A/N: This is the first of seven short stories for Bechloe week on Tumblr. At first I was going to make them all related to each other, but I've since decided to make them pieces that can stand on their own. Enjoy!

Prompt: Loss

Summary: An alternate take on the end of the movie. Chloe loses her singing voice after her surgery, but gains something greater in the end. Love.

Part One: Enough For Now

It's not supposed to happen to girls like her. Girls that are nice to everyone and never, ever, find it in their hearts to insult or put someone else down. Girls that get the biggest high from just performing and letting the music run through their veins and out through their mouths. Girls that can hit that one note, that perfect note that can bring an audience to their feet and tears to their eyes, that simultaneously impresses and infuriates her competitors. She is that girl and as the doctor stands in front of her parents and breaks the news to them, she knows that nothing is ever going to be the same again.

It was supposed to be a routine operation, simple and quick with a short recovery, but like many things in her life it simply…wasn't. Chloe was smart and charming, but many things didn't come easily for her. Like driving. It took her three attempts to get her driver's license and she's pretty sure that the only reason she got it on her third try was because she cried. Or her SATs. She was super smart, the valedictorian of her class of 300, but she just couldn't focus whenever that test was placed in front of her and it took four tries until she finally got the score that she could be proud of. She was a conundrum, but that was okay because eventually everything worked out in her favor…until this moment.

She was trying so hard to focus on his words, it was terribly rude not to, but she just couldn't and stared down at her hands as the tears flooded her eyes. She had tuned out as soon as the words slid from his lips, so simple and with a calm tone like he had no idea what this loss would do to her. How it would turn her life upside down and ruin everything that she had ever loved or worked for. All gone with a slice of his scalpel.

Mr. and Mrs. Beale, we had some complications in the surgery. The scar tissue from the nodules was too extensive and while she'll be able to talk, singing is out of the question. I'm so sorry.

The next two days in the hospital and the three cooped up in her childhood bedroom were the longest of her life. She was almost glad that she was on vocal rest because the things that she wanted to utter were terrible and she knew that it was better to leave them unsaid. If she voiced her regrets and her self-deprecation, her parents would freak and make her stay at home. They knew about the text she had received from Aubrey, her mother was terribly nosy, and were already worried about her. They could see through her forced smile and the tears that she desperately tried to wipe from her face and they just wanted to hold her, but nothing could change the facts. She had done this to herself and she was at fault and she deserved this. To watch them succeed without her and to do the one thing that she loved the most. Singing had been her life and now it was gone and she wasn't sure how her heart would ever start beating again.

She had been dreading telling the rest of the Bellas about losing her voice and it had been worse than she ever imagined it could be. Aubrey had held her hand and sobbed, at a loss for words for the first time in their four year friendship. Amy had tried to crack a joke and failed and the rest of the girls had tried to comfort her, but nothing worked. Nothing could take the sting away from her loss and as she trudged away from practice (she was now an outsider and unwelcome, though it hadn't be vocalized) and back to her dorm, her hot tears plopped against the pavement and her throat burnt with the tears she was holding back.

As she laid in her bed that evening and tried to rest, a knock at the door shattered her from her reverie. She opened it and smiled when she saw Beca standing there, wrapped up in her leather jacket and playing with a piece of string dangling from her shirt as she asked to come in.

She was cold and shivering and her nose was red, but she insisted it was just from the dropping temperature. Chloe knew that she was lying though and pulled her in for a half-hearted hug, enjoying the feeling of skin against skin but not wanting to deal with her hidden feelings while her wounds were still fresh.

"I'm going to win this for you, Chloe." Beca whispered as Chloe squeezed her hand and tried to stop it from trembling. "We sang together down in the pool and you wouldn't believe what we were able to do. I really think we have a chance and Aubrey…maybe she's going to let go. I think she might finally let me make a set list for us that'll give us a shot."

"Don't count on it." Chloe replied as she pulled Beca into her arms and held her, trying desperately to warm her up. "You don't know Aubrey like I do and she'll never listen to you."

"Chloe…we're going to do this. I promise."

Her lips were warm as they slid against her own and as Chloe lowered her to the bed and unzipped her jacket, the words slid easily from her own lips. Just as easily as the words had been uttered from her doctor's lips or the insults had flung from Aubrey's mouth in moments of stress.

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

They didn't win. Aubrey had finally relented, but it was too little too late and it just didn't happen for them. The set list was great and Chloe had somehow forced herself to help out with the choreography, but at the end of the night the Trebles were holding the trophy and Chloe…she was holding Beca in her arms.

"I'm so sorry." Beca whimpered with her face pressed into Chloe's chest. "I just wanted to make you happy, after…everything."

She broke down into tears and Chloe undressed her, sliding off her stupid sneaker-heels and unbuttoning her blue blouse before easing her onto the bed. Kissing the tears away with soft touches and whispering encouragements into her ear as she hiccupped and sniffled.

You did so great. Everyone loved it. I loved it. I love…you

"I just wanted to be enough, Chloe. Why couldn't I be enough?" Beca sobbed, holding tightly to Chloe's pajama top and never wanting to let go. Afraid of being vulnerable but too terrified to stop. "I'm sorry I disappointed you."

"Hey, you could never disappoint me." Chloe whispered, kissing her neck and threading their fingers together. "You were enough for me and seeing you up on that stage…you made it real for me. I don't care about my voice or that trophy or the Trebles winning again. All I care about is you."

Beca's lip quivered and the tears refilled her eyes as she gazed into Chloe's sparkling blue pools. No one had ever said that to her before and her heart was swelling and aching and breaking and rebuilding all at once.

"I love you. Please don't leave tonight."

"I'll never leave you. I promise."

It was the first time that Beca had ever believed in anything and the last time that Chloe's heart ached over her voice.

Over the course of two weeks, three words had both destroyed and put her world back together.

I'm so sorry. The words that had been mumbled from her doctor and shot into her soul, faster than the anesthesia had kicked in before her operation. The words that made her mother weep into her father's chest and her friends look at her like they just wanted to hold her to make it all go away. The words that took her one dream away and shattered her heart as they echoed through her brain at the sight of a text message.

I love you. Everything that she had ever wanted to hear from the girl that had stolen her heart with a single glance. Trudging through the activities fair and trying to look cool and unassuming, when Chloe could see through her like glass. She knew that Beca was scared and hurting and all she wanted to do was save her. To be the friend that she knew Beca desperately needed and to make Barden a home for her.

Beca had given her everything that evening and as they shed clothing and held each other in the dim light seeping through the curtains from the city below, Chloe was finally able to feel again. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her fingers were sliding across warm skin and her lips were pressing against slick cheeks and she was okay. Beca made her okay and everything else was just…an afterthought.

She had lost everything, but had been found again in those arms and that tiny smile and that promise. Those three little words that told her that she was okay. That she could be loved even though she was damaged beyond repair. That she could breathe again without the ache in her chest. That she could move on. That a promise was enough even when it couldn't be kept.

That everything would be okay. That she would be okay.

And that was enough for now.