"Hey Chlo, get a move on or the truck's leaving without us!"

Beca waits in the doorway of the Bellas' house, hollering for the redhead to pick up the pace.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming," floats back down to her followed by the rapid thumping of feet on stairs, in the rhythm that Beca would know belongs to Chloe even if she didn't know it was Chloe coming down because Chloe was the only one in the house. "Sorry," Chloe says, a little breathless as she almost slides to a stop at the entrance, holding the cork board that lived on Beca's bedroom wall. "I was doing a final round and you forgot this!"

"Shit, thanks," Beca says as she takes it from her, numerous pins still holding Polaroids and Post-Its and fortunes to it. "We gotta go. All the lights are off?"

"Check."

"Everything unplugged except for the stuff that shouldn't be unplugged?"

"Check."

"You left everyone's house keys in the drawer and told Emily where to find them?"

"Check, check, and double check!" Chloe says with a smile.

"Okay, lock it up. Let's go." Beca steals one last look over Chloe's shoulder at the house she's called home for the last three years. She's certain that she made more memories there than the rest of her life combined. She certainly made her best friends there. She was even moving in with one of them, something she never would have been able to see herself do when she was younger. She watches Chloe lock the front door and offers a sympathetic smile when Chloe turns back with tears in her eyes.

The moving truck is idling alongside the curb, waiting to follow Chloe the two hundred and fifty miles to Nashville where Beca has a job waiting for her at a satellite Residual Heat studio and Chloe has a Master's in Music Education program to begin in three months at Belmont University.

Beca carefully sets the cork board in Chloe's backseat and then plops into the passenger seat to buckle up. She watches Chloe talk to the truck driver, pointing down the street and then gesturing to her phone, and Beca laughs to herself.

"You know, they have our address. They can probably use that new-fangled GPS technology to find it if they lose us on the freeway."

"I'm just trying to be helpful," Chloe chirps as she eases onto the road to lead them off the Barden University campus.

"Hey, so, the cable guy is supposed to come tomorrow at 9am, which means it'll probably be like 2pm. Can you be home for that?"

Chloe looks up from where she's parked in front of her laptop at the kitchen counter going through photos. "Sure, no prob."

They're mostly unpacked, though Beca's finding that they were so ingrained in their ways at the Bellas' house that they're both struggling to find and establish new habits. So far, Chloe's "office" has been in the kitchen and Beca's been walking around from room to room with her laptop trying to figure out where she feels most comfortable.

Her bedroom is okay, she finally decides. Chloe seems to whine a lot about hers, saying it's too bright in the morning and too cold in the evening when the air conditioning is blasting to keep the rest of the house cool in the oppressive southern summer heat.

It's not really all that surprising when Beca wakes up a week later to see Chloe asleep next to her in her bed. Which is a habit that establishes itself immediately.

Somehow in their four years of friendship, Chloe convinced her that cuddling was not only okay for platonic friends, but actually pretty comforting. Apparently she'd been wrong all those years shunning human contact.

Or at least, it was comforting when it was Chloe.

So she curls into Chloe's side, slipping her arm through triangle of space made by Chloe's hand resting on her own stomach as she sleeps to rest her fingertips against the side of her neck. And Beca doesn't really think about it; it just is. She stopped thinking about it two years ago.

"Hey, did you buy new K-cups on your way home?" Beca asks as she slides the drawer closed under the coffee maker that usually houses their collection.

"Shoot, no, I forgot. I'm sorry." Chloe's still using the kitchen as an office area despite the house actually having an office, and the counter space is almost completely taken up by her textbooks and notes.

"I don't ask for much, you know," Beca teases as she settles for a soda from the fridge instead.

Chloe raps her knuckles against her skull a few times, obviously frustrated with herself. "I know, I know."

And Beca can't help but smile at her, because she is so frazzled and distracted and buried in her homework that it's actually kind of adorable, so she finds it in her heart to forgive her. "It's okay. I'll get it tomorrow."

"Sorry. Thanks, babe."

"Hey, did you know I work for a total jackass?" Beca says, pissed off as she slams the door behind her.

Chloe's sitting at the kitchen counter and looks up from her computer screen where Beca knows she's cramming for finals, pushing her glasses off her face to sit atop her head. She started wearing glasses for reading earlier in the year, the hours spent studying and reading all semester taking their toll on her vision. Beca kind of wishes she would put them back into their proper place; Chloe looks nice in them.

"What happened?"

"He just doesn't get it." She flops onto the couch, letting her head fall back to stare at the ceiling. "I'm working my fucking ass off and he's acting like I'm not trying." She feels a kink in her neck and rubs at it, rolling her head from side to side.

"Scootch." Chloe's suddenly climbing onto the couch, standing on it and nudging her foot under Beca's backside to push her off the cushions and onto the floor so she can slide into place behind Beca.

Beca settles on the floor and feels Chloe sit down in her just-vacated spot, and a moment later Chloe's legs frame her upper arms and feet take up residence in her lap as her warm hands make contact with her neck. How Chloe's hands are always so warm Beca's never been able to figure out, because Chloe's spent the entirety of their friendship complaining of being cold and using Beca as her personal space heater. But she doesn't mind and stops thinking about the 'why' because Chloe's warm hands are prodding and massaging her neck and squeezing the tension out of her shoulders in the way that always makes Beca's eyes slip closed.

"He's a butthead," Chloe says, making Beca smile, and then whimper as she works her thumb into the knot in Beca's neck.

"Yeah," Beca agrees weakly. She knows Chloe will keep up the massage for as long as Beca engages just enough to keep the conversation flowing.

"You have the best ear in that place. He'll come around; you'll see."

Beca hums and moves her hands off her knees to rest them over Chloe's ankles. Her fingers itch to move and she finally gives in, trailing them along the bottom of one of Chloe's feet. She feels her foot twitch and tense up and the quiet huff of laughter behind her and she does it again but less tickly and she feels Chloe relax and resume her work along Beca's shoulders. And she figures it's really the least she can do, since Chloe already has her on Cloud 9, so she presses her thumbs into the arch of Chloe's foot.

"Hey, Chloe, my meeting got canceled. Wanna go check out the new Star Wars finally?"

She smiles as Chloe bounces across the room to her, nearly jumping into her arms as she tackles Beca in a hug. "Can we?!"

Beca holds up her phone which is still displaying the movie times for the cinema in the nearby shopping complex. "I already bought the tickets, so, yes. Starts in 45. Let's get going so we can stop at the store and get snacks to smuggle in."

Chloe squeals again and presses a kiss to Beca's cheek and then she's scampering up the stairs to her bedroom where Beca can hear doors slamming and water running and then she's floating back down the stairs having added an oversized cardigan to her person - since she was always cold at the movies, of course - and she's in the car before Beca even has the door locked.

At the movie they get situated. Chloe always sits to Beca's right so Beca's left hand is free for her snacks or drink or what have you, because her right inevitably, without fail, always ends up trapped in Chloe's. "Trapped" is perhaps not the best word as it implies a desire to be set free, which is really quite the opposite. "Cradled" is perhaps a better descriptor. Halfway through the previews Chloe drops her hand to flip the armrest between them up and out of the way so she can lean on Beca as she tugs her closer by the resumed grip on her hand.

"Chilly in here," Chloe says when Beca nudges her with her elbow teasingly.

"Hey, Beca, you're going to be late!"

"No I'm not!" Beca yells from her room where she's scrambling to change clothes on more time. Her boss set up an interview with a major artist's representation, and despite having decided on her outfit days ago, she's second guessing everything from her shirt to her shoes.

She finally gives up and goes with what she'd originally put on and flies down the stairs, heart skipping a beat when she almost misses a step.

"Tick tock!" Chloe says from her post at the front door that she's holding open, Beca knows, to save a precious few extra seconds.

"I know, I know!" she says, grabbing her bag off the couch and her keys out of Chloe's hand.

"Knock 'em dead," Chloe says.

"Thanks, babe," Beca says, pressing a quick kiss to Chloe's lips and flying out the door and into her car.

A squeaky "Love you!" follows her out the door.

Her mind is racing and her palms are sweating and she's freaking out a tad about this interview and of course she hits the first red light on their street after almost squealing the tires in the driveway.

She feels her stomach drop a moment later and her fingertips fly to her lips, eyes going wide. She looks at herself in her rearview mirror as though her reflection holds the answer to what the fuck did I just do?!

Her phone rings as the light turns green and she sees Chloe's name pop up on the dashboard display, and her stomach jumps from her feet to her throat and then settles in its proper place, only to do a backflip. She presses the TALK button on her steering wheel and takes a breath.

"Chlo, I'm so sor -"

"It's okay!" Chloe's voice fills the entire space in the car. "We'll talk about it when you get home. Just wanted to wish you luck. Not that you need it."

"Thanks," Beca says with a weak laugh, still a little in shock over realizing she literally just kissed her best friend. On the mouth. As she was running off to work.

"Oh, hey, Beca?"

"Yeah?"

"I hope that wasn't an accident. Okay, bye!"

The line goes dead, leaving Beca in silence. She merges onto the freeway, thinking the whole drive to the studio until she's finally pulling into the parking garage.

She looks at herself in the mirror again, smiling. "It wasn't."