The moment the plane touched down, Beca's nerves kicked in. Not that she wasn't nervous the whole time she'd been packing, ringing Donald or even the plane ride over. It was just the finality of it all. She was here, in Atlanta and there was no backing out. For the first time in her life she was going to lay her heart on the line and let someone else decide what happened to it. No more running.

Swarms of people hurried back and forth outside the airport, car headlights beginning to flicker on in the evening dusk. She pushed her way through the horde to the taxi rank and gave a driver the directions to the apartment she knew by heart.

When they arrived Beca handed over the fare wordlessly, fighting down nausea at the sight of the Chloe's building.

"I've got places to be, girl," The driver prompted, when Beca made no move to open her door.

"Right, sorry." Beca grabbed her backpack and clambered out, standing on wobbly legs.

When she made it to their floor she saw light spilling from under their door, which was a good sign. It would have been a bit awkward if they were out grocery shopping or something and she had to sit out front until they returned.

She ran a hand through her hair as she approached the door, wishing she had a mirror to check her reflection. Chloe carried a mirror like that, a small one that flipped open, rose gold on one side, ladybug print on the other.

God, Chloe.

Beca raised her hand and rapped her knuckles against the door, heart pounding in her chest.

The door swung open, revealing someone a little too tall and a lot too blonde.

"You're not Chloe."

"Beca?!"

This reply, instead of something like 'Nice observation dumbass', was Beca's first tip-off that something was wrong. The second was that Aubrey was staring at her like she was looking at a ghost, rather than her missing employee.

"Um," There was a long pause as Beca tried to remember the lines she'd practiced all way the here in the taxi, but she was more than slightly perturbed by the way Aubrey was still starting at her in silence, and her panic seemed to be contagious. She wiped her sweaty palms on the outside of her jeans and blurted out the first words that popped into her head. "Chloe? I'm here to-"

"She's not here!" Aubrey practically screeched, cutting Beca off mid-sentence. "Oh my God, she's not here.

"Oh." Beca paused. "Is she at the grocery store?"

"What?" Aubrey looked bemused. "No, she's- oh God, oh God."

"What's wrong?" Beca was getting really worried now, dread settling in her stomach. She hadn't spoken to Chloe since their phone call a few days ago. Had something happened to her? "Where is she?"

"She's," Aubrey paused to take a deep breath, "she's in LA."

Beca's pounding heart stopped. Everything stopped.

"LA?" She choked.

Aubrey looked genuinely upset now, wringing her hands desperately.

"She went to find you."

"Me?" Beca repeated dumbly.

"She wanted to apologise and talk to you properly in person."

"When did she leave?"

"Just this morning. She feels so terrible about what happened, but honestly it was my fault." Beca raised her eyebrow at that, but Aubrey barrelled on. "She really, really cares about you Beca. It was me that thought that seeing her with someone else might-" She waved her hands in Beca's general direction. "Awaken your feelings."

"My feelings were awake." Beca frowned.

Aubrey flushed. "Yes, well, I realise that now."

Beca sighed and checked her watch.

"What are you going to do now?" Aubrey asked. "Did you want to use my phone to call her?"

"No," Beca replied, distracted by the plan that was already forming in her mind. She swung her backpack onto her shoulders. "No, it's okay. I'll go back."

Aubrey stared at her. "Back? Right now?"

"Would you prefer I stopped here for dinner and a chat?"

"No, I just-" Aubrey trailed off, and when she didn't say anything more Beca turned and headed back down the hall, feeling precious seconds tick away.

"I'll see you Aubrey."

"Beca wait!" Aubrey called out to her retreating figure.

Beca stopped and wheeled around, before slowly walking back towards Aubrey who stood in the doorway, wringing her hands.

"Look, I know I've been hard on you, okay?" Beca's eyebrows rose in surprise at the almost-apology as Aubrey continued. "I know I've been hard on everyone, but especially you. Not just with your music, but with you and Chloe. I just- she's my best friend, and I didn't want you to hurt her, yet somehow I was the one who ended up hurting you. So I guess what I'm saying is, I don't know how you do it, 'cause you're one of the least cheerful people I've ever met, but you do make her really, really happy. And with you coming here tonight, I can see how much she means to you. I judged you unfairly, and way too quickly." She took a breath as Beca stared back at her in stunned silence. "I'm truly sorry."

"Wow, Aubrey, I don't know what to say," Beca said. Aubrey offered her a small smile and Beca grinned widely back. "This is a serious bonding moment, I feel like we should hug or something."

Aubrey rolled her eyes. "Don't push your luck. Now get out of here, and I don't want to see you back until you've got Chloe with you."

"Yes Ma'am!" Beca chirped, and gave Aubrey a cheeky salute as she ran off back down the hallway.

Less than two minutes later she was back and Aubrey opened the door wearing the same bemused expression as before, as well as a complicated looking headphone and microphone contraption on her head.

"That was quick," Aubrey quipped, eyebrows raised in question.

"So was that," Beca fired back, frowning at Aubrey's headset. "What are you doing?"

"Chloe doesn't approve of the amount of violence involved in some of my stress relieving techniques," Aubrey replied, waving the controller in her hand as way of further explanation. "I'm making the most of having the house to myself. Anyway, what are you doing?"

"Well it turns out my taxi has left, and I have no phone to call him back so…"

Aubrey rolled her eyes but retreated quickly into the apartment and reappeared only a few seconds later sans headset and with her car keys clenched in her palm.

"Let's do this."

"I never usually drive like this, just so you know."

"That would probably be of more reassurance to me if I was in your car at any other time then," Beca replied through gritted teeth, as she gripped the handle above the passenger side window for dear life while they shot through another roundabout, forcing the car on their left to slam on the brakes.

The lights in front of them changed to amber and Aubrey threw her foot down and yanked so hard on the steering wheel that the right side of the car nearly left the ground as they flew around the corner.

"Jesus Christ," Beca muttered. "Dude why are you smiling?"

"I don't know! It doesn't seem like it, but I'm actually a very highly strung person, and sometimes it feels good to let it all go like this." They swerved to the left to avoid a pedestrian who stepped out onto a pedestrian crossing, only to scramble backwards when they realised the speeding Volkswagen wasn't stopping.

"Actually, it does seem like that, cause most of the time you're barely holding it together."

Aubrey's mouth pressed into a hard line and she chucked her phone over onto Beca's lap.

"Make yourself useful and call Chloe to find out where she is. Her flight landed over an hour
ago."

Beca pulled the phone from her lap and brought up Aubrey's contact list. Chloe's name was right there at the top, a star beside her number declaring her a 'favourite'. Clicking on her name brought up a picture of her with her arm flung around Aubrey, her smile wide and eyes shining.

Beca stared at it for a moment, her thumb hovering over the call button. Her lungs felt tight in her chest.

"Time is of the essence here Beca!" Aubrey snapped, not taking her eyes from the road.

Tentatively, Beca pressed her thumb to the call button, bringing it to her ear as it began to ring.

"Aubrey? What's up? I can't talk for long I've got to-"

"Chloe?"

She heard Chloe gasp.

"Beca?"

"It's me," Beca said softly.

"Oh my God, Beca! What's happening, are you ok?" Chloe's words tumbled over each other. "Have you already left? We were going to call you but of course you don't have your phone anymore and so we were about to try Donald because we didn't know how long you'd been gone or when you left the note or-"

"-note?"

"The note you left for Jesse!" Chloe exclaimed.

"Oh. Oh!" Beca's eyes widened as comprehension dawned. "Oh wow. So you're-"

"At his place. At first we thought you must be out, so I was waiting for you to get home. Where are you?"

Beca cringed as she pondered the best way to break the news.

"I'm, um… in Aubrey's car."

There was a long pause. Aubrey glanced sidelong at Beca and waved a hand as if to say, 'what's happening?'

Beca shrugged back helplessly. Would Chloe be mad? She would have had to take time off work, and then there was all that money she would have spent on a ticket, only for them to totally miss each other. She was just about to ask Chloe if she was still there, when she heard a giggle.

"Are you-" Beca started, but Chloe was properly laughing now, and the sound filled Beca's chest and spilled out her own mouth until they were both in hysterics. She pressed a hand to the dashboard in front of her to keep from doubling over with laughter, and caught a glance of Aubrey looking positively mystified in the driver's seat.

"Wow," Chloe managed finally, and that set Beca off again. "We really stuffed up huh?"

Beca wiped a tear off her cheek, lightheaded and grinning.

"It's possible we need to work on our communication."

Aubrey snorted.

"Aubrey agrees," Beca continued, and Chloe laughed again, loud and delighted. "God I miss you."

Beca froze for a moment as soon as the admission slipped out, but Chloe didn't miss a beat.

"I miss you too Becs." Chloe fell quiet again. "What are we-"

"I'm coming back." Beca jumped in. "Will you be okay to stay at Jesse's? You can have my room."

"You're coming back?" Chloe echoed.

"Right now. I mean, I'm not on the plane obviously, but we're on the way to the airport right now. I'm going get on the first flight I can and I'll be there tonight, or early tomorrow morning."

"Aubrey's driving you?" Chloe sounded impressed. "She must have finally come around; she likes you."

Beca scoffed.

"I don't know if I would call this driving so much as 'trying to kill me'. I'm pretty sure they jail you for life for driving this fast. We've run like four red lights."

"Aubrey's speeding? Wow, she really likes you."

"Yeah well." Beca scuffed the toe of her shoe at the carpet under her feet. "Too bad for her, I've got my eye on someone else."

"Yeah?" Chloe's voice was higher than usual.

"Yeah."

Aubrey took a left and they turned into the airport.

"We're nearly here," Beca said. "I better go."

"Can you get Aubrey to text me your flight details? "Chloe asked. "So I know what time you'll land."

"Yeah of course, I will."

"Thanks." Beca could hear someone talking in the background. "Jesse's asking what's happening, I better fill him in."

"Okay."

"Yeah."

Beca hesitated. She didn't want to hang up, even as Aubrey pulled into a park.

"Can't wait to see you," Chloe said softly.

"Me either. See you, I mean, not me. Ugh." Chloe laughed and Beca glanced up briefly to find Aubrey much closer than expected, not exactly interrupting, but glaring at her expectantly. "I really should probably go, so I can you know…do that."

"Probably."

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"I swear-" Aubrey started.

"Okay! I'm going to hang up now, Aubrey's scaring me."

"Okay Becs. I'll see you soon."

"Yeah, see ya. See you soon. Bye. Bye-"

Aubrey pinched the phone from her hand and ended the call.

"Hey!" Beca pouted. "I was just about to do that!"

The flight back to LA was quiet. Midnight ticked over not long after the plane reached its cruising height, and the flight attendants talked in murmurs as most of the passengers slept. Beca was quiet too, no laptop, no music, just the steady whir of the engine as she gazed out the window at the twinkling lights of the city until they disappeared.

She wasn't nervous anymore, not like she was when she'd left Jesse's apartment in a flurry of anxiety and half-baked plans. This morning she hadn't known how Chloe would react to Beca turning up unannounced on her doorstep. She'd worried she might have already missed her chance.

Chloe had assured her over the phone that the kiss with the boy at Bellas was nothing but a mistake, a poorly thought-out crack at grabbing Beca's attention, and that she had feelings only for Beca. But Chloe saying that, and her ditching work and flying halfway across the country to apologise and try to rectify her actions were two very different things.

The fact that Chloe truly cared about her, enough to chase after Beca even after she proved herself an absolute basketcase by disappearing off to LA without a word, set Beca at ease. They had something, Chloe and her. She just needed the courage to turn it into something real.

A flight attendant came by to offer her a drink and she declined, continuing to sit quietly, wishing once again she had a mirror, or even her phone so she could check her reflection and the state of her day-old makeup.

Eventually the man sitting next to her woke up long enough to head off to the bathroom, and she took advantage of the empty seat to follow him into the aisle and slip into an empty bathroom herself.

She redid her hair as best she could, and examined her face in the mirror. Her makeup wasn't too bad really, the eyeliner a little smudged maybe, but she wet her hands with water from the tap and fixed it as best she could. It would have to do. She studied herself in the mirror for another few minutes until she straightened suddenly and flicked water over her reflection. She was being ridiculous. It wasn't like Chloe hadn't already seen her all sweaty and exhausted every time they finished work.

Maybe she wasn't as at ease as she thought she was.

Eventually someone knocked on the door and Beca returned to her seat, this time pulling on her headphones and letting her ipod play away the rest of the flight.

The gates were deserted, the domestic terminals closed for the night. Beca took her time, trailing behind the rest of the passengers on their way to the exit, passing empty cafes and silent security guards. Most people stopped at the baggage carousel but she kept walking, down the stairs and past the security gates, until she reached the foyer, huge and mostly deserted.

Through the fogged glass walls she saw a few taxis idling outside, and she headed toward the sliding doors, until something caught her eye. A shock of red.

Chloe was curled up across two seats, fast asleep.

Warmth spread from Beca's chest and through her body as she stood for a second just to look.

Chloe's face was pressed into the back of the seat, her legs tucked up under her and her hair loose and splayed over everything; her back, her shoulders, the chair. She shifted slightly in her seat and the ladybug charm on her wrist glinted under the dim ceiling lights.

Beca approached her and lightly shook her shoulder, speaking quietly into her ear.

"Sorry ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to move along."

"What?" Chloe murmured, shifting and achieving nothing other than smooshing her face further into the fabric of the chair. "No, I told you, I'm waiting for someone."

Beca laughed, and Chloe's eyes snapped open at the sound. She rolled over so fast that Beca had to grab her arms at the last second to keep her from toppling to the ground.

"Beca?" Chloe gasped, eyes bleary.

"The one and only." Beca tugged at her wrist band self-consciously as Chloe's eyes raked over her while she struggled upright. "I can't believe you were sleeping here; I thought you would be at Jesse's."

Chloe shook her head and stood, her hands latching onto Beca's upper arms.

"I couldn't wait. Some security guard kept trying to make me leave but…"

"You're very persistent." Beca finished with a smile. "So I've learnt."

Chloe smiled back and held her gaze for a half a second before pulling Beca into a tight hug. Beca let out a heavy breath and her entire body relaxed as she rested her head on Chloe's shoulder.

"You came back for me," Chloe murmured, her voice muffled against Beca's hair.

"Twice, actually." Beca said. Chloe pressed a kiss to the side of her head and pulled back slightly, her hands moving up to cup Beca's jaw, her thumbs dusting over her cheekbones. "I'd come for you every time."

Chloe's eyebrows jumped into her hair and Beca's face turned beet red as she realised what she'd said.

"That is not what I- Oh I'm so bad at this." Beca groaned. "See this is why I had a whole speech and everything, to avoid this exact scenario."

"You had a speech?" Chloe looked thrilled.

"Well not a speech speech," Beca said. "I just practiced a few things I might say. Because otherwise my brain turns to mush and…that happens."

"Can I hear it?" Chloe asked.

"Hear it?"

"Your speech. Can you say it to me now?"

Beca considered that for a moment.

"Just some of it," Chloe wheedled.

Beca's first instinct was to say no; there was no longer any need to subject herself to that particular type of humiliation, not when Chloe was here in her arms, so close Beca could smell her strawberry shampoo. (And seriously, who the hell smelled like strawberries after a day spent at the airport?) But Chloe's hands had moved to the back of Beca's neck and her nails were scratching lightly along the base of her hairline, and in that moment Beca would have agreed to just about anything that Chloe suggested.

"I just wanted to explain," Beca started cautiously, Chloe holding her gaze. "That I always found the idea of just willingly opening your heart to someone, giving them that kind of power, total crazy." She paused, and Chloe gave her a little nod, urging her on. "But it turns out that when it comes to you, there is no running from it. There was no choosing whether or not I was going to protect myself. It didn't matter whether I face to face with you like this, or if I was all the way in LA while you were in Atlanta, I couldn't stop thinking about you."

The corners of Chloe's eyes crinkled as she smiled, leaning closer.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Beca said, and grinned cheekily. "It was kind of annoying really; I couldn't get anything done. I'd be trying to work at the studio and bam, I'm thinking about kissing you."

Chloe moved closer still, her eyes flicking down and then back to Beca's eyes.

"You think about kissing me?"

"All the time. It's exhausting."

Chloe's smile grew, but her voice was low.

"Are you thinking about it now?"

Beca's hands felt hot where they rested on Chloe's hips, like they might burn right through her jeans.

"Are you?"

"Always," Chloe murmured, her breath ghosting over Beca's lips.

Beca's heart kicked in her chest. Chloe's mouth was right there.

"Maybe you should do something about it."

"Only if you want to," Chloe said.

"I do," Beca promised, but Chloe had stopped leaning closer, leaving the barest of gaps between them, and Beca understood.

She shifted a hand to Chloe's shoulder and stretched onto her toes. She saw Chloe's eyelids flutter closed a moment before her own did, and she closed the remaining distance between them, kissing Chloe softly.

Chloe sighed against her mouth, her hands light on Beca's cheeks, her lips moving gently. Beca wrapped her arm around Chloe's shoulders, pulling her closer until they were pressed together, connected everywhere.

Chloe's nose nudged at hers and Beca shifted with her, kissing her until her lips were somehow pressing against teeth.

"It's really hard to kiss you when you're smiling so much," she said, breathing heavily as she pulled back slightly.

"Sorry," Chloe laughed, chasing her lips. "I'm just so happy."

Chloe's tongue pressed into her mouth and Beca lost herself in the kiss, the entire world a million miles away.

"Aubrey told me I can have another week off," Beca said, as they strolled hand in hand across the parking lot. "Which means we should have a few days to ourselves after I finish work on the album."

"You can show me all around the LA hotspots." Chloe grinned. "You celebrity you."

"Minor celebrity," Beca amended.

"For now," Chloe said, her voice light. "And after that we go back to Bellas together?"

Beca curled her fingers tighter around Chloe's, giving her hand a squeeze.

"Together."