Chapter Text
One of the girls knocks on Chloe’s door just after 2 A.M. three weeks after they've moved into their new Bellas house.
It’s so quiet that she only hears it because she’s picked that exact moment to pull off her earphones and start getting ready for bed – in fact, she thinks that she’s hearing things for a moment and cocks her head curiously, trying to listen for a second knock.
“Hello?” She calls out softly, slightly confused and concerned. It’s not that she’s unused to the girls streaming in and out of her room – although her status as supersenior gives her the uncontested right to the single room at the top of the Bellas house, she enforces an open-door policy, inviting the girls to seek her out whenever they needed help, or just someone to talk to. All the same, she knows that none of them would be awake and creeping round the house at this hour, given that it’s been an exhausting week for all of them, and it’s still a school day tomorrow.
There’s no second knock, but she can hear footsteps shuffling against the carpet, and a thud followed by a very muffled “Fuck!” Her concern mounting rapidly, she pulls her bedroom door open, and has to stifle a snort when she sees Beca sitting at the top of her steps, pillow stuffed under one arm, rubbing her knee gingerly.
“Hey, Becs,” Chloe plonks herself down beside her co-captain, who squeaks in surprise, nearly falling down the stairs in shock.
“Dude, you scared the shit out of me,” Beca slaps her gently on her arm, and Chloe raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“Says the one stalking around the house like an axe murderer at two in the morning.”
“Yeah, about that…” the brunette glances up at Chloe’s face, then down at her pillow, and then her next question comes out in a rush of words. “IwasgonnaaskifIcouldspendthenightwithyou?”
“You what?” Chloe asks carefully, wondering if she’s misheard, but even in the dim light streaking into the hallway from her room, she can see Beca’s ears turning red.
“Amy keeps on snoring,” the younger Bella doesn’t meet her eyes, and starts rubbing at her knuckles, and Chloe, knowing Beca as well as she does, recognises that she’s nervous. “It’s fine when I go to bed, but then it gets louder, and it wakes me up, and then I can’t go back to sleep, and I’ve just been getting really sleep deprived lately. I keep falling asleep in lectures and even my professors are noticing and starting to complain but, oh my god Chlo, I’m just so tired and –“
“Yeah, sure,” she tells Beca easily, standing up and pulling her towards her room. She knows that Beca can continue rambling on frantically if she lets her, and frankly?
Chloe’s kind of excited.
It’s not like they’ve never spent the nights in each other’s beds before – over the course of their friendship, she’s grown accustomed to spending the night in Beca’s dorm after long Netflix marathons, and sometimes Beca crashed in her and Aubrey’s shared apartment while they were all working on the Bellas’ set for the ICCAs. The both of them would curl up together in Chloe’s single bed, facing each other, whispering about music and school and anything that came into their mind late into the night.
But then they moved out of Barden back home for the summer, and despite not having seen each other for three months, Beca’s been a little distant when they’d returned for the semester. It’s as though she’s reverted to freshman Beca that Chloe first met at the Activities Fair, edging away from Chloe’s hugs instead of returning them like she’s learned to, and Chloe hasn't managed to confront her about it - whenever they found themselves alone, Beca always looked vaguely panicked and made her excuses, practically fleeing before Chloe could stop her.
She wonders now if this is all down to the argument she'd overheard between Jesse and Beca just before the semester started – she’d dropped by the radio station to surprise Beca and spend one last quiet day together with her before the other Bellas were due to move back in the next day, only to walk into a heated argument between her co-captain and her boyfriend.
"You're always busy," Chloe hears Jesse's exasperated shout the moment she walks into the radio station. Neither he nor Beca notices her entrance, so she ducks behind a shelf quietly, not wanting to intrude, and tries to tune them out until she hears her name being mentioned.
"Sometimes it feels as if you're dating Chloe instead of me."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Beca's voice is sharp and defensive, and in her mind's eye, Chloe can picture the brunette crossing her arms, backing away from Jesse - warning signs that her walls are coming back up, but her boyfriend plows on anyway, regardless of her feelings.
"It's just, you spend more time with her than you do with me, okay? This isn’t – this isn’t how a relationship should be like. You should be spending your time with me.”
“Who I spend my free time with doesn’t concern you, Jesse,” the younger Bella retorts icily. “Chloe is my –”
Chloe slips out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind her – it’s not like she doesn’t want to jump in and defend Beca, but she knows that it’s not her place to. Besides, she doesn’t think that Jesse would take kindly to her interruption anyway, so she leaves instead, and waits for Beca to get home.
“How’s work?” She asks casually as soon as Beca walks in the door, and her friend gives her a careless shrug.
“Okay.”
She ducks out of Chloe’s hug, though, and the redhead can’t help but feel slightly hurt as she watches Beca walk up into her room without another backward glance.
“Uh.” Chloe is brought back to the present when Beca halts at the threshold of her room, as though afraid to take a step in. "You really don't mind if I stay, right?"
The brunette looks tentative suddenly, as though worried about overstepping her boundaries, and Chloe is quick to reassure her, tugging her friend into her room and closing the door behind her.
"'Course not," she smiles down at Beca, running her eyes down Beca's frame. Even with her messy bedhead, and dressed in a baggy old t-shirt and sleeping shorts, Beca looks gorgeous. No one should look so adorable when dressed down like that. It's completely unfair.
She pinches herself lightly – quit staring at her before you scare her off, Beale! – and slides under the covers. Beca is still standing there, staring down at her hesitantly, so she reaches over, turns off her lamp, and pats the empty space beside her.
“Come on, get in.”
The brunette clambers in awkwardly and lies beside her, stiff as a board, so Chloe scoots closer, rests her chin against Beca’s shoulder, and cuddles up to her side like she used to.
“Relax,” she murmurs.
She can feel Beca shudder slightly under her touch, before the younger woman relaxes and turns, so that they’re facing each other. Chloe can just make out her features in the faint glimmer of moonlight coming through her blinds – Beca looks pensive and tired, and her blue eyes are glittering with unshed tears.
“I’ve missed this,” Beca confesses quietly, snuggling against Chloe and closing her eyes. Chloe pulls her even closer, dropping a kiss to the top of her head, and hums in agreement as she feels Beca’s breathing slow, then even out.
“I’ve missed this too, Becs,” she whispers, careful not to wake the sleeping girl. “I’ve missed you.”
Chloe wakes up the next morning to an empty bed, but also a post-it note scrawled with Beca’s messy handwriting:
Gotta go for class! Tried to wake you but you sleep like the dead.
Thank you for everything – Beca
They fall into a comfortable routine – every night, just as Chloe’s about to head to bed, Beca knocks on her door and makes herself comfortable, and just like that, the walls that Beca’s put up between them begin to fall away. She starts hanging out with Chloe again, they spend nights huddled in bed together, binging on the latest Netflix series, and the redhead completely forgets about Jesse’s existence, until she starts receiving very frantic messages from the Bellas’ group chat in the middle of a project meeting.
Amy [8:57PM]: CODE RED, Chloe we need you back at the house pronto
CR [8:58PM]: Something’s up with the captain and we need you to talk to her.
She grabs her books and sprints across the campus as soon as their meeting wraps up.
“What’s wrong with Beca?” Chloe demands when she bursts through the front door of the Bellas house, so violently that her entrance startles Stacie, who almost falls out of her chair. The cryptic messages that she’d received from their group chat only served to fuel her worry, and she flings her book bag carelessly aside, grabbing Stacie by the forearms, ready to start demanding for answers. Cynthia-Rose rises, touches her arm to calm her down.
“Cap was supposed to go out on a date with Jesse tonight, but then she stormed back in not long after muttering angrily about jerks and assholes, so we assumed that something’s happened between them,” the other Bella tells her quietly, before tilting her head towards the stairs. “I think she’s in her room, you should go and talk to her, since I know she won’t want to see the rest of us right now.”
“Thanks,” Chloe whispers, and takes the stairs three at a time, tapping lightly on the door of the room that her co-captain shares with Amy.
“Beca?” She knocks once more, louder, before pushing it open. “Becs?”
There’s no reply – she takes a quick glance around, and notes with a sinking heart that the room is empty. She’s about to head back downstairs and organise a search party for the missing brunette when another thought strikes her, and she races up the remaining steps to her own room.
The door is ajar, and Chloe feels a wave of relief – mixed with warmth – when she finds Beca huddled in the bed, her face pressed against Chloe’s pillow. The redhead takes a second to bask in the knowledge that instead of retreating back into her shell, Beca’s sought her for comfort, before pushing the thought away. She crosses the room and pulls the younger Bella into her arms, cradling her and rubbing circles on her back gently when Beca releases her grip on Chloe’s pillow to latch onto her instead, crying into the crook of her neck.
Chloe feels helpless – she can only hold Beca, murmuring a continuous litany of comforting words into her ear, and watch as her hitching sobs eventually die down into quiet, occasional sniffles. She cups Beca’s cheek with her free hand, brushing the remaining tears away tenderly, and wishes that she can just as easily wipe the sadness and pain off the younger girl’s face as well.
“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks when Beca pulls away to lean her head against Chloe’s shoulder instead.
Beca shrugs. “Jesse and I broke up.”
“I thought you wanted to break up with him anyway,” Chloe presses gently, and hears Beca heave a tired, heavy sigh.
“Yeah, but we fought.” Beca’s voice is small, and she begins rubbing at the knuckles of her right hand idly – it’s a habit that appears every time the brunette is stressed, and Chloe can already see a bruise forming, a blotchy purple patch across her pale skin. She reaches over, lacing their fingers together before Beca can aggravate the injury further. “It was bad, Chlo. Everyone in the café was staring, and I just… I thought…”
She pauses, swipes angrily at her eyes before continuing. “Jesse isn’t a bad guy, and I thought that – I wanted us to remain friends, even if we aren’t together anymore.”
Beca shudders slightly at the memory of the shouting match that’d erupted between them, her dark blue eyes haunted and defeated, and Chloe feels her heart break for her best friend all over again. She wants so badly to comfort her, to tell her that it’s going to be okay, but they both know that it’d be a lie, so she falls silent instead, her thumb still rubbing soothing circles on the back of Beca’s hand until the brunette speaks up again.
“I’m a terrible girlfriend,” she sighs, letting her head hit the wall with a loud thud. Chloe winces, but Beca doesn’t seem to notice the pain, and continues, “I mean, I’m always busy with work or you guys, I never really made time for him, y’know?”
It’s this one statement that makes Chloe’s carefully tamped-down rage against Jesse for doing this to Beca, for causing Beca so much pain flare back into life.
“No,” she snaps, and her voice must’ve come out sharper than she’d expected it to, because Beca flinches slightly. She feels a wave of remorse for scaring the already emotionally-fraught girl, and lets out an angry breath before turning to meet Beca’s eyes.
“No,” she says again, much more calmly this time. “Don’t say that. You’re an amazing person – no, you’re an amazing friend, Becs, you give everything you have to your work and your music and us. And we both know how time-consuming managing the Bellas can be.” She’s slightly heartened when her statement gives her the result she’s hoped for – Beca lets out a watery huff of laughter, so she continues. “You’re busy, and he should understand that. Besides, didn’t you guys agree to a date night every Wednesday?”
“It wasn’t enough,” Beca mutters unhappily. “It’s just, I see you guys more than I see him, and he’s my boyfriend. He’s my boyfriend, and I hang out with you guys so much more.”
The sentence ‘I hang out with you so much more’ hangs in the air unsaid, but Chloe knows that this is what Beca really means. It all makes sense to her in a flash – she remembers the argument that she’d walked into at the radio station two months ago. Jesse’s jealous of her.
Chloe squeezes Beca’s hand. “He doesn’t deserve you,” she tells her co-captain resolutely. “If he can’t get over his insecurities about your relationship, even when you’re putting time aside to watch movies with him, then he doesn’t deserve you.”
Leaning over, she drops a quick kiss to the top of Beca’s head. “You deserve so much more than Jesse, okay?”
“Okay,” Beca murmurs quietly. She doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t complain when Chloe pulls her in for hug and presses another kiss to her temple.
“Are you okay with heading downstairs now, or do you want to stay in?”
“Stay in. I don’t – I don’t think I can face anyone else just yet,” the younger woman sighs, glancing up at her, and it suddenly strikes Chloe that Beca looks exhausted, having tried to juggle school, the Bellas, her friendship with Chloe, and her relationship with Jesse all at once, and her heart twists in sympathy. She nods, sliding under the covers, and tugs at Beca until the brunette is lying down beside her.
It’s absurdly early for her to be in bed, but Beca needs her right now, and as she studies her best friend lying there drowsily in her arms, she can’t bring herself to move away – sleepy Beca is her favourite Beca, all her walls are down for once, and she’s so open and trusting, and affectionate that it makes Chloe’s heart ache.
“G’night, Chlo-bear,” she mumbles, nuzzling against Chloe’s chest, and Chloe giggles softly at the new nickname, reaching out to tuck a wayward strand of dark brown hair behind her ear.
“Sleep well, sunshine.”