Stacie Conrad hated her internship.

Okay, maybe not hate, that was too strong a word for it. Loathe, maybe? Dislike seemed too weak a word for it. She disliked reheated pizza. She disliked coffee drinks that were more sugar than coffee. Dry pizza and syrupy coffee had nothing on her internship.

Maybe it was because she'd applied for the Research and Development department and got lumped with all the other interns to do clerical duty. Maybe it was because as an incoming college junior, she was the youngest one there, and therefore made to be everyone's errand girl. Or maybe it was because the summer internship started just two days after The Barden Bellas' summer tour ended and she was stuck in an office while her friends went down to California to enjoy the beach.

So she didn't hate her internship. She just really, really disliked it.

Or maybe it was the fact that two days into her internship, word started going around the office that their little branch in Pennsylvania was getting a visit from the Oversight Committee of their parent company and would be the subject of a review.

Stacie didn't need to know business-speak to know that the words "oversight" and "review" were not good indicators.

But what did she know? She was an unpaid intern not enjoying the California sun.

She would gladly lay the blame on Fat Amy and Cynthia Rose for putting forth the idea to spend the rest of the summer in Southern California so late in the game (three days before their tour ended), but she also knew some of the blame had to be on Denise, who was going to be a senior in the coming school year and who almost had a nervous breakdown earlier in the year about her career prospects with a degree in Social Work.

Which, Stacie had to admit, was pretty limiting as a whole.

So, yeah. Summer internship? Totally Denise's fault.

But Denise's breakdown had sparked Stacie's own concerns about becoming an upperclassman, having finished almost all of her basic subjects and had to really choose a concentration for her Science degree.

Which was why she had applied for the R&D department, but no: Someone somewhere in the corporate labyrinth decided interns could only do filing.

But, she supposed she could be grateful for a few things.

Things like being back at home, even if her mom was away on business, because at least Stacie got to sleep in her own bed without the constant chatter of nine other girls living under the same roof. (She'll defend Fat Amy and fight anyone who criticized her, but Patricia Amy had not yet learned the value of one's inside voice.)

Because being home meant she knew all the good places to go for specific things, like where to get the best muffins, where the best thrift shops that weren't entirely seedy were, cheap record stores, or even where to get a cheap-but-delicious Italian meal. These, after all, were the important things. She loved Barden University, and Georgia was great, but two years in and she still didn't know where all the best places were.

During particularly bad days – which were becoming pretty common around the office, ever since the poor soul from the Oversight Committee, whom they had started calling Head Office Bitch, came to town – she knew which bars she could go to and not get carded if she ordered a drink.

Bad days came in a range of ways: a simple order for her to re-check an entire list of documents from the database after her supervisor came across a single error within the first ten documents, or finding out she'd missed an entire row of data to check and would have to re-do everything because she had no idea where everything had started going wrong.

Or her bus, which had already been running late, broke down in the middle of its route and she was wearing fashionable but not-advisable-for-power-walking heels in the humid Philadelphia summer heat. Finally, she'd managed to flag down a taxi – week's food allowance be damned – and hurtled into the building lobby only to embarrassingly go through her entire purse in search of her ID to even get near the elevators.

By the time she stepped into the elevator, she just wanted the day to end, knowing how bad it looked for an intern to be coming in so late.

Head Office Bitch would have a field day.

Stacie took comfort in the cool air of the elevator, even despite knowing the only reason she was alone in it because of how late in the morning it was, and closed her eyes, trying to catch her breath. Breathing exercises.

Oxygen was her friend.

She didn't realize someone had joined her in the elevator until a female voice noted, "looks like we're heading to the same place."

Stacie was sure she looked every bit as stressed as she felt. Did she look like she wanted to engage in small talk? "Hell?"

"I did expect more fire and brimstone."

Okay, that was cute. Stacie relaxed a little, but still kept her eyes closed. "It's the proximity to Jersey. But I think it gets cooler to the center of hell."

"Does it?"

"It's freezing up at corporate."

"Good to know." A light chuckle. "Although… those are remarkably brave words for an intern."

Stacie's eyes snapped open, and she honestly had no idea what to feel or how to react when she met the expectant gaze of someone she hadn't expected to ever see in the building. Holy shit.

"Holy shit."

Aubrey Posen arched an eyebrow at her. "What, no hello?"

"Holy shit."

"It's good to see you too, Stacie."

"Holy—" Stacie stopped herself from saying the same thing one more time, a childhood superstition making her paranoid about three-time repetition, and tried to shake off her shock. "Why are you… What are you… How-" She shook her head, her powers of speech finally catching up. "Aubrey Posen."

Aubrey smiled at her. "Stacie Conrad."

"Oh my god."

Stacie suddenly had a flashback of memory, the last time that phrase had been uttered between them, and the very visceral memory was enough to trigger a warmth that had nothing to do with the weather outside.

And then her brain caught up, and made the connection to why Aubrey could be in the office building.

Her mouth did the rest.

"You're Head Office Bitch."

Aubrey rolled her eyes. "Apparently." She checked the elevator display, and turned back to Stacie. "Is subtlety not common in the Mid-Atlantic? Or, you know, the polite thing and only talking about people behind their backs?"

Stacie frowned. "Are people giving you a hard time? Is anyone mean to you?"

"And as an intern you're gonna talk to them?" Aubrey asked skeptically.

Fair point.

Now that her shock had started to wear off, Stacie took a moment to gaze over Aubrey, whom she had last seen two days after Aubrey had graduated from Barden, before Aubrey left for a job almost immediately after graduation and hadn't been back on campus since. Which… was fair, Stacie supposed, nobody really stayed after graduation just to hang out; that was what homecomings were for. But Stacie would be lying if she said she hadn't been disappointed by the fact that Aubrey hadn't even shown up to support the Barden Bellas, having been former Bellas captain, at any of their competitions or concerts during the past year.

And, to add injury to insult, Aubrey looked really good. Aubrey was gifted with the face of the annoyingly pretty – who could look good even in the harsh fluorescent lighting of an office elevator – but between the natural-looking light makeup, the blond hair hanging loosely around her shoulders and a dark green business dress that accentuated her slim body and brought out some green in her blue eyes, Stacie could really appreciate the view.

Realizing that the way her gaze raked over Aubrey could be grounds for sexual harassment, Stacie snapped her eyes back to Aubrey's, who looked on with not a small amount of fond amusement. "I've missed you too, Stacie."

God, since when did Aubrey's voice get that low? It had been bad enough back when they had been in the Bellas together, when Aubrey wasn't yelling at them for a myriad of reasons and the near-constant stress Aubrey had been under keeping her voice at a near-constant high pitch, but now? The lower pitch triggered another memory, from the same circumstances of the earlier recollection, and Stacie had to bite her lip to keep from whimpering.

For her part, Aubrey could only wonder if Stacie had any idea what the very sight of her biting her lip did to her.

Before either of them could do or say anything, the elevator signaled their arrival to Stacie's floor, and Stacie wanted to slap Aubrey when the blonde also moved to step out. Seriously, if Aubrey didn't back off, sexual harassment claims were going to be the least of Stacie's worries. (Public indecency came to mind.) "What are you doing?"

"I have a meeting on this floor." Aubrey informed her. If she sounded amused, she couldn't help it: Stacie had always carried herself with utmost confidence and poise, and never shied away from any kind of situation. To see her so lacking in composure was… interesting.

Stacie frowned.

"Stacie." Aubrey said softly, letting some of her professional composure down to show the other girl glimpses of the girl she had once known; and it seemed to work, when Stacie slowly followed Aubrey to the side of the elevator doors. "I know it's weird, and I know you have questions, but we don't have to be…" She paused.

"Weird?" Stacie supplied, even though she knew that wasn't exactly the word Aubrey was looking for.

Aubrey nodded briefly. "Listen: technically, I'm not your boss, and we don't share the same corporate chain of command. And we're friends, right?"

Stacie wasn't sure if Aubrey was looking for confirmation, or was asking rhetorically, but she nodded anyway. "Of course."

Sure. Friends totally slept together that one time and had the best sex ever and never talked about it ever again, but sure: They were friends.

"Right. So dinner tonight?" Aubrey asked.

"Dinner. Right. Sure." Stacie nodded. And then she stopped, and frowned. "Wait, what?"

"Dinner." Aubrey repeated. "To catch up. Talk."

"Catch up. Talk." Stacie echoed. "Dinner." God, she sounded like a moron. She straightened, suddenly remembering that this was Aubrey, who had practically drooled over Stacie's application form during her a cappella auditions, and this had always been a level playing field. "But since you're obviously not an unpaid intern, you're paying."

Aubrey grinned. That was more of the Stacie Conrad she knew. "Of course."

"Meet me at the lobby after work."

Aubrey noted, "I usually leave at six."

"What? Why?" Stacie demanded.

Aubrey rolled her eyes. "I report in to my boss every EOB, and depending on the day, that could go from five minutes to the rest of the night."

Stacie sighed. "Fine. I guess I need to make up for being late today, anyway."

"Yeah, why-" Aubrey reached over and plucked a small leaf from Stacie's shoulder, "—were you late?"

Stacie rolled her eyes. "Long story. I'll tell you over dinner."

"Short version?"

"Bus broke down."

"Aww." Aubrey pouted in sympathy, and it took all of Stacie's willpower not to kiss that pout away. She glanced at her watch – her very expensive watch, Stacie couldn't help but notice – and motioned to the door. "Shall we?"

Stacie smiled, and presented her ID to the scanner, effectively logging in. She asked, "Does Chloe know you're in Pennsylvania?"

Behind her, unseen, Aubrey momentarily faltered. "We, uh, we haven't spoken."

Stacie nodded, unaware of the conflict she had just started within Aubrey. "Yeah, it's been a busy few weeks what with the tour ending and the trip to LA."

"Trip to LA?" Aubrey echoed.

Stacie glanced at her. "The Bellas are vacationing in one of Amy's houses."

"In LA?" Aubrey questioned.

"And I guess CR has family there?" Stacie surmised, heading to the area where the interns were working. "Anyway, the Bellas are in LA."

"But you're not?"

"I got the internship." Stacie shrugged. "I figured it wouldn't look too good if I didn't even show."

Aubrey smiled at her, and it was so pure and genuine in the happiness it conveyed that it buoyed Stacie's spirits despite her morning leading up to the elevator. "Well I'm glad you're not in LA."

Stacie smiled back. "Me too."

As Stacie entered the cube where she usually sat, Aubrey moved on towards the row of conference rooms at the far side of the room.

Stacie ignored the looks of curiosity of her fellow interns – they only ever spoke to the group who handed them the reports to file and verify, nobody else – and Stacie pretended nothing was amiss.

As if she didn't have plans for dinner with Aubrey Posen… who she now had to impress with what Philadelphia and the rest of her tiny corner of Pennsylvania had to offer.

Aubrey Posen, her former Barden Bellas team captain who had featured in not a few of her more vivid… daydreams, who had walked out of Barden and whom Stacie had already, if albeit reluctantly, written off as the one who got away.

Except she was here. Now.

And already she and Aubrey were dancing around each other as if a year hadn't passed.