that delighted grin. She scowls at him and he laughs more, throwing his head back.

The two of them go to her mom’s for Christmas. She can’t help it, she misses Chloe desperately the whole time. But mostly, she can’t help but feel that it’s just not quite right, any more, to have family occasions without Chloe there. To sit on the sofa watching films with Jamie tucked into her side and the other side empty and cold. To stand in the kitchen and not hear Jamie and Chloe chattering away about where is snowy, or the children in her class who Jamie desperately wants to befriend with the burning passion of a small boy who things big kids are the epitome of cool. Her happy laugh mingled with Jamie’s high-pitched, uninhibited giggle.

Christmas Eve passes in a blur of excitable Jamie, last minute present wrapping, another watch of Frozen and a long walk around the neighbourhood Christmas lights to tire Jamie. Jamie’s not old enough to play Ticket to Ride on his own, but he’s happy enough to place train carriages as instructed by Beca’s step-dad, Paul, and Beca’s comfortable enough, with her sweatpants and glass of wine, to get crazy competitive with Paul and her mom.

She goes heavy on the mulled wine once Jamie’s tucked up in his brand new, candy-striped pyjamas, her mom long gone too after a long day obsessively prepping food. It’s a strange vibe, Beca’s never spent much time alone with Paul before, never had any reason to. But when he’d suggested a little light drinking to but Christmas Eve to bed properly, she hadn’t hesitated to agree. So there they are, two content, silent adults, drinking wine together on opposite armchairs.

"D'ya miss your girl, little one?" Paul ventures, when two bottles are finished and Beca’s body feels like a big, heavy cushion.

"Paul, you can't call me and Jamie that. I'm not even the littlest anymore."

"You'll always be little to me, kid."

"You've only known me since I was seventeen. I was fully grown then."

"And you were as little then as you are now. Don't avoid the question. I know that frown. I've seen it directed at me enough times."

Beca sighs, body heavy and brain soft too. "Yeah I miss her. Like way too much. It’s embarrassing."

Paul chuckles softly. "I'm happy for ya, kid. Look, I might call you little but you're a pretty big kid now you've got Jamie, and I can see that having Chloe has chilled you out some. There's a bit of the old Beca in there."

"What? That's not good news. The old Beca was a miserable loner."

"She wasn't all bad, Bec. I still fell for you when your mom first introduced us. You were crazy passionate. I could see that. Yeah you were a moody little fuck, and I'll be honest, I hated how you talked to your mom sometimes. But that's teenagers. Once you moved to LA you were wild and free, making music with no worries, and we were both so proud."

Beca tries to sit up a little, looks at him with a frown.

"You're more mature now you've got the little man, but you don't have to grow up completely. You seem kind of free again, like when you first moved to LA and we'd Skype you and look at your sunburnt nose and bags under your eyes, and I'd convince your mom not to worry about any of that because we could see your smile. You looked like you were really living. That's what I mean. You do that again now."

"Dude, stop. You're gonna make me cry."

"Oh and we definitely couldn't have that." Paul smiles crookedly at her.

"No thank you. I thought you were meant to be, like, the gruff unemotional one."

"Yeah, well you, your mom, Jamie and this strong as fuck wine bring out the soft side in me. And this beard hides it well.” He gives it a scratch for good measure.  “Wanna crack open that last bottle then, kid?"

"What a fucking terrible idea. Yes. Yes I do."

Beca peeks into Jamie’s room when they’ve finally conquered all the mulled wine in the house. She’s warm everywhere, heavy and wobbly as she leans against his doorway and studies his small shape finally sound asleep, so small and precious and delicate. She wonders whether its good fortune, that he loves Chloe so much, or if he’s just the kind of happy little boy that would love anyone who was kind to him. She doesn’t really want to find out. Its special enough that he loves her at all.

She finally falls into bed, pulling the covers around her face and feeling heavy and comfortable and missing Chloe from the empty half of the bed so much it aches.

It’s ridiculous, Beca tells herself.

“It’s ridiculous,” Beca tells Chloe, whining and drunk on the phone two minutes later. “I miss you Chlo. I wish you were here.”

“Same, Beca. A lot. It’s weird doing big things without you.” Chloe goes quiet and Beca listens to her breathing for a moment. “We went in deep pretty quick didn’t we? Does that scare you?”

“Surprisingly no, not really.”

“Do you think we should like, slow down, scale it back, I mean-”

“No. No, I don’t”

“Whatever, who cares. People can judge. It’s not like we just met. This has been a work in progress for a long time, I think.”

“Can you...can you promise me something though?”

“Sure Beca, what’s up?”

“Can you promise me that if we break up, that you’ll still love Jamie? You can leave me, that’s fine, I mean, it’s not, it’d be fucking awful, but like I hope if it happened we could go back to being friends and you could console me while I cried about the amount of breakup rom coms Jesse would lend me...But keep loving Jamie?”

“Bec,” Chloe says, voice heavy with something.  

“No, no it’s okay, you don’t have to say that we’re never going to break up, like if we don’t I’d be very cool with that, you know. That’s maybe an understatement. But you don’t have to say it.”

“I promise I will stay in Jamie’s life, Beca.”

“I am very lucky that you are so easy to trust. And I’m kind of totally drunk right now so, ugh, apologies in advance. But, fuck okay. You remember what you said to me, ages ago, about needing to sometimes just be Beca? And I was wondering how I was ever going to manage that, because it seems like something I needed to be alone to accomplish - to just have me there, then I’d just be me, you know? But that’s not really how it works. I’m still at home, picking up after Jamie, or worrying about his future, or planning what his dinner will be and how long it will take me to persuade him to eat it.”

“And then I realised that when you are here I feel more like Beca. not because you help me with Jamie, you do, so much, but that’s not why you help me feel like me. It’s just something about you being there, with me, that makes it feel like i’m the real Beca. Fuck, even when you’re not there you do that. Just knowing that you exist and are my friend and...love me...Reminds me that I’m there, that I exist. That I exist for me. So like, that’s why I’m not so worried, about some things. Moving fast, and stuff. Yeah. Okay. I’m done now.”

Beca can hear Chloe chuckling softly on the end of the line. “I love you so much. Merry Christmas Beca.”

Soon they’ve been together five months, six months, seven, and music fills their lives, just like Beca had always hoped it would.

They’re dancing in the kitchen to Chloe’s motown playlist, a bolognese bubbling on the stove.

“Sugar pie, honey bunch,” Chloe sings, grabbing Beca around the waist and pulling them close together. And she lets herself be soft, be taken in by this all. Lets herself relax into it, the sound of Chloe singing into her ear, dinner spluttering half-ignored.

She feels an ache in her chest, a sudden burning in her throat and heart, because this, this. She is safe and loved and it is so, so nice .

“Fuck you,” she says, muffled into Chloe’s shoulder as they sway gently.

“What have I done now?”

“Turned me soft.”

“Nope. You were just pretending all along.”

“I hate cuddlers. I’m not a cuddler,” she says, wrapping her arms more tightly around Chloe. “It’s peer pressure. I think I’ve just be worn down by too many cuddlers in my life.” She nuzzles her face into Chloe’s neck as she says it, where the scent is at its Chloe-est, as if this will help her cause in any way.

“We’ve sanded you down through excessive cuddling. Now you’re like a little Matryoshka.”

“I have lots of tinier Beca’s inside of me? Or am I the innermost one?”

“Neither, you’re just all rounded and smooth, like that cute little shape that they are.”

“You’re so weird. You’re lucky you’re that pretty.”

“Hush you.”

“And good at hugs.”

Beca didn’t daydream of dancing in the kitchen. She made music and loved Jamie, and had thought she was just living, but now - now everything is different. Better. She can see it for what it was, the many layers of happiness she did have before wonderful in their own way, but to have Chloe to share that with, well, she had no idea how awesome it would be. To have someone to tell about her successes, her failures, her loves and her laughs. Her thoughts and struggles and grocery shopping lists.

It scares her a little, to think how if she lost Chloe now, she would know what she was missing out on. What before was just fine would be lonely and quiet. And not because it would be missing a person. Because it would be missing Chloe. It strengthens her resolve when she thinks of it in the quiet moments, stroking Chloe’s hair or brushing Jamie’s. Touching all the freckles that mark Chloe’s back. Sitting in traffic, walking around the grocery store, waiting patiently at pick-up for Jamie, putting on eyeliner.

She’s not going to lose Chloe for some stupid reason. No way. She’s a fucking grown-up and she is going to behave like one and make their lives amazing because nothing is a scary as losing this.

“I like this one, what’s it called?” Chloe picks up the back of the CD whilst the traffic crawls in front of them. She stares down at Beca’s neatly handwritten liner notes on the latest mixtape, eyeing what Beca knows is an incomprehensible selection of symbols. “Wow okay. Bon Iver’s gone full hipster now. That’s not a word. Or even like, a language.”

“Yeah the name is stupid. The song’s good though. Jamie likes it.”

“Jamie has the hippest music taste of any four year old I’ve ever met. Even in LA.”

“Of course he does. It’s hereditary.”

“So his taste in music is hereditary but the fact that neither of you are ever able to shower without flooding the bathroom is -”

“- stop, you stop right there Chloe Beale.”

“Don’t Chloe Beale me, Rebecca Mitchell.”

“Dude. Wow. Too far.”

“Re-bec-ca.”

“You’re in big trouble now.” Beca reaches out and pokes Chloe in the side, making her wriggle and cry out.

“No poking the driver!”

“That is not an issue. We’ve been in this traffic jam for days.” Chloe just jabs her in the side in response, and laughs at her high pitched squeak.

The playlists Beca makes for Chloe are endless and endlessly varied. From folk to electro, via musicals and straight-up pop (including lots of Katy Perry. Chloe thinks she has a crush, but they’re just Solid Pop Tunes, okay) because there’s no future in which Beca is not intricately obsessive about her music. Where she doesn’t enjoy crafting sounds or songs together for the enjoyment of other people. Its especially joyful when said person will sing along, obsess, talk about melody and chord progressions, about lyrics and the specific season, time of day, activity, memory or other random detail the song brings to mind, and ask questions. Listening and asking, then listening differently. Calling Beca up from her car because this song “is so damn good, I just had to tell you,” or even sometimes “Beca how many times have I told you to stop putting Bjork on playlists, it’s too weird for me, and no before you say it I will absolutely not be won over by repeat exposure!”

So she crafts together songs from Hamilton with an old folk tune and somehow makes ‘Its Quiet Uptown’ even sadder than before. She mixes Joy Division and The Weeknd, she binds the songs Chloe mentions as favourites into single tracks that build and twist and spread outwards in the same way she does. She blends Bjork into an Icelandic megamix with Sigur Ros, Seabear and Kaleo (and Chloe loves it, of course.) She sings her own additional lyrics to the Sia tracks that she always thinks need more, and mixes sad songs into happy ones with the careful blending of melodies. She pulls new stories out of songs by playing that one, then that one then that one, in order. She does it for Chloe, and for Jamie, and for her. She does it because there is nothing more joyful than getting to share her first love with people who care.

Soon all Beca’s music intertwines with Chloe in some way. The rest of her life, too.

Jamie starts to protest and whine when Chloe’s not here to tuck him in and kiss his forehead like Beca does. She starts to have shoes by the front door, lined up with Beca and Jamie’s smaller ones. Beca starts putting things in her shopping cart that only Chloe likes, Jamie’s last picture has three people painstakingly drawn in it. Maya starts to joke about her invisible roommate on the couple of nights a week she sleeps there, and Chloe’s room becomes just as much Jamie’s as hers, for his regular sleepover with Jesse and Maya. Then Spring brings a visit from Chloe’s parents along with the endless sunshine - the first, since they became a couple - and Beca has to meet them.

“Oh God I’m gonna puke.” She’s pacing the kitchen whilst Chloe finishes washing up their soup bowls from lunch. She’d come around early, having left her parents to their own devices for the morning and probably, now Beca thinks about it, because of exactly this.

“Are you ill Mommy?” Jamie looks up from where he’s splayed across the living room rug, one ankle twisted around the leg of the coffee table, a colouring book open in front of him and crayons scattered to his left and right.

“No she’s just being a big baby,” Chloe says, drying her hands.

There’s a The National record playing in the background and Beca suddenly wonders if it’s too weird, if she should change it.

“Beca. Bec. Look at me.” Chloe grabs her arm before she can hotfoot it over to the record player, squeezes gently.

“I might be freaking out a little.” Chloe crooks an eyebrow at her, rests comforting hands on her shoulders, and Beca can feel herself grounding already.

“Bec, look.They’re not here to judge you, or assess your suitability to date me. They know how much I love you because I got very drunk at Christmas and talked about you both like, a lot. They just want to get to know you. Nothing more, nothing less. You can do it, and they are nice people, I promise.”

“Okay.” She looks into Chloe’s eyes, thinks about that instead. “Okay.”

Then the doorbell rings, and before she can even panic, Jamie has opened it and is being greeted by Mr and Mrs Beale, two people who look exactly like the warm and kind people who might have produced Chloe as a daughter. And who seem to have spent their free morning shopping for a beautifully illustrated book about whales for Jamie.

“Did you tip them off?” Beca asks Chloe, who just smiles, and pretends to zipper her lips. Then Beca’s being swept up in a tight hug and being encouraged to “please, call me Gina. It is so wonderful to meet you.”

“I’ve never seen Chloe like this before,” Gina says later, when everything has gone as smoothly as Chloe said it would, and she gets Beca alone. Beca’s not expecting it, turning around in the kitchen with her hands occupied with a stack of washing up to put away, and she almost drops a mug on the floor in clumsy surprise.

“Sorry love,” Gina says, skimming two mugs from Beca’s pile and opening cupboards at random until she locates the correct one. So like Chloe.

“Like what?”

“This content, this happy, Beca. This settled. You’re obviously really good for her.”

“I, oh, uh. I mean - I think she’s good for me, more, so-”

“Oh Beca. You two are the sweetest. I am glad you all found each other.” They both turn towards the hallway briefly, distracted by peals of laughter from Chloe, her dad and Jamie before Gina continues.

“And look Beca, I wasn’t going to say anything because I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but now I can see that you two are obviously serious, and in this for some kind of long haul- whatever that might be- I would be honoured to someday have Jamie as my grandkid. No hurry, you know. I’m not pushing. I’m just saying. He is wonderful and a credit to you and I would be very, very happy to welcome him to the family. Both of you. Or, I suppose for us to be welcomed to your family.”

“I, uh, wow -”

“Mom? Mom, are you scaring Beca?” Chloe approaches from the living room, and puts her arm around Beca protectively, a teasing expression for the pair of them.

“No, no she’s not.” She smiles warmly at Gina, trying to express the depth of her gratitude for the fact that her people - Jamie’s people - keep growing. “Thank you.”

Beca wakes suddenly, that night, after goodbyes have been said and Chloe has driven her parents to the airport before returning for the evening. Her clock flashes 3:17, 3:18 and she rolls over, grasping at the sheets to redistribute them and cover her cold toes, only to find the other side of the bed is ruffled, but empty.

She tiptoes to the living room, and finds Chloe in soft lamplight, red hair messy and twisted up on one side, singing softly and rocking Jamie to sleep in her arms.

“Chlo?” She says, quiet as she can. She doesn’t really want to disturb either of them.

“Hey. He had a bad dream. But I think he’s fully out again now.” Chloe looks down at his face, and Beca watches her quietly take in his features before gently brushing a bit of hair off his freckled, rosy cheek.

“He didn’t ask for me?” Beca asks, tentative, once he’s been slowly manoeuvred back into his bed without stirring.

“I promise I asked, he said having me there was okay instead. I’m sorry if -”

“- No, no. Really. I’m just.” Beca finds her eyes feel oddly wet and she blinks down at her toes for a moment. “He loves you so much.”

“I love him too.” Chloe’s face is open and honest and bright, even in the dark hallway.

“It means a lot to me that there is someone else here who loves Jamie as much as I do.” Chloe moves closer and presses a long, soft kiss to Beca’s forehead. “I always thought that if I found someone, not that I ever thought I would, but I guess I thought Jamie would always be annoying to them, and be, like, a lifelong cockblock.”

“Well...I hate to break it to ya, Bec -”

“Shush you, you know what I mean.”

“Silicone ones count too, huh?” And suddenly Chloe’s hand has slipped under her shirt, running a soft hand up the side of her stomach, stroking.

“Miss Beale I am trying to have a deep, bottom of my heart middle of the night moment with you and you are ruining it with your vulgar language.”  

“Maybe we should just go have a different middle of the night moment.” Chloe takes a step and presses her up against the wall by their bedroom, kisses her deeply and moves one hand higher, one lower.

“I mean it though Chlo,” she says, when Chloe’s mouth moves from hers for a moment. “It means so much.” She gasps, leans harder into Chloe.

Because having someone in her house who loves Jamie as much as she does makes her chest ache with relief. Even if the physical burden of parenting hadn’t changed (it has of course, because Chloe was an active participant in Jamie’s care even before all this) but just the knowing.

But for now, she’s willing to surrender to this moment instead.

As they slip back into the bedroom she feels like she’s doing day one and year three simultaneously, sparking and vibrant yet settled and safe.

Chapter Text

It never feels weird, that’s what tips Chloe off first. She’s a natural at feeling comfortable in new situations, will curl up on a sofa almost anywhere, but this is different. This is more.

To slip into a serious relationship, to go on dates and touch, hold hands, kiss. It’s never weird to have Jamie around, to love Jamie, to feel like she’s becoming part of a family, not just a couple. It’s never weird that their friendship has become something else, or to have sex with her best friend, or to talk about the future as though it’s going to have both of them in it, maybe for a long time. After all, that wouldn’t be weird, would it, if they were still just two best friends? To talk of the future in varying increments, to believe they are both going to be in it, together? So why would it be different now, for love?

It’s not weird when she goes home at Christmas and chatters to her mom endlessly about Beca and Jamie. She’d been a little cautious about how to approach it, telling her mom and dad she was dating someone with a four year old child. That it was serious. That she loved both of them and planned to keep doing so for a long time. But talking about them, in the end, flows as easily as being with them.

“So, maybe someday I might have a grandson?” Her mom’s mixing a risotto as she says it, and Chloe’s helping by drinking the rest of the wine.

“Let’s not go quite that far yet, hmm?”

“Sorry, sweetheart. I’m just excited and happy for you. You know, I love them already, from your stories. So you don’t need to be worried. There’s not much they could say or do that would make me forget how happy I can hear you are when you talk about them- both of them. I’d be very happy to welcome Beca and Jamie to the family some day, if you should want me to. I’ll be ready.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Goodness, my baby girl, as a parent-”

“Mom -”

“I know, I know, I just know you, Chlo. I bet you’ve been loving that little boy a long time, and if you and Beca are in this for the long haul, you will be a parent to him some day.”

“...It feels silly to say it already, but I really want that.”

“Beca knows that too?”

“I think so?”

“Well, you make sure she knows so, baby girl. Best advice anyone ever gave me - never make anyone have to question your feelings about important things. Make sure they just know. It was your Grandma who said that you know, and she knew-”

“-everything there was to know, I know, Mom.”

“Good.”

She makes sure Beca knows in the best way she knows how - by showing her. Showing her how much this means, how excited she is. How this makes her, even as a generally contented, happy person, into something more.

She watches, still, sometimes. That same enraptured way she’d watched when she’d realised there was something else in this relationship of theirs. The longer she looks, the more easily she sees. Beca’s the hero of the story, brave and bold and lovely and kind, and she has no idea. Chloe professes, every day, to make sure she knows. To show her. She’s stubborn and tenacious and brave in a way that makes Chloe want to be, as well.

And it’s easy, to show her. To love her and help her and make her smile. To be active in Jamie's life and Beca's. She loves taking care of Jamie, takes a weird thrill from making him dinner, or brushing his hair. In knowing his bedtime routine, and what vegetables he’s likely to dismiss with a frown. It’s silly but it makes her feel like she’s not playing pretend at being an adult anymore. It’s normal. It’s lovely.

So they settle into the busy routine of living. Picking Jamie up from pre-school and coming home with him a few evenings a week becomes their time, an hour or two in the evening to bond and get to know one another better whilst Beca’s at the studio with her increasingly full workload. Then there’s the random weekend afternoons, where Chloe whisks Jamie off somewhere, usually alone, sometimes with Maya or Fat Amy or other colleagues from work. And she’s not particularly worried about it, because Jamie seems to love her regardless, but it seems important to have that time. Plus, though she knows Beca would never outright ask, she thinks it must be nice for Beca to just have a moment to be alone. To not have a reason to spend the afternoon childless, but get to do it anyway - that’s precious, quiet and rare commodity.

They use it to explore the city together, to go to different parks in the vicinity and rate them on a scale they work out all of their own based on the height of the climbing frame (Jamie’s favourite) to the number of swings (Chloe’s favourite) to the number of dogs you can spot being walked nearby (high priority for both). They drink smoothies together in juice bars and sometimes share ice creams. They take selfies together, and Chloe takes so many pictures that soon Jamie, (and occasionally Beca, though she’s much more camera shy) fills up her Instagram. She gets comments from college friends and old acquaintances saying things like “Who’s the kid lol”.

Beca comes home one day to the pair of them slouched on the sofa on a rainy, boring Wednesday evening, watching Spongebob Squarepants. They’re laughing together at Patrick injuring himself when Beca comes in the door, and Beca stops in the entranceway, looks at them with a funny sort of smile on her face.

“Hi Mommy!” Jamie shouts, waving at her but not moving from his position, flopped lazily on Chloe’s lap.

“Come join us?” Chloe says, warm inside, and Beca drops everything she’s holding on to the floor - her laptop bag, her backpack, the jacket off her back - and walks right over, curls up into Chloe’s side. Jamie scoots over, settles onto Beca’s lap, across her knees, facing her instead of the television.

“Oof. You’re getting heavy little man,” Beca says when he bounces up and down.

“Because I’m a giant now.”

“Not yet.”

“But SOON!” Jamie scrambles over their shoulders, taking time to sloppily kiss Beca’s cheek on the way, and flings over the back of the sofa, landing not-entirely ungracefully on the floor behind them. He stands up, leans back in, at perfect head height now to talk into Beca’s ear. “So big I got big shoes now.”

“Mmm, well not yet. But yeah, we do need to do that soon.”

“No! Me and Chlo did it today!” He skips off, and Chloe can feel her cheeks flush a little when Beca turns in her direction.

“You did?”

“Sorry, I hope that’s okay and not like, overstepping or weird. But I know we talked about him needing a fresh pair the other day, and we went by the mall on the way home, so we stopped in.”

Beca’s not particular about any of his clothes, Chloe has noted, because she has a Pinterest board of children’s clothing and Beca, well, doesn’t. These days he wears whatever he wants, often clashing and bright, and picks out most of his clothes for himself. But he’s always had a pair of tiny black Converse, just like the ones Beca wears most days. He’s probably gone through five pairs in the same time Beca’s had her scuffed, fraying ones. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, no. Of course it’s fine. Did you want me to give you the money?”

“No, of course not.” Chloe scrunches her face up, shakes her head vigorously. “No way.” Then Beca’s looking at her again, studying her face, eyes flitting from eyes to nose to lips and back.

She smiles, Beca smiles back, then leans in and kisses her, sweet and slow.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Jamie stumbles back into the room, wearing his new shoes on the wrong feet and sits back on the sofa to squint at them, trying to work out what’s gone wrong.

“I think I did it bad,” he says, looking down at his feet, laces hanging loose and toes turned out in the wrong directions. “Left and right but not. Right?”

“You want me to help?”

“No.” He leans forward, pulls both of them off. “I can do it.”

“I can do it,” he says, over and over, these days. At cutting up his fish fingers, at washing his hair in the bath. Sometimes he really can, sometimes not so much, but they’re both working on at least letting him try .

So they leave him to it, and Beca leans back in for another kiss.

The next morning, Chloe’s up extra early, because she really hadn’t been planning on staying over. These things happen pretty often lately. She’s tempted with very little persuasion into Beca’s bed. They get a lot less sleep than intended, wake up wrapped up together. A routine.

She’s rifling through Beca’s wardrobe for an item that’s smart enough to wear to work, skipping past the endless tshirts and jeans and finding a simple black shirt she thinks she can make work. Chloe can hear Beca still in the shower, so she slips the shirt over her head and goes to wake Jamie.

“Morning kiddo, time for breakfast,” she says, popping her head inside his door. He’s awake already, forever the early riser, lying tangled in the sheets holding a barbie and a dinosaur balanced on his belly.

“Chlo’s here!” He scrambles out of bed, game forgotten, and runs circles around her, zippy and bright.

“You ready for food?”

“Yes. No. Yes. Wait, no. Clothes first.” He stops circling her, and pulls off his pyjama top. “I need my drum shirt.”

“Uh, someone’s not woken up their manners yet.”

“Can I have drum shirt today please Chlo, thank you, Chlo.”

Chloe rifles through his drawer, pulls out the requested shirt - a favourite of his, one Jesse had got him that says ‘drummer in the band’ in bold letters on the front, and he takes time to carefully lay it on the bed, then slips his arms in, one, two and wriggles it over his head.

She helps him pull it down, but it’s tight around his belly, almost, almost too short.

“Jamie, little man, you’ve almost grown out of this.” Chloe smooths it down, passes him his pink shorts, and Jamie shrugs, nonplussed. Growing is just another part of the daily routine for him and Chloe feels a sudden ache, taking in his stretching, skinny frame, a memory of how much more rounded and soft and babied he was when she first met him all that time ago.

She reaches for him, pulls him into a hug.

“Love you little boy.”

“Love you.” Chloe releases his wriggling frame, thinks about that funny way he used to say luff you and Jamie skips back to reclaim his toys.

Chloe hears the click of the bathroom door, and Beca pads across the hall wrapped in a towel, stands in the doorway.  

“Hey you two.”

“I’m so glad that I met you whilst Jamie was still little.”

Beca tilts her head at Chloe, confused and still half asleep. “Me too. You okay?”

“It’s so great to get to watch him grow up.” Chloe feels tears prick in the corner of her eyes, suddenly bursting with pride and melancholy in equal measure.

“Chlo? Chlo, what’s up?”

“He’s growing up so much. I don’t know why I’m crying. I haven’t even had my coffee yet!”

“Oh, Chlo.” Beca envelops her in a hug. “You’ll get...well, actually, no. You won’t get used to it. But it does get easier.”

“Yeah?”

“I promise. I cried when Jamie first smiled but I also cried when he grew out of his first onesie, you know? There’s always something happy, something sad. It’s mad, this parenting stuff. Happy, sad, everything in between.”

Chloe grins at Beca. “I can’t believe badass Beca cried when Jamie grew out of a onesie.”

“Hey, it was a hormonal time. And I was working on, like, power naps instead of real sleep. Plus it was a really great onesie. It had a Beatles album cover printed on the front.”

Chloe comes by one Friday evening in Spring, as is her routine now, bag packed for the weekend with things to wear and things to mark, so she doesn’t have to leave until work on Monday morning. She unlocks the door, finds Beca pulling records off the overflowing shelves the take up a whole wall of the living room, stacking them behind her on the floor in a pile.

Jamie skips over to greet her, happy to see her in that earnest way that makes her always want to scoop him up and hold him close, so she does.

“Hey Chlo,” Beca grins at her, but stays in her position knelt by the shelves.

“Um, hey gorgeous, what you doing?”

“I got some awesome news.” Beca grins again, but doesn’t elaborate yet, so Chloe dramatically throws Jamie at the sofa, earning a high pitched laugh, before he scampers off into his bedroom to take care of some kind of important four year old business, and she kneels down next to Beca.

“Give your girlfriend a kiss then tell me everything.”

Beca obliges, leaning in and grasping the back of Chloe’s neck tightly with one hand, kissing her unexpectedly hard, so when she leans out Chloe can feel the flush in her cheeks.

“Hi.”

“What’s got you all excited?”

“You know how I told you before Jamie I used to DJ in a couple of places, for fun?”

“Yeah, I remember. Back in your wilder days.” Beca had told Chloe stories about those times. She hadn’t even been twenty one yet, and certainly hadn’t looked it, so she’d had to do some pretty elaborate sweet talking to even get inside the clubs in the first place. But Chloe desperately wished she’d been around to witness it, because the idea of Beca all sweaty, spinning in a nightclub did funny things to her insides.

“Well you know I stopped because I didn’t want to leave Jamie at night, and then I guess I just stopped thinking about it. But I bumped into Andre today, one of the guys I used to spin for, and he asked if I was still Djing, and said that if I still had it, I could have a few gigs again.”

“So you’re gonna show him you’ve still got it.”

“That’s the idea.”

“That’s awesome, Becs, I’m so proud of you.”

“It’s only gonna be, like, once a month, max. I mean, I don’t want to be a DJ, I want to produce music, but it still gave me a buzz, the performing.” She bounces back on her heels a little, and Chloe has to suppress the urge to grin madly and maybe, like, clap a little at Beca’s excitement.

“Actually getting to see people’s reactions to the music right there in the flesh.”

“Exactly.”

“Just saying, we’re going to have to get a sitter for Jamie because there is no way I’m missing seeing my girlfriend DJ at a club.”

“You’ve been dreaming about it since I told you those stories, right?”

“Yep.”

“You’re so easy to read, Chloe Beale.”

“You’re so hot when you make music, Miss Mitchell.”

Just as Chloe imagined, grungy, pink-faced Beca, surrounded by dark and coloured lights and heavy music, is hot.

Outside of her musical worlds, she always thinks Beca looks unrelentingly, effortlessly cool. Chloe remembers thinking so even when they’d first met in the mall, and again when they’d had coffee that first time. In ripped jeans, wearing a million earrings, and that crazy ear spike that sort of freaks her out. Even with Jamie on hand, she looks like she’d slip effortlessly into a much hipper neighbourhood of Los Angeles. She looks like the kind of person Chloe would see on the street and think “they don’t give two shits what anyone else thinks of them. Awesome.”

Of course Chloe knows Beca now - knows that beyond the carefree exterior is an occasionally awkward, often unconfident worrier.

But up there, playing music in the dark for hundreds of people, Beca is that easily cool, confident woman - inside and out. It reminds Chloe of the ease they have when they’re together, the comfortable, relaxed freedom. The confident way they touch at night, totally exposed, naked and unabashed and hot. But it’s up there, public and on display, and it rises goosebumps on Chloe’s arms.

She’s opening with a remix of Express Yourself, blending the original with NWA’s and another rap that Chloe doesn’t recognise, building it into something faster, heavier, but still joyful. Its irresistible, and soon the club is a flowing, moving mass of colour and bodies. Chloe looks up at Beca as she dances along with them, and bursts with pride as she makes quick eye contact and then gets swept up in the crowd.

“I can’t decide if I want to go home and write music or, like, take you right here right now.” Chloe drawls into Beca's ear half way through and only slightly intoxicated, when she goes up to deliver her a drink.

“What?”

“You have so much passion for music and it lights a fire under me too. In more ways than one. Watching you do this is, like, really hot.” Beca pushes the headphones the whole way off, so they hang around her neck, grins crookedly at Chloe.

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm. Like, super hot.” She leans in, and feels Beca’s hands instinctively grasp at her waist as she kisses her, going straight to hard and fast.

“Wow, uh.”

Chloe’s handsy at the best of times, but with the zip of alcohol running through her and the way Beca keeps touching back, she can’t stop pressing into her, holding her close, running her hands over her arms and back and neck.

“You’re distracting me,” Beca protests weakly into Chloe’s neck.

Chloe grins wickedly dancing away just out of Beca’s reach, swaying her hips. “This better?”

“No. Just cruel,” Beca says, glancing at the headphone wire that attaches her firmly just out of Chloe’s reach. “You look hot too. By the way.”

Chloe winks at her. Beca does a shy sort of grin, red in the cheeks from the warmth of the club or something else.

“Well I’m pretty confident about all this.” She dances back towards Beca, who immediately wraps her hands around Chloe’s waist, bare under her cropped shirt.

“Good. You should be.”

It’s when Beca’s away in Atlanta again that it happens the first time. That thing that makes Chloe want to cry or sing just because it's the only way to let out that level of emotion. It’s a hot, almost-summer Friday and her and Jamie have been together for a couple of days whilst Beca works. She’s picking Jamie up from his daycare, walking down the street to grab dinner from a diner.

“How come some people have a dad and I don’t?” Jamie says cheerfully, swinging his hand in Chloe’s.

Chloe feels a jolt in her stomach and her mouth goes dry. I’m not ready for these kind of questions, she thinks madly, trying not to freak out, looking down at him.

“Well, everyone has different families, little one. Uh, some people have a mom and a dad, some people have two moms or two dads and some people have just a mom, or just a dad. Or something else completely different.”

James is silent for a second, thinking over Chloe’s words.

“I’m glad I have two moms instead of a dad.”

“You...wait? What?” Chloe stares at him, feels like her eyes are probably bugging out of her head. “Jamie you just have one mom,” Chloe says, though she feels sort of guilty the second the words come out of her mouth.

He looks up at her with an innocent, concerned look on his face, like he’s concentrating really hard.

“I know but I have mommy and then I have a Chloe. You’re not a boy so can’t be a dad, so you’ll have to be a mommy too. Right?”

Chloe feels her heart thud in her chest.

“I’m, um, not your mom though, little man. You know that right?” She tries to make her voice sound normal through the lump that’s formed in her throat.

“Well...you don’t have two names yet, like Mommy does.”

“No. No I don’t.”

“Miss Jenny says moms and dads are anyone that you love the most of all. Like Milo says his dad is a dinosaur with spikes cos they are his best ones -”

“I..Wow. I mean, that’s not quite how it works, kiddo.”

“- And I love you and mommy the most.”

“You do?”

Jamie looks up at her and nods a few times, “And then I love Gramma and Grandad and Thomas and all the jellyfish and - ”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish the list because Chloe’s scooping him up, his words replaced with a squeaky noise of delight, and then she’s peppering his face with kisses.

“..I love you too silly Jamie boy. So, so, so much.”

Living in LA is surreal and sometimes her kids at school say things like “my mom is on an eight week detox,” and “I can’t come to your party, I have an audition.” It’s almost as strange as the lack of real weather or seasons, the amount of juice bars, that time she saw Ryan Gosling buying a newspaper, and the fact that there are some people that actually enjoy it when she she talks to them randomly in queues.

But the hours of sunshine are a blessing, and she adores almost every aspect of the job that made the move here with Calvin worth it, at first. It’s crazy, a little disorganised, full of music and way too many awkward parents. But she gets to do what she always planned to do, working hard for other people, to spread some of her sunny demeanor into other people’s lives. To use music everyday and help kids have fun and learn and grow. She adores making other people happy and she can remember that as her earliest ambition, to make people smile. She thinks she even wrote it on a worksheet once, that her mom and dad probably have in the attic somewhere.

It’s quite the revelation that she managed to find two people here, in this mad sprawl of a city, who make her not care if she never makes anyone else happy ever again, as long as they are.

It’s one of the rare days that Chloe’s in her apartment alone. She’s sat at the kitchen table, with lesson plans and worksheets and piles of sheet music spread across it, stacks of bank statements and payslips to file away. It’s a quiet, boring Sunday, but there’s a soul playlist and a gentle breeze through the open balcony door. She tries not to miss Beca on days like these, the rare days now they spend entirely apart, but she fails. She’s in the back of her mind, just quietly, through the day. It’s the same any time they are apart. She runs and thinks of them, goes to her dance class and has them on her mind constantly, like a sweet memory. Listens to voice mail messages from Jamie at lunchtime and looks forward to going home. She’s busy, tired, satisfied. She has something to go home to.

Jamie sends her a Snapchat of his face looking like a bee. Chloe laughs, sends a matching one back.

Jamie sometimes has a tantrum when Chloe leaves now, crying and clinging to her legs and demanding she stay. It breaks her heart a little bit every time, and it’s not like she ever actually wants to be leaving, anyway. Sometimes she’d quite like to have a little tantrum about it too. She’s never really be one for much needing alone time to relax. She’d rather have people around, endless human entertainment, and when it’s Beca, when it’s Beca and Jamie, her family - well, she wants that even more.

Chloe’s surprised from her gentle work by the loud buzzer. Maya’s out with Jesse, so she wonders if she’s just forgotten her keys. They don’t get unannounced visitors very often - at least, not that Chloe’s noticed, in the few nights she spends here now.

She runs down the hall in her bare feet, picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

The tinny voice on the other end is not immediately recognisable. “Hey, Chlo. I’m glad you were in. Can I come up? It’s Cal. I just wanted to...talk.”

“Cal! Hi. Um, yeah. Yeah, sure.” She buzzes him in, hears the clunk of it unlocking from Cal’s end. “Second floor, second door on the right.”

“Thanks Chlo.”

She puts the phone back, stands in the hallway waiting for the rap of knuckles at the door. She pulls Beca’s hoody more comfortably around her, hands hidden inside the sleeves, waiting.

“Hey,” Cal says when she opens the front door, gnawing at his lip and trying not to look nervous. His hair’s longer than Chloe’s seen it before, windswept and wild, but it looks good on him in that scruffy, surfer way he’s always been annoyingly good at pulling off.

“Hey Cal, um, do you want to come in? I can make coffee?”

“No it’s okay. Maybe some other time, though, yeah? I don’t want to disturb you, I just...I just wanted to give you something. These.” He hands her whatever he’d been holding in his hand, Chloe hadn’t even noticed.

She looks down, reads the writing printed on the front of the envelope, but it’s just Cal’s name, their old address, and doesn’t give many clues.

“It’s, uh, two tickets for Beyonce when she’s at the Hollywood Bowl next week.”

“What? Cal, I don’t - what? Why?”

“I actually got them for you when we were still together. Then when we broke up, I forgot. And then I saw you and Beca, and was a massive douchebag about it.”

“Cal -”

“No, no it’s okay. I was. But I’ve been thinking about you since then, and about us, and about you and Beca and - I want you to take the tickets. Please. Take Beca. Tell her, I’m really, really glad you guys found each other, and that she better be treating you well and making you happy, or she’ll have to answer to me, or whatever.”

“She does. I promise that she really, really does.”

“Yeah.” Cal rubs his hand over his chin, a familiar tic that Chloe finds odd to see again. She’d forgotten it. “I kinda figured that was the case.” He grins at her suddenly, wide and friendly. “I’m really glad you’re happy, Chlo.”

Chloe grins back, looks down at the tickets in her hand. “You actually want to give these away? You love Beyonce!”

Cal laughs brightly. “I know. So do you. So does Beca. And I bought them for you. Just think of it as an apology, and a promise of my continued friendship, okay?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you worried,” Beca asks the next day, “that this could fizzle out some day?”

Chloe looks up at her, and Beca’s holding her arms wrapped around her, forehead furrowed.

“You mean, like me and Cal?”

Beca chews on her lip, looking around in a circle, away from Chloe’s eyes. “Yeah. I guess. I mean, yeah.”

“Not really.”

“No?” Beca looks at her, puzzled.

“It could happen, sure. But trying to live whilst expecting the worst is really hard work, and you don’t do that, anymore.”

“It’s really hard to let go of that angst sometimes.”

“I think you’re doing a pretty fantastic job, Beca. Look at you. Here in LA, with your son and an amazing life and you’re happy. You’re glowing, it makes me so proud. You don’t have to be perfect. Neither do I. Nothing does, you know? Doesn’t mean it’s not good and right and something we can build a future with.”

"I guess worrying all the time is pretty stupid, huh?"

"Not at all. It's normal Beca, its human. But its what you choose to do with it that matters. You choose to put your worry about Jamie into giving him an incredible life so... sure, we can worry about us. Let's put it to good use, right? Make this the best thing it can be."

Beca looks at her then, stares, and is quiet for a really long time. She smiles, and Chloe loves her so hard, and vows to never, never stop showing her. 

“Favourite Fifth Harmony. Song not member.”

“I don’t have a favourite Fifth Harmony member.” Beca rolls her eyes at Chloe, but she can tell her hearts not really in it.

“Yes, dear.”

“I don’t!”

“Okay, okay. Well as I have way less shame than you, my favourite is Lauren. And now I’ve claimed her, she can’t be your favourite.”

“That is not how this game works! And you said song, not member!”

“Shoulda claimed her sooner Becs, can’t be helped now.”

“Shut up.” Beca swats at Chloe’s hand, trying to repress a smile.

“Okay, okay, best Bieber.”

“Sorry, obviously.”

“You just like the music video.”

Beca wriggles in her position laid prone across the sofa, head in Chloe’s lap. Looks up at her and smiles. “That’s just an additional perk.”

“Best…weird song in another language that I won’t have heard of.”

“At the moment? Or of all time?”

Chloe laughs warmly. “I was kind of joking, but sure. At the moment.”

“Well some of the Gentle Good’s stuff is in Welsh. That’s a new one, right? I don’t think I’ve put any Welsh on any of your playlists before. Don’t ask me to say any of the names though.”

“How do you even find this stuff?”

“I look for it. It’s fun. It’s that moment when you hear a song for the first time and know that you’re going to listen to it, like, a million times, you know? I love that.”

“Yeah. When you fall in love with a song.” Beca looks up at Chloe, just looks, and Chloe strokes down the side of her face. Beca leans into it, bends slightly to press a kiss to her palm before gazing back up into Chloe’s eyes. Chloe just keeps stroking her hand, fingertips running over her eyebrows and freckles and lips.

She thinks back to the overwhelming power of feeling when she was realising the depth of her infatuation with Beca. The desire to kiss and hold and touch. It’s still fresh there, still real, that aching compulsion pulling in her belly, every day. The pull to be close, closer. It’s something she’s always felt, with other humans. The desire to feel the warmth of their skin. Their realness, their solid, grounding presence. But Beca pulls at that desire like no other, especially now, soft like this.

And Beca still looks at her, sometimes, in this way that makes Chloe’s insides bubble fiercely. She’s doing it now, studying like she can’t pull her eyes away. Other times, the looks are filled with lust or smiles or laughter, but Chloe’s favourites are the ones that just look . They make her feel precious and fascinating in a way she never has before.

She smiles back.

“Okay, favourite intro.”

“Baba O’Reilly. Wait, no. Everlasting Love, the Love Affair version.” Chloe can see Beca listening to it in her head, eyes trained blankly on the ceiling, fingers tap-tapping away and Chloe spends a minute trying to picture it herself, trying to translate Beca’s movements.

“I can’t remember how it goes.”

“Dude, this is like, your thing.” Beca clambers up from the sofa, and Chloe should have known the comfortable position wouldn’t have lasted long. There’s only so long Beca can talk about music without giving in to its call. So Chloe lays back, watches Beca run a finger along a row of records, then again on the shelf above, one foot twisted casually around her ankle as the stands there, socks rumpled and nearly falling off. Chloe feels outrageously in love. Then Beca finds the record, and carefully sets it up in the player.

The intro plays, bright and loud, and Beca picks up the needle, puts it back to the start, then again, and again, so the first fifteen seconds plays out over and over until Chloe hauls herself up and grabs Beca’s hands.

“You’re such a sap, Bec.”

“Shush your face.” She pulls Beca into her, swaying with her, running her hands up under Beca’s shirt. Her skin’s warm and soft. She doesn’t want to stop touching, to let go, ever.

“It’s true.”

“It’s not about the lyrics, it’s the big band arrangement,” Beca protests, voice muffled into Chloe’s shoulder.  

“Whatever you say, cutie.” They stand there, dancing badly in each other’s arms. “Make me a mix with this in it?” Chloe says, when the song’s almost over.

“Working on it,” Beca says, fingers tapping on Chloe’s hip.

And they sing, everywhere. In the house, in the car, in the shower. Harmonies and raps, musicals and the sort of awful 90s pop Chloe has on cassette tape in her childhood bedroom somewhere.

Music is her first love, and though it might not run so deep in her blood as Beca’s, it’s a part of her, as solid and real as her fingertips and eyelashes. To share that, with someone who gets it, brings another layer to the experience. To not have to justify that passion, not that she ever would have taken the time to entertain such a silly notion with anyone else. But Beca gets it, gets her. And she gets Beca, in a way that seems like an endless surprise to both of them. Its another sort of fire, one of the many layers of why she loves Beca so much. She’s brave and bold now, in her music and her life, in a way that Chloe never would have imagined could have sprung from that quiet girl, hiding in the background at school.

Even for someone quick to like, open and unabashedly friendly, music has always been the fastest way in and Beca rings with it, every moment of the day. They listen to tracks where Beca’s merged the bassline from Around the World into two other songs, and twisted Jamie’s favourite Beatles song into Kendrick Lamar and Jurassic 5. They listen to Taylor Swift albums the whole way through, sing the theme tunes from Jamie’s cartoons when they get stuck in their heads.

Beca’s learning the guitar, on a musical whim, so they listen to that now, too. Chloe’s laying with her eyes closed, singing along when Beca manages to keep her flow for long enough, plucking her way slowly through a Villagers song. It’s a bit beyond her level, really, but Beca’s nothing if not ambitious when it comes to music and that’s the song she wanted to play. So she’s playing it.

Besides, she’s Beca, so she’s predictably getting quite good pretty quickly. The sweetest part though is Jamie, who seems to find the sound of it almost hypnotic, and will sit on the floor by Beca’s feet, little warm hands wrapped around her ankles, watching or listening or singing along.

Chloe kind of feels like she could do the same, honestly. To sit and watch and listen and sing.

“You really think I should sign it?” Beca says, looking down at possibly the most important piece of paper they’ve ever had in the house, squinting as though she’s never seen it, even though they’ve both read it over more than once and Chloe’s about 95% sure she’s not signing her life away.

“I don’t have a single doubt, Beca.”

“It’s going to be a lot of work.”

“It’s exactly what you’ve been working so hard for, for so long. You can have this Beca. You get to to have this. You’ve made an adorable, perfect boy. He’s happy and he’s fine. You have me, who has a much more childrearing-friendly job and absolutely does not think its a chore to look after Jamie with you. We’re a family now, right?”

“It’s not a chore it's just, like, being a parent?” Beca’s comment rises into a question, even though it’s not. And Chloe grins at her, heart beating fast. Reaches for Beca’s face as she holds on and kisses her on the lips, on the cheeks, the forehead, then laughs into her hair.

“Exactly.”

Chloe reaches down to the table, picks up the pen and passes it to Beca. “Sign the contract Beca. Make an album. Make some number one records with Emily. Introduce me to her because I think from your stories we’ll probably be friends. Then let me take you to celebrate because I am so, so proud.”

Beca bites her lip, then grabs at the pen. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

What’s surprising first about the new contract, working with a new artist - a young, bubbly songwriter that weirdly kind of reminds Chloe of herself - is that Beca bonds with her, in a way Chloe’s not witnessed with anyone else she’s worked with before. She comes home with stories about her, and gushing about the songs she writes. She plays Chloe snippets of the stuff they’re working on together. The developments of the tracks from words to recordings to layers of noises and instruments that gradually blend to music.

Beca comes home glowing, and it makes Chloe want to explode with pride at this tenacious, clever, wonderful person she gets to share her life with. She earnest and lovely and full of fire, and she never stops trying.

“Everything’s just easier, you know?” Beca whispers at her, when they’re wrapped naked and sweaty in the lamplight. “When I’m really happy. Everything.”

Chloe kisses her hard then. Feels that happiness all the way to her bones and it almost makes her want to cry because this, confident and content and excited and safe, this is how she wants everything to be for the rest of time.

It’s a sticky day in July. They’ve spent the day at the beach, and Chloe’s whole body feels heavy and sun-flushed, the most satisfying kind of tired. Beca’s nose is a little pink, and it makes her eyes look extra blue.

“So I got some news when I was back at the apartment last night.” (Chloe never bothers calling it ‘home’, not anymore.)

“Yeah? What’s that?” Beca doesn’t look up yet, concentrating on the coffee stain she’s scrubbing off, hands covered in soap suds, so Chloe studies the side of her face. The soft, lightly-pinked skin, the few freckles. Takes a few moments to make sure she sounds totally casual.

“Maya’s moving out.”

“Huh, so that’s why Jesse mentioned leaving his mancave finally. They’re getting shacked up and domestic. Gross.”

“Totally gross.” Chloe says, and they share a grin as Beca hands Chloe the mug to dry up and picks up the next dish. She takes a deep breath. “So, you want to move in with me or what?”

“I...dude…” Chloe looks over, biting her lip. Beca’s looking at her now - she opens and closes her mouth a few times, her hands flopped in front of her in the warm dishwater, and stares at Chloe. “ What? ”

“Do you need me to repeat the question?”

“No, I just...What? Are you serious? You really want that?”

“Of course Beca. But look, you can say no if you’re not ready. I don’t even know if I’m getting ahead of myself, to be honest. I’m just pretty sure it would make me happy even if it seems a bit crazy. But the idea of someone else moving in that isn’t you and Jamie just seems crazy too, you know?”

Beca scrunches her face a little in agreement.

“I’m really excited to live with you guys properly some day. Like, really, way OTT bouncy excited. Because I know I want to do that. But it’s going to be on your terms. You have to think about Jamie first. This offer’s open but I know it’s a lot. So. Yeah.” Breathe, Chloe.

“Your apartment is right by your school. And I would love to send him there.”

“I know.”

“ And financially it would help both of us. Jamie could have a room that’s not shoebox sized.”

“...Yep.”

“Sorry I’m bringing up all of the lamest reasons.”

“That’s okay, Bec. Really.”

“But it’s because I really, really want to say yes so I’m trying to do the head, heart thing you know.”

“You want to say yes?”

“Yeah. Like, big time. So I guess we’re both crazy. I wanna like, go buy home shit at Ikea with you and believe me I have never wanted to do that with anyone before.”

“I am honoured that you want to buy home shit with me Becs. Come here.” Beca finally pulls her hands out of the water, turns to face Chloe and leans into her a little.

“You gonna ask me again so I can say yes properly or what?”

Chloe smiles, wide and sun-kissed and happy. “Beca Mitchell, do you want to get shacked up and domestic and gross with me?”

“Yes please.” They both grin into the kiss, Beca’s hands still warm and wet as they wrap onto Chloe’s cheeks.

Chapter Text

They move on a disgustingly hot summer’s day.

It’s exhausting and sweaty and so busy she almost doesn’t get a chance to be terrified. Beca’s never lived with anyone other than her parents, a selection of crappy roommates and Jamie. But Chloe and her have been sharing the same space almost daily for months now, and this is just going to make that easier, she tells herself in the quiet, making one final check behind the curtains on her bedroom windowsill. She takes a last glance at the familiar view of the streetlight, the air conditioning outlets, the back area where they keep all the dumpsters, rubs her finger pointlessly at a small scratch in the paint.

The place is almost empty, just the few bits of floppy, well-loved furniture it came with remaining, and the extra dents and cracks and spills that came with years of life here with a toddler. The ghosted furniture dips in the carpets, and smoothed down tracks that show how the two of them moved about and lived.

The rest of her life has been deposited at Chloe’s already - mounds of boxes invading all the spare corners of the apartment, ready to find their own new spaces. All they have to do is a final walkaround, then hand the keys back and that’s it. Done.

A new period of life begins.

She’s achy and sweaty, and can hear Jamie’s footsteps and voice echoing in the emptied living room, chattering away to no-one. She’d tried to settle him with crayons and paper, but all this change is just too exciting.

“How would you feel if we lived in Chloe’s apartment?”  She’d asked, back when the decision was first made, perched next to his bath whilst he splashed around in the bubbles.

“But then where would Chlo live?”

“Well she’d be there too. We all would.”

“In the same house, like, all the time?”

“Well we’d still have to go to work and school. But yeah, we’d all be there. We’d be a family.”

Jamie grins and Beca feels that same rush of love that makes her want to squeeze him and never let go. “Mommy,” he says, flinging his body towards the side of the tub, sending light splashes over her. “I think that sounds -” he comes extra close, puts his face near hers and squeezes his little wet fists onto her shoulders slightly too hard. “ - the best.”

“Wow, it looks so... small.” Chloe leans against the doorway, pink-cheeked and hair scraped back into a messy bun, taking in the emptied bedroom. Her hair’s extra wispy around her face where it got sweaty earlier. It’s Beca’s favourite. She looks beautiful. “Bathroom’s as clean as it’s ever gonna get.”

“Amazing, thanks Chlo.” She smiles at her, then takes another look out the window.

“You’re freaking out.” Chloe approaches slowly, before wrapping herself around Beca’s back gently, taking the same eyeline out of the window. She smells of bleach and dust and cleaning spray.

“No.” Beca shakes her head and leans back into Chloe. “No. Just saying goodbye to this place is not like I expected. It’s...a lot.”

“This was your first grown up home. Jamie’s first home.” Chloe presses a kiss to her bare shoulder and she shivers.

“Yeah. Lots of good stuff happened here.” She twists around in Chloe’s arms, presses her fingers to those wild, fluffy curls. “You happened here.”

“And now...together.”

Beca nods and kisses her, and then they stand by the window, in each other’s arms listening to Jamie’s quick footsteps and the whirr of the fans outside.

“Ready?”

“Yeah, let’s do this.”

They wind the windows down on the final drive over. Beca feels the warm wind blowing away the dust from her skin and the worry from her head. The air whips the loose sleeve of her flannel into the side of the car as she holds her hand out, a bright thrap out of time with the music. More of Chloe’s bun escapes, blowing wildly around her sunglasses as she turns to hear whatever Jamie’s shouting in the back, fighting over the music and the wind.

Chloe unlocks their front door, and Jamie sprints ahead, into their new, shared living area, excitable and bouncy. Beca goes to follow him into the mess of boxes, but Chloe pulls on her top, holds her back in the hallway, twists her round until they’re facing one another. Pauses, looks, doesn’t let go, smiles.

“Welcome home, Becs.”

Beca smiles back, feels that final bit of nervousness in her chest evaporate, just like that. She reaches behind her and pulls the gift she’s been secretly putting together for the past couple of weeks out of her back pocket.

Chloe grins automatically as it’s wordlessly handed over, immediately recognising what it is - she should, of course. Beca did a bulk-buy some time last year, in a Chloe-friendly shade of pink, and she’s already nearly depleted the stash. She leans closer to read the writing, cramped onto the side of the flash drive.

Chloe, Beca and Jamie’s breakfast on the balcony playlist.

It’s an adjustment. But Beca loves coming home to Chloe every day, or vice versa, depending on their schedules. And she especially, after summer ends a few weeks later, loves Chloe coming home in her workwear - just a bit more formal than her usual clothes, and Beca finds the pencil skirts and sensible dresses sort of ridiculously sexy. Especially when she undoes an extra button or two for Beca, winks as she goes into their bedroom to change.

Then she’ll come out in her sweats and a band shirt of Beca’s, looking beautiful, and what was Beca even thinking, because this is obviously her favourite Chloe look.

Things are just easier, with Chloe. Everything. Boring stuff, like logistics and cooking and looking after Jamie. Silly things, like the development of her zombie apocalypse escape plan and deciding the best Simpsons episode. Big things like when she’s sad or stressed, she’s not for very long, because Chloe has perfected making it better, with the right words or touches or just by existing. Just by spotting her smile. She’s just...lovely.

There’s a weird thrill to it sometimes, too. This joint existence. To open the closet in their bedroom, and see all their clothes hanging their side by side. To spend hours slotting their lives together, books, records, wooden spoons now jumbled and assembled from yours and mine to ours.

Beca finds more to love every day. Chloe’s earnest passion, and the way her voice lilts and singsongs when she’s excited or happy. The flick of her hair when it gets in the way as she sits at the table marking books. The sound of her laugh and the way her voice rises and falls when she’s telling stories on the phone. The shape her freckles make just in the soft dip of her left collarbone. The curl of her fingers around Beca’s hand or arm or thigh, or the soft way she strokes Jamie’s forehead and hair when he’s sleepy.

It’s the same way Beca has always calmed him before sleep, since he was brand new and fought sleep with as much righteous anger as such a tiny being could create. She’s never told Chloe about that, though. Yet still she strokes his forehead, and that soothes Beca as much as Jamie.  

They start developing routines and jokes and traditions, the real makings of a family - things that only them, only their little family of three will understand.

“Family film night!” Chloe declares, arriving home with a shopping bag full of wine and snacks and microwave popcorn one of their first Friday nights at home.

Beca scrunches up her face. “Does it have to be a film?” She says, as Jamie skips over to wrap his arms around Chloe’s legs and list all his favourite films aloud to her.

“Frozen, Aladdin, Lego Movie, Batman Lego-“

“How about we watch something you haven’t seen before, Jamie?” Chloe says, as he trails into the kitchen after her, now peering into her shopping bag curiously.

“If you’re gonna be so nosy, are you gonna help Chloe unpack that?” Beca says, following them both.

Chloe puts the bag up on the counter, and Jamie scrambles onto his kitchen stool, lining up the items one by one on the surface.

“I know you’re not big for films, but...it’s a nice tradition, right?” Chloe says, kissing Beca’s cheek and stroking a hand through her hair. “Besides you can just make out with me in the corner if you like.”

“Um, excuse me, no, if you distract me then how will I find out what happens to the cat who can talk and his adorable woodland friends?”

Chloe grins at her. “That’s the spirit.”

Jamie comes home from daycare with endless stacks of drawings and finger paintings and potato prints. Craft projects made from pasta and glitter glue and toilet roll tubes. Sometimes they come with helpful annotations at the bottom from the teachers, “Jamie and his dinosaurs” and “the spaceman with a hat” and “Jamie’s Family”- this one they put in a frame, knocking a pin in the wall to hang it amongst their tour posters and bright floral prints. A family of three stand in the centre, a bright sunshine glowing over them in the corner and a four-legged blob hanging out next to the smallest figure.

“That’s my dog that I don’t have yet,” Jamie explains helpfully and Beca almost adopts him a dog right then and there.

“Mommy,” Jamie whispers, snuggling into Beca’s side on his bed. His pyjama legs are too short now, showing his ankles.

“Yes little man?”

“When did you get two names?”

“What do you mean?” Jamie gets up from the bed, skips over to his bookshelf and beings perusing the titles with his head tilted to the side, even though Beca knows he can’t actually read many of them yet. He turns around, leaning back against the shelf and tapping his toes on the ground.

“Cos your name from Chlo and Jesse and Gramma and all the other people is Beca. But for me your name is Mommy.”

“That’s because you’re my baby. Like how I call Grandma Mom, because I was her baby.”

“You were never a baby!”

“I was, I was tiny just like you.”

“Like I was in the pictures?” Beca nods. “Wow, it must have been a really long time ago.”

“Ouch, thanks J.”

“And then you turned into a grown up?”

“Well, kinda. Still working on that. But we’re family, so we get special names.”

“When does Chlo get two names?”

“I..uh, don’t know. Why? Do you want her to?”

“You said we are family, Mom? Jamie, Mommy and Chloe.”

“Yeah, uh, yeah, little man.” She swallows a few times. “I did. We are.”

Jamie just nods firmly, as if she’s confirmed all his suspicions.

“Do you want to talk to Chloe about it?”

“Okay!” He says brightly, extracting Owl Babies from the shelf and passing it over to Beca. “Can we read this one?”

Afterwards, they make a plan until Jamie falls asleep, hair falling across his face and a bear under his arm.

Jamie’s vibrating with excitement, waiting for Chloe to return from work the next evening, silly and unable to sit still. He keeps getting up and running over to Beca, then back to his chair, distracted.

“Jamie. Chill.” Chloe has a late all-staff meeting Beca had forgotten about and now she’s regretting this plan. Jamie doesn’t have much patience, yet.

It takes about five minutes, after Chloe comes in the door and sinks into the sofa. Five minutes of Jamie’s zooms and Beca’s fidgeting.

“Okay, what’s up with you two?” Beca looks at Jamie, who is wide eyed and wriggly. She looks at Chloe, then back to Jamie, and nods.

“Go on then, Jamie.”

Jamie spins towards Chloe like a whirlwind, then stops, just short of her knees, as if suddenly cautious, nervous. He taps a foot, once, twice.

“What’s up, little man?”

“Um,” he says, staring at Chloe. "Um. You need a name! Can I give you a name?”

It’s not how they’d discussed posing the question at all, but perhaps remembering lines was a little ambitious for an overly excited almost-five year old. (or four and a really big half, as Jamie had described it last week).

“A...A name?”

“Like Mom is called Beca and you are called Chlo but sometimes Mommy says babe but I don’t want to do that, and your name for me is littleman even though I’m not little anymore but you could be mom too.”

“If you want to,” Beca interjects, somewhat desperately, when Jamie’s stream stops. “It was his idea.”

“Yeah, if you want to!” Jamie says, his enthusiasm returned, bouncing his hands on Chloe’s knees, grinning at her.

Chloe coughs, looks away out of the window for a moment, blinking, then looks back at Jamie.

“I might forget a lot,” he adds, tilting his head to the side.

It’s one of the few times Beca can remember seeing Chloe unable to find words. Chloe scoops Jamie up, onto her lap, squeezes him tightly, says something into his hair that Beca can’t hear, holding him close.

“How did you make such a perfect kid?” Chloe says when she looks up at Beca, and her eyes are misty.

“Dude, no. I didn’t do anything. He’s perfect all on his own.”

Chloe just smiles, shakes her head and pulls Beca down to join them. 

Life is perfect.

She puts on her own music in the morning over breakfast without hesitation. She considers Chloe’s and even sometimes Jamie’s input and opinions to work out the kinks.

She tells her mom she loves her, at the end of a phone call one day, and her mom pretends to faint on the end of the line.

She stretches up, rolling her tense shoulders and catches sight of Chloe staring at the slither of skin exposed. And it thrills her still, baffles her sometimes, that someone as beautiful as Chloe could look at her like that. Even when she’s wearing pizza slice patterned socks and third day sweatpants, Chloe makes her feel beautiful and important. 

There are other things too. It’s helpful to have a partner in crime, so that when Jamie lays on the floor in Gelson’s and refuses to get up she can wait out his silent tantrum in conversation with Chloe instead of awkwardly standing there, pretending to read the backs of soup cans and glowing red like she’s done before.

Teaching him to read and write is the first real Jamie Growing Up stage they’ve gone through together, helping him recognise shapes and sounds, writing out his name in wobbly letters. She remembers panicking about the idea, when Jamie was a baby and she’d first started reading to him. The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Goodnight Moon and Korg’s 2013 synthesizer catalogue. But it’s...easy. They muddle through it together.

She builds eclectic playlists still, and still Chloe devours every one of them, treating each new mix like a precious artefact, waiting to be dusted off and discovered. Flash drives that contain Kendrick Lamar and Chvrches, Alt-J and STRFKR and Ed Sheeran and Elvis Presley. 

She kisses Chloe on the balcony at night, presses her up against the railings. Someone on the street below whistles, and even then she just smiles into the kiss, presses harder. 

Beca can feel the hot beat of the sun on her face, the heat of the bench on the bits of thigh exposed under her denim shorts. Jesse next to her is humming the new Bruno Mars song between chews of his sandwich. It smells faintly of cigarette butts and hot tarmac, but the big tree that looms over the smoking yard is blooming bright pink and heavy, almost masking it out.

“You seem really happy.”

Beca opens one of her eyes a crack, squints over at Jesse. She left her sunglasses in the car.

“Warm. Nice.” She feels pleasantly heavy, as if the sun really is pressing down on her.

“In general I mean, not just right now. You and Chloe living together.”

Beca squints at him some more, and grins up at the sky. “Why are you always such a sap about this? But yeah. I am.”

“You’re so cute when you’re in love, Becs.”

“Shut up.”

“Beca’s in love!” He singsongs.

“You’re so weird. So are you!”

“Yeah but I’m moon-eyed about everything, it’s not the same.”

“I don’t really know why all the rest of you are not in love with her too, to be honest. You’re the ones that are crazy. I mean, you’ve met her. She’s like, perfect or whatever. Jamie wants to call her Mom. He asked her.”

“Becs! What! That’s huge!”

Beca can’t help but smile back at him because, yeah. It’s pretty fucking great.  

Jesse switches from his pop tune and hums the wedding march under his breath, grinning madly at her.

“Dude, no way.”

“No? You guys are shacked up and loved up. The next step is you getting down on your poky little knee and popping the question.”

Beca pulls a face at him. “I don’t want to get married.”

“What never? But I’ve already got so many embarrassing anecdotes arranged for my best man speech.”

“I don’t really see the point. Anyway Jamie would be best man. You’d have to be like, second-best man or something.”

Jesse doesn’t laugh, and when she looks up questioningly, opening both her eyes against the glare, he’s not even smiling either, and it makes a sudden jolt of worry splice through Beca.

“Does Chloe know this?” He voices gently.

“I...I’m not really sure,” Beca says, and oh, okay, she gets it. “I mean, we’ve never talked about it. For us, I mean.”

“Becs, you don’t think you probably should, like, bring that shit up? You live together, Chloe’s practically adopted Jamie and she seems like the kind of person that might have been planning her dress since she was eight.”

“Like you, you mean?”

“Yeah. Pretty much. I’m probably gonna wear a suit though. Not a dress. Spoilers. But seriously, Becs, you two need to talk about this.”

She stays quiet so eventually Jesse speaks again.

“Why are you so against it?”

“I’m not against it, like, as a concept. It just doesn’t mean anything to me. And it just makes bad couples reluctant to break up so they drag out the pain way longer than they should and let everyone suffer along with them.”

“Not every marriage is like your parents’ Becs.”

“I know, but my mom and dad got married and they were terrible for each other. My mom and stepdad aren’t married and everything about their relationship in ten times more real. It’s just a piece of paper. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter. It says nothing about the worth of a relationship.”

“I think for most people it’s more about the symbolism, Becs. The ceremony and the romance of it, a day to like, show off your love. That big, cinematic, key change moment. You get that. You write them often enough these days.”

“I don’t need a cinematic moment to prove how much I love Chloe. I’ll just fucking tell them, if they really want to know.” The heat in the yard suddenly feels burning and sticky.

“Becs. They can see, I’m sure. No-one is questioning that, and especially not me, chill okay?”

She looks down at her feet, at the patioed floor of the yard, at the line of dried grass growing between two of the slabs and follows it up and across with her eyes to Jesse’s scuffed toes.

“I’m just saying, that Chloe is the kind of centre-of-attention person that would love a day like that, and I really think you should talk to her about it.”

“I know. I know.” She presses her hands over her eyes slightly too hard, and it makes shapes and sparkles jump around. “I know. Fuck. I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“What if she really does want all that, the whole big day and vows and an audience and shit and I can’t give it to her and she leaves?” The whole thing comes out in one quick flow.

“If you really think that is going to happen then you are not giving Chloe enough credit at all.”

She keeps her eyes closed, breathing in the sticky, flowery air. “It’s too hot out here. I’m going back in. Emily’s probably back now.” She peels herself from the bench, sweaty and red-marked where it tried to merge with the backs of her knees.

“Beca -”

“I’ll see you inside, Jess.” She steps back into the windowless corridor, shivering at the sudden chill of the air conditioning.

In her heart she knows that Jesse’s right. But for some reason this, this thing in particular is clawing at her. Because she knows that he’s right too about Chloe wanting a day like that. Knows Chloe has swooned over friends’ Facebook wedding albums, and pretty white dresses in shop windows, and Jamie-sized bow ties.

And it eats away at her, because maybe she should be able to give Chloe this. Surely she deserves it. But she just doesn’t know if she can.

It takes a week, one week from the talk that burns thoughts of marriage to the front of Beca’s mind. A week of worry that she might lose this complete and perfect life if she can’t want this.

“Did we make a mistake? This was too much wasn’t it.” Chloe says, at the end of that one week, coming to stand next to Beca on the balcony, looking out into the twilight of the city surrounding them.

“What?” It jolts Beca out of her thoughts, and she turns her head towards Chloe questioningly. She looks sad, and Beca panics.

“The moving in together,” Chloe says. “Letting Jamie call me...Mom. You’re freaking out and being weird about something but you’re not talking to me and that’s the scariest thing of all. Maybe we weren’t ready for this.”

“Chlo, what, no!”

“Beca, please tell me what’s up then.”

“Chloe, Chlo, no, no it’s not that at all, I promise, it’s not. Living here with you is perfect. And you’ll always be his Mom now. Like, no matter what.”

“Then talk to me!”

Beca stands there in silence, and the way it makes Chloe’s face contort sends hot waves of shame rolling over her, but still she can’t quite push the words out, even as she feels them rolling around in her mouth.

“Beca!” Chloe’s eyes look shiny and that’s what finally tips it out of her.

“I don’t want to marry you!”

Chloe’s body seems to slump into the railings a little, and she puts her hand out to grasp onto it. “What?”

“I’m scared because I don’t want to get married and Jesse made me realise I needed to tell you and then I freaked out. I don’t know why.” She pauses for a moment and Chloe’s face is unreadable, staring at her. “No, I mean, I do. I do know why. It’s because everything’s perfect right now. That’s why. Exactly like it is. And I was so scared that you would say you wanted to get married and I wouldn’t be able to say no even though I don’t want to because I want to be able to do anything for you, because that’s, like, the least you deserve, but I don’t think I can do this.”

Chloe’s still standing staring at her, face blank, mouth hanging just a little bit open. Beca stares at her, breathing deep.

“Chloe, please. Please say something. Please don’t leave me. I want to stay with you forever.”

“Beca. Jesus. I’m not going to leave you. Is that what you’ve been worrying about?” Beca nods, biting her lip, and Chloe rubs a hand over her face. Beca just stands and watches, feeling her heavy heartbeat. When Chloe emerges, her face is unreadable still. She stares at Beca, eyebrows furrowed.

“You want to stay with me forever?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

The confusion clears from Chloe’s face, suddenly replaced with some kind of resolve. Something Beca can recognise a lot more clearly. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. You want to stay with me forever. That’s what a marriage means anyway, right? Binding yourselves together forever. But...I have your actions that show me that’s what you want, regardless of if we’re married or not, and your words that confirm the same thing. That’s enough.” She tilts her head a little and seems to study Beca for a moment. “I want to stay with you forever too, Beca.”

“You do?”

“Of course, Beca. And look, I’m not going to lie. I always imagined I would marry the love of my life. But none of this is really how I pictured my life going, and yet you became my family anyway. It might take me a little while to completely let go of the idea of marrying you, because this did come a little out of the blue.” Chloe twists an eyebrow up, and Beca can feel her face reddening.

“And I would. I would marry you, Beca. Sorry if that freaks you out, but that’s my proof for you. My ‘I want to stay with you forever’. And I know I will be fine regardless because what I really want from this relationship is not a wedding or a dress or a ring. It’s you.”

“Fuck. I love you so much. I’m sorry for being so stupid and weird.”  She collapses into Chloe's arms and holds her tight and breathes. 

“You when before you were here, did you know you were gonna be my mom?” Jamie asks later, sat on Chloe’s knee whilst they read together. Beca’s at the kitchen table, headphones over one ear, fiddling, adjusting, listening to the two of them chatter.

“Nope,” she says, pressing a kiss to his hair. Chloe looks up and catches Beca’s eye, smiles at her, warm and free. “You were the nicest surprise for both of us.”

Beca’s extra touchy that night, as if trying to make it up to Chloe for her distance. They awake still tangled together, which doesn’t happen often given Beca’s fidgeting legs. They lie there, in the haze of another hot morning, Beca’s hand wrapped up under Chloe’s top, feet and legs tangled, Chloe running an almost-ticklish finger up and down Beca’s bare thigh.

They talk about the song Beca’s working on at the moment with Emily - a ballad, a love song, turning out to be the most earnest track on the record so far. They discuss dinner, maybe chicken, or that curry Chloe loves, with the chickpeas. Beca wonders whether she can get away with not showering and Chloe sniffs at her skin, teasing.

Until their soft, sleepy conversation is interrupted by a loud call of “Mom?”

“Ugh.” Beca groans, rolling slightly away from her position safe in Chloe’s arms. “Why, child, why.” She stalls as long as possible in the warm cocooned embrace, and runs a hand across Chloe’s cheek, gets a soft kiss to her palm for her trouble.

“Mom?!”

“I’m coming!” She eventually calls back, pushing up to a sitting position.

“No, not you!”

“Wha-?” Beca’s head jerks back to look at Chloe again.

“Did he just-?” Chloe stares at Beca, eyes wide, mouth gaping.

“Um, yeah...Yeah he did.”

“Holy shit.” Chloe moves to roll out of the bed so frantically that she nearly falls to the floor, catching her balance on the side of the mattress before straightening up and staring at Beca, jaw falling open.

“Well go on, you’ve been summoned.” Beca’s grinning now, still sat up in the bed, a glow spreading on her cheeks.

“Oh my God.” Chloe backs slowly towards the door, without taking her eyes of Beca, so that she bumps into the door handle with a gentle thud. The sensation appears to wake her from the daze somewhat, and she spins around and pulls it open, eyes still just as wide, as she slips out the door and pushes it to behind her.

“I don’t need to marry you,” Chloe says when she returns, crawling onto the bed to kiss Beca hard. “I have everything I need,” and Beca feels the worry of it slip another notch further away.  

“I need to learn to swim,” had been Jamie’s urgent declaration that morning, when Chloe had emerged at his summons to find him lying on the floor in his underwear, a US national swim competition in progress on the television.

Beca had left Chloe to it - the arrangement of the swimming lessons, the purchase of a new set of inflatable armbands - because Chloe probably would have found a way to take him to the moon after that. So here Beca finds herself now, going to meet the two of them at the pool for the first time, after Jamie’s fourth lesson.

She can hear muffled shouts and splashes from behind the thick glass of the cafe viewing area, can’t recognise any of them as hers, yet. But no, there they are, distant but unmistakable. Jamie’s body tiny as he flies through the air, flung from Chloe’s grasp, bright orange armbands waving in the air; Then he drops back in with a silent splash, silent grin. She’s tense for a moment, then his head bobs up, hair pushed strangely around his goggles, and he paddles back into Chloe’s arms, and again, and again.

She watches, wraps her hand around a coffee in a little plastic cup, and begins to compose a swimming playlist in her mind. Songs that make her think of blue and rhythms and refreshing. Songs that make her feel like she’s there too, sluicing through cool water.

When the two of them emerge, Chloe’s hair piled damply on the top of her head, Jamie’s still wet but combed neatly, they join her at her perch by the window. Chloe kisses the side of her forehead as she sits down.

“Did you two have fun?”

“I had my lesson and we went underwater and pretended to be fishes but I asked the teacher if I could be a jellyfish because they’re better and he said ok, so I was.” He puts his arms to his sides and wriggles to demonstrate. “And then Chloe came in the pool and we did jumping and I was so good at it, she says I’m the best jumper she ever saw and I’m going to learn to swim and swim for miles and miles and forever.”

He jumps up, and skips to the window, pressing his face against it to watch the lesson now taking place, teenagers diving and racing up the pool.

“That’s a yes then.”

“You made a little water baby.”

“I don’t know how the hell that happened. Why would you enjoy being thrown into the water. Gross.” Beca scrunches up her face and Chloe chuckles.

“He’s brave, just like you,” and Beca remembers standing on the edge of the pool, her toes curling over the edge, her dad treading water, encouraging.

“You can do it, Beca. Just jump. Jump, Beca.” She had, then, somehow thrown herself over the edge and the water had been everywhere, her mouth, her nose, so that when she’d burst back to the surface, she’d never jumped in again.

She’s grateful then, grateful to add more people to Jamie’s circle - more people who can give him something she cannot. She grabs Chloe’s warm hand.

“Mommy I’m starving,” Jamie says in the general direction of their table. Beca fishes out a dollar, helps him slide it into the vending machine and dispense a bag of Cheetos.

(This becomes a routine, after that, so that later in life, Jamie will always crave Cheetos after swimming, even once he can’t remember why and he’s forgotten this day of flying and jumping ever happened.)

Chloe reaches out and holds her hand, and Beca grabs Jamie’s with her other, so they’re all tethered together in a row to walk back out to the car, one, two, three of them. Chloe strokes her thumb over Beca’s hand, soft and steady.

Chloe spreads her love through touches. It’s something Beca shies away from usually. Has perfected the art of standing stock still whilst Jesse, and sometimes, at the same time, Amy limpet to her. She has definitely, one hundred percent never had the desire to hold or touch or kiss anyone else in public. But Chloe would hug a stranger if she thought it would make their day better - probably kiss them too, if she thought the situation warranted it.

Jamie, of course, is Beca’s exception. Perhaps it’s the years of openly holding him, receiving and giving back hugs and hand holding and warm, sloppy kisses. That maternal desire to stroke his forehead and brush his hair back. Maybe it’s just that she’s used to it now, touching and being touched.

Maybe that’s why she just melted into Chloe’s hand, the first time she’d reached to hold it. Maybe that’s why, when they’re sat in restaurants or cafes and Chloe leans into her it feels nice instead of stifling. Maybe that’s why when they go out drinking with Chloe’s friends, or Jesse and Amy, she doesn’t mind when Chloe sits in her lap and strokes her hands up her arms. Will even kiss her in the dark, holding on tight and breathless, music ringing in her skull. Will reach out and grasp her hand at the pool, kiss her cheek by the car door, her lips in the front seat, Jamie complaining in the back. 

She still doesn’t feel completely comfortable in her skin, being soft. Touching and needing and baring everything. Not in letting other people see that softness. Yet Chloe projects it, waves it around, holds her arms open to welcome others into it. It’s fascinating to witness, especially when Beca stops in on Chloe’s choir practises. Watching Chloe command a room, her energy and joyfulness, creating a room full of small people just bursting to sing.

She’d still rather glower suspiciously at strangers where Chloe would befriend them, disarming them immediately with her charming smile. It worked on her, for God’s sake. Everyone else is putty in her hands.

And Beca wants. Wants that too, to pull people to her without those little snaps of caution, of sharp edges, and tentative fear. Even as she can never imagine it for herself, can never imagine being Beca and being like that.

Apart from sometimes, when she’s dancing in the kitchen with Chloe and Jamie, soft and simple and uninhibited. Then none of it matters. Then why would she want to be someone or something else when the person Chloe and Jamie love is Beca?

Chloe who can project outwards when Beca turns in, could make herself at home anywhere, Beca thinks, but has chosen here.

Chloe, who loves everyone, but her most of all.

Beca doesn’t think (would never, before Chloe, have been bold enough to think) that it’s because of her - because of her hard edges, because of her music and her passion and her conviction and her stubborn, silly humour.

But maybe she lets herself think these things, every now and again now. That maybe Chloe being here, with them, is not just because Chloe is wonderful but because there are things she can offer too.

(“You’re like, the most fearless person I’ve ever met,” she says to Chloe, after watching her talk on stage in front of hundreds of people at an LA County choir competition.

“No.” Chloe shakes her head “I’m just good at doing it anyway. I’ve never been good at saying what I think, anyway. You’ve...you’ve helped with that. You’d never hold back from saying the right thing. I never would have talked to the principal about choir funding and stuff like that without you. Then we never would have made it here.”)

Even if she doesn’t believe it herself, at first, when Chloe calls her beautiful or brave, it's still wonderful to hear. Still has always made her feel warm that Chloe could think those lovely things, even if she didn’t herself. But now, the longer it goes on, the more she trusts the sincerity of Chloe’s comments. The more she trusts Chloe’s judgement, the more she really feels the meaning behind the words. The more she actually feels like she really could be the kind of person Chloe sees her as.

The words stop being something wonderful about Chloe, and become something wonderful about her.

Because Chloe’s love doesn’t make her a different person but it certainly makes her feel pretty damn great about the one that she is.

And that spreads outwards, into everything.

Even her music comes easier for it, she finds. It helps her, developing this new album with Emily, who is soft and vulnerable and open in ways Beca can relate to now. She knows how to turn those lyrics into songs. Because life is baffling and safe and makes complete sense. Is wonderful and scary and busy and relaxed. Utterly unexpected and exactly what's needed. Full of music, of chord patterns and hooks and rhythms, twisting progressions and minor keys and syncopation. Loops of lyrics that match loops of chords. Patterns of tension and release, anticipation and sweet, sweet satisfaction. Like you could listen to that part over and over, and never, ever lose the joy of it. 

Beca writes it into her music.

And it's easy, because that's her life, too. 

You’re done early today right?  Chloe texts Beca, just when she’s shoving her sandwich wrapper in the trash and about to put her headphones back over her ears. Emily’s already back in the booth, flipping pages in her fluffy-covered notebook.

Yup, she texts back, wiping the greasy smudge her thumb makes off the screen with her sleeve. She’d worked until 10pm twice last week, so this is a make-up of sorts, she guesses.

Me 2. Surprise!!

Coffee date with your gf? Then a bit of shopping for that boy of yours who’s about to have a birthday?

Ours, Beca replies, before ruining the sentiment by following up with:

And sure you don’t just wanna make use of the v empty quiet apartment??

Tempting. But no. Meet me at the Starbucks across from Barnes & Noble. I’ll be there by 2.

And then a stream of kissing emojis.

So they pass a pleasant couple of hours drinking frappuccinos and browsing a toy store, then Victoria’s Secret, then the record store that Beca always has to stop into, just in case.

(“In case of what?” Chloe had asked, the first time Beca had demonstrated this ritual.

Beca had shrugged and laughed. “You never know. Just...in case.”)

Chloe leaves her be, rushes off to go grab something she forgot.

“Meet me outside the record store,” She says, kissing Beca’s cheek and vanishing back out the door. "I won't be long."
So Beca had browsed the new releases, run her hands along a few of the cases, checked up on the signed, first-press Fleetwood Mac record in the glass case, then stepped outside, leaning against the railings, waiting for Chloe to return.  

“Beca?”

Beca whirls around, and Chloe’s standing much closer than it had sounded like, a secret sort of smile on her face.

“Hi. You look beautiful.” Because Chloe has apparently taken time to brush her hair and redo her lipstick, for some reason. Beca watches Chloe approach slowly until she’s taking Beca’s hands in her own. “Hey, this is where we met. Re-met.”

“Yeah. Like, more than two years ago.”

“You know the exact number of days don’t you?”

Chloe just smiles mysteriously again. “Mmhmm.”

Beca has the sudden realisation that this isn’t random at all. “Why are we here, Chlo?”

“I have something I wanted to talk to you about. It seemed right to do it here.” Chloe pauses and takes a deep breath, and Beca can feel everything in her body focus towards Chloe suddenly, in a sharp jolt.  

“Everything changed when I bumped into you here. My whole life,” Chloe continues.

“Yeah. Mine too.”

“Look, Beca. I know that you don’t want to get married, and that nothing written on paper makes it more official than it already is and that honestly is completely fine by me -”

“Chlo, what -” Beca breathes out, staring, staring.

“Beca, Bec, I’m not proposing. Chill, beautiful.” Chloe reaches out a hand to Beca’s wrist and squeezes it. “There is something I want to ask you though but-” Chloe takes a deep breath in and seems to hold it for a second, her eyes never leaving Beca’s. But Beca can’t read them, not really. Not beyond the shining love that’s always there (though a little brighter today, in truth. A little more obvious right now.) “- It’s a little crazy and seems crazier the more I stand here thinking about asking you.”

“It’s okay Chloe.”

“Beca you’re already my family, and nothing about rings and papers will change that for anyone.”

“But?” Beca says, sensing it hanging there somewhere, quietly. Chloe smiles, confirming it.

“But...and this really might sound crazy, but you’re used to that, right?” Beca nods, and Chloe smiles, but Beca sees the tiniest hint of nerves there before she opens her mouth and speaks again. “Okay. I... I want to take your last name. Your’s and Jamie’s last name. If you’ll let me. I want everyone to know that we all belong to each other. I know that doesn’t matter to some people, that it’s not about names. But I guess it matters to me. So I don’t care if we’re married or not to do that, and I know that names are not what makes families, and we’ve been one for a long time now regardless-” Chloe takes a deep breath, as though she just remembered it’s a thing she needs to do every now and then. Beca feels her heart thud thudding against her chest as she stares and stares.

“But I’ve got this form, and I’ve got this envelope, and all I need is for you to say yes and-”

“Is that a change of name form?” Beca’s voice comes out higher and squeakier than she was expecting, and she swallows down the massive wedge of emotion that seems to have got stuck in her throat. Beca reaches forward to touch the pieces of paper Chloe’s suddenly holding in her hand, extracted from the bag hanging over her shoulder. Beca runs a finger under some of the words. Chloe’s other hand, holding a large envelope already addressed and with a stamp in the corner, flops to her side.

The form’s already filled out and countersigned by Jesse, that sneaky bastard. Beca’s eyes rove over the paper, and she feels her heart flip over at the sight of Chloe Mitchell written in the ‘proposed name’ box, in black ink and block capitals.

“Chloe,” Beca feels like there are other words there somewhere, but she’s lost her grasp on them, instead she just looks from the paper to Chloe’s eyes. “Chloe,” she says again uselessly, and Chloe laughs wetly.

“Yeah?” Chloe wipes at her the couple of tears that escaped, throws her head back like she’s trying to will them back in with gravity and waves a hand at her face. “Sorry.”

“I love you.” Beca rushes forward and cradles both of Chloe’s cheeks in her hands. “I love you so, so much.” And then she kisses her. They don’t do this. Chloe probably would every day, if she could, but Beca’s never felt comfortable with public displays of affection, beyond quick kisses and hand holding. It’s a work in progress. But now she’s making out with her girlfriend in the middle of a mall, and she doesn’t give a fuck.

Chloe’s still got the paper and envelope gripped in her hands, even as they wrap around Beca’s back, touching her as best they can. Beca tries to pull her in, to kiss her more, more, more but she hears the wrinkle of the form as Chloe desperately tries to get her hands involved. Beca pulls away and gently, gently takes everything from her hands.

“We should be careful, this is precious.” She smoothes it out, runs a finger over the name and looks up to Chloe’s eyes again, shining and laughing. “You really want this?”

“Yeah. I really do Beca. I was never expecting it to be like this, you know. Nothing about this average or expected or whatever you might call a normal family and that doesn’t matter.” Chloe scrunches up her nose, shakes her head. “But when we were talking about marriage, the only thing I really couldn’t let go of was the name. I don’t know why. I just kept thinking about it, how that was the thing I wanted most from the idea of marrying you, as silly as that might sound. Maybe because it’s always been Jamie’s as well as yours or something. I don’t really know.”

She shrugs, smiles gently, and Beca looks down at the paper again, feels it all sink in just in that moment, the thud of her heart and the shake in her fingers. “Holy shit.”

“I was waiting for that.”

“Everyone’s gonna think we just ran away and got married.”

Chloe shrugs, “Let them think that. Who cares what anyone else thinks. It’s our lives. Our family.”

Beca looks at her, absorbs that confidence, that trust. That love for their family, and breathes. “This is mad. Totally mad. Crazy.”

“Yeah. It’s stupid too, we have to, like, go to court. But it’s mad in a good way though, right?”

“Yes. Yeah. Mad in a good way. Chloe Mitchell.” Her face breaks out into a grin. “Wow. That’s the first time I’ve said that. It sounds good. Really good.” She has a sudden, silly thought but she knows sharing it will make Chloe smile, so she does. “Do you have a notebook somewhere where you’ve practised your new signature like a middle-schooler with a crush?”

Chloe throws her head back and laughs. “Yes.”

“You get it figured out?”

“Yeah. Yeah I think I’ve got it figured out.” For a moment they just stand there, grinning at each other, and Beca knows that Chloe will be able to read her answer from her face, from the red on her cheeks and love in her smile, so she waits for Chloe to speak.

“I really don’t care if you want to wait, and talk about this properly,” Chloe says, on cue, “but...I think there’s a mailbox just outside Jamie’s school. Just saying.”

“Well then,” Beca carefully folds the forms, slips them into the envelope and licks it shut, before taking Chloe’s hand. “Shall we go pick up our son?”

Chapter Text

Benjamin is tiny.

That’s the first thing that everyone comments on, when they meet him. Then they note the scruffy tufts of dark, curly hair - so much like Jamie’s - that had made Chloe nearly burst into tears when she’d first seen them. When the social worker had said “this is Benjamin,” and Chloe had looked down at him and - against all best laid plans to not get too attached, not yet - immediately thought that’s my son.

They’d discussed changing his name, before that moment. Had thrown names back and forth in the darkness, lying side by side in bed grinning with cautious excitement, because after nine months of waiting patiently from their acceptance as future adopters (and yes Beca was over the moon at the serendipity of that timing) they’d got a call. There’s a little boy. Eight months old. I think this match is perfect, I’m emailing you more details right now. Take a look.

Then, one week later, Do you want to come and meet him?

And the social worker had said “This is Benjamin," and Beca had said “Hi Benjamin,” in the softest of voices, easily betraying that she was already as in love with him as Chloe was. After that there was no way he was ever going to not be Benjamin. Their son Benjamin.

The instantaneous love she has for her younger son, from that first look, that first meeting, that first time he’d looked up at her, wide-eyed and beautiful, is both exhilarating and terrifying. It’s strange, at first, to be a mother to someone straight away. The way she’d done it with Jamie, after all, had been so slow and gradual she’d not even noticed when she’d slipped over the line into parenting until there she was.

This time round, she’s the kid’s mom from the get go and she loves, loves, loves from that very first moment. It’s warm and burning and terrifying, how instant it is. How permanent and bound her love suddenly becomes, not to one child but to two. A little boy and a baby who weren’t always but will now forever be their sons.

Chloe feels a bursting sense of pride sometimes, when the four of them walk around together, wrapped up in various formations that could only mean we’re a family. Hands held, strollers pushed, arms draped over shoulders, boys on hips, hands twisted in their mother’s hair. Chloe can feel them then, when they’re in formation like that, can feel the forever slightly unexpected joy radiating off Beca. Feel the strings that bind them all tightly together and she wants to grin and dance and shout “ mine, mine, mine! ” until she looks at Beca, who still holds herself more assuredly every day, and thinks, no. Ours, ours, ours.

And yes, Benjamin is tiny, so that he looks no more than 7 months or so, instead of the 10 months he actually is when they first bring him home. So that it’s vaguely alarming when he starts running (not walking, running ) on his first birthday, tiny body flinging around the house at impressive speed.

So that Jamie’s name for his baby brother morphs easily from Benjamin to Benjamini to just Mini, and suddenly it’s caught on and that’s it. He’s Mini.

Benjamin is Mini.

And Chloe’s well aware of the fact that they’re going to have to phase that out at some point. That 15 year old Mini will probably just stick to Ben, and for a while she feels a little bit sad about that, future-mourning his sweet nickname. The name his brother gave him. Until she remembers that one day she’s going to have a 15 year old son. That one day she’s going to have (at least - because they haven’t totally decided on a third, yet) two teenage sons, and she feels weirdly giddy about how ridiculous it is that she somehow fell into this life.

“Mamamamamamama!”

Mini, still miniature at almost two, has finally started to find some words to go with the running he’d mastered on his birthday. (“Is he always going to have perfect timing?” Beca had wondered, teeth clamped around the straw in her coke, eyes full of awe. “Cause if so maybe he can keep us all in check someday.”) It still feels thrilling to Chloe, to hear him call her Mama, though it’s never quite as tear-inducing as when Jamie had started it. To see him run towards her manically with a grin, as though the sight of his mama is the best news he’s had all day.

So she picks him up now, holds him to her as the daycare leader smiles and approaches to tell of lunch and spills and sharing, and he holds there, soft and small, pressing his face to her neck and holding on.

Until he spots Jamie, waiting patiently in his huge band shirt that used to be Beca’s until Jamie had borrowed it right out the drawer, and then he wriggles “down, down,” rushes over.

“Mom, Mini wants to go to the park.”

“Oh he said that did he?” Chloe looks at Jamie’s freckled face, all its baby-ness just a shadow now as he stretches and grows, but the expressions still so familiar. That sideways, gap-toothed grin still so like Beca.

“Jamie!” Benjamin squeals, a squidgy fist grasping onto Jamie’s shorts. “Pak!”

She scoops up Benjamin again, before he has a chance to escape across the parking lot, glances at her watch, mentally calculates how many books she has to mark tonight, whether she has everything ready for choir tomorrow.

“Is Mom at work late?”

“Yep, she has a big deadline this week, remember, buddy. Finishing up Emily’s new album. But we’re going to go meet her for dinner.”

“At the studio? Will Jesse be there? Will Emily? Can I play on the drums? Can Ben? Can we have pizza? With pepperoni?”

“We had pizza last night, J.”

“But Mom! It was homemade! That doesn’t count!”

Chloe raises an eyebrow at him. “Tell me about your day, trouble. Do you have homework?”

The frantic pattering of Benjamin’s feet quickly becomes one of Chloe’s favourite sounds. One that soundtracks the rhythm of their life, alongside Jamie’s increasingly more competent drumming, and the clunk of the piano they’d bought off their neighbour and had taken six people to maneuver into the front room. The endless music that fills their house, chords and singing and the sound of Beca and the boys making breakfast in the kitchen whilst she lays in bed at the weekend. The giggles and gasps and chattering questions she gets when she makes up bedtime stories. The shrieks Benjamin makes when he runs away as she or Beca or Jamie chants “and everyone hugs, and everyone wins.”

The sound of Jamie chattering away in the back of the car to his brother about the Jurassic period and double stroke rolls, while Benjamin stares like he’s taking it all in, saving it for later.

When Chloe was young, she imagined her life in the simplest terms. There’d be a husband, probably, and some happy, laughing children (a boy, a girl) that looked just like the pair of them, blended.

She imagined that her life would be normal and average in the best kind of way.

It didn’t take much time with Beca for her to realise that was not so important, after all. Her life is simply a different picture to the one she imagined for herself. And when she thinks of Beca’s picture, Beca, Beca, Beca , forever on her mind still, she thinks Beca probably didn’t even imagine there would be other people in it at all. She would never have dreamt herself worthy of something other that a life that would always be quietly solitary. Just Beca and music.

It still makes her heart beat faster to think that she could have had any part at all in changing that picture for Beca. That Jamie - sweet, wonderful Jamie - made Beca so happy. But that she could step into that new world, an unexpected future the pair of them created, and make Beca and Jamie happy too.

It’s their accidental jigsaw of a family that makes her realise, in the end. Realise that normal and average is not the same thing as right.

That a normal, average family comes not from who forms it and how they somehow came to be together, but from the row of shoes, getting gradually smaller, that sit by their front door.

It doesn’t come from rings on fingers or biology, but from the noises that fill their little house, the shouts and laughter and tears and stories. Badly played musical instruments and feet running up the stairs thump thump thump.

It comes from poems and drawings tacked to fridges, a trunk of a car filled with especially nice sticks and rocks and discarded single socks. From touches and arms and hugs and dancing, kisses on foreheads, freckles, tiny fingernails and singing along to the radio. Squealing along to Beca’s songs on the radio.


Sighs and warm skin against skin and pressing bodies against walls, still.

Mouths, lips, arching backs, fingers calloused from playing the guitar, soft shirts folded in stacks, neat and worn. Dark rooms and pulsing bass and shouting, drunken crowds.

From front doors slamming and wild cries and tantrums, “Mama’s home!” and “Hey, gorgeous, I missed you.” Tales of workdays and school days, holidays and bad days, melodies, arrangements, notes and scales. Always sharing and sharing. Lives lived together and apart and together.

From forgetting sometimes - forgetting to see beauty, to clean the bathroom. Forgetting in the chaos and mundanity of life to take in the sound of laugher from the next room, forgetting to just stand and look . But remembering, eventually - always, with a kiss or an argument or a good night’s sleep.

From sadness that never stays, and worry that never quite leaves, yawns and muddled minds and jokes about peas that no-one else in the world understands.


From safety and home and four people that make each other better, four people who love.

Love and love and love and love.

That’s what makes them a family.

So now Chloe thinks that maybe there is no average family. No normal family. There’s just...family. People who love. Simple.

And this one - this one where she can look over at Beca, sat at a sound desk with a Chinese takeaway menu in her hand watching her two sons play wrestle, and still see something in her face, a gentle amazement that she could be this content - this family is theirs, together.


There are gold and platinum records adorning the walls of Beca’s studio. A film poster, signed by an illustrious cast. Then there are drawings - trains, penguins, houses, dragons, two brothers, a family. And Chloe knows that Beca views all these achievements with the same level of pride.

In different circumstances, maybe, different pieces could have come together in different happy accidents and loved just the same. But this way - this arrangement, this family, this life - as Beca remarks that evening, smiling at Chloe with bright eyes, headphones around her neck and a sleeping boy on her knee - this one is “pretty damn sweet.”

One, two, three, four.

Four pieces that fit.