First day at Barden High, characters are finally introduced and Beca learns that it doesn't matter where you go, there are always overdramatic assholes and every step forward, is another step back.

"Come on, up!"

"Fuck off."

"Becaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" Stacie drawled as Cassie tried to stifle her laughter from the doorway.

"Stacieeeeeeeeeeeeeee" Beca imitated her voice. "I'll say it again, fuck off."

Beca turned over and buried her face into her pillow before snuggling deeper into her blankets; Stacie sighed as she clicked her neck then tensed her muscles. "Last chance Becs?"

She only received a grunt in response, so she then looked at Cassie and raised an eyebrow before leaping from where she stood and on to Beca. The girl in the bed yelled as she began to scrap with Stacie playfully, they soon fell to the floor as Stacie tickled her. Beca shrieked and began to flail as she desperately tried to fight her off; she felt a slight twinge in her ribs but ignored it as she cried out "Okay! I'm up!"

Stacie's attacks ceased instantly and they got to their feet, both out of breath and grinning madly. Cassie shook her head at the two of them before turning around and walking out of the room. "Get ready and I'll give you a lift to school, you've not got long!"

Beca groaned and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, she reached out as far as she could, moaning in relief as she heard her bones click. Stacie cringed and shoved her. "That's disgusting, now hurry up and get changed while I grab my clothes"

When she'd left the room, Beca smiled softly before pulling a pair of black skinny jeans and a red tank top out of her wardrobe. After changing her underwear, she slipped the clothes on but left the top bunched up around her chest and the jeans unbuttoned as she looked at herself in the mirror. The marks had faded and the bruises had gone, she hadn't felt the need to use her stash of razors since she had left the hospital but she wasn't thick. Throwing herself back into the life of school would either make her, or break her. According to Stacie, Barden was a school that gave out free periods as times to take a break so Beca was hoping that she would have some time to hit either the gym or the basketball court and shoot some hoops. It was an accuracy or endurance kind of day for her, if her leg was stronger she probably would have gone out on to the field and ran the track but she couldn't have her legs out on show.

"Nervous?"

Beca broke out of her thoughts and looked at Stacie through the mirror. "Yeah I guess, fancy a dance in the court later if we have free?"

Stacie grinned. "Hell yeah, bring it short stuff!"

Beca flipped her off. "Shut it you Titan. Be honest with me, how bad is it?" She gestured to her still exposed stomach.

She shrugged. "It's a lot better than it was, think about it like that. Besides there's no actual uniform for gym unless you join the teams, and I'm sure by then your legs won't show any scars unless anyone is staring."

Beca nodded, feeling slightly better, she then retrieved some socks and put them on before getting her black converse to go with it. As she stood up, she grabbed a grey and white plaid shirt and slipped that on too.

"Nice jewellery choice, going for the 'don't fuck with me' look?" Stacie commented.

"Yeah, feels like it'll make a great first impression." Beca said sarcastically.

"Sit down for a sec; I want to show you something."

Beca sat in her chair obediently, watching Stacie rifle through the drawers looking for something. She cheered as she pulled out two black tubes; Beca raised an eyebrow as Stacie drew nearer to her.

"Eyeliner and Mascara" Stacie answered the unspoken question.

Beca knew that Stacie was a pro when it came to make-up; she then allowed her to draw on her eyelids and was pleased with the results when she opened her eyes. Beca now had two perfect flicks, heavy enough to make her look 'alternative' but not enough to make it seem like too much.

"Thanks Stace." Beca smiled, trying not to scratch at her eyelids.

Stacie nodded her head before pulling them both to their feet and down the stairs, Cassie stood in the kitchen nursing a cup of coffee whilst waiting for them. There were two travel mugs on the counter nearby, which both Stacie and Beca grabbed before taking a long grateful sip.

"I have missed coffee so much." Beca sighed as she took another sip.

"You two ready for your first day then?" Cassie asked, clapping her hands together after she had set her mug in the sink.

"Yeah." Stacie replied as she grabbed hers and Beca's bags from the living room.

The three of them had gone shopping a few days before where they had collected a multitude of notebooks, pens, etc. Which Stacie was beginning to regret now he realised that she had to carry it around all day.

"You sure you don't want to do anything tonight Becs?" Cassie asked with a look of understanding in her eyes. She let the subject drop when Beca had shaken her head furiously.

A few days previously, it had been Beca's birthday, beyond the tattoos she had insisted that they treat it as if it was a normal day. Beca had taken off during the afternoon and hadn't returned for several hours, she had stayed in contact with Cassie like she was asked but refused to tell anyone what she had been doing. Stacie didn't speak up, but she had a theory that Beca had spent those hours at her Mom's grave.

"Well, let's go then" Cassie then ushered them out the door and towards the car.

Beca had worn her headphones for the majority of the drive, which didn't take long since they had moved house whilst Beca was in the hospital, she had kept bouncing her knee which was a dead giveaway for the fact that she was nervous.

They had left the car upon arrival with a wish of good luck from Cassie, now it was their first day the school seemed a lot bigger than the last time they were here. They had gotten a lot of looks from passing students as they walked inside, which made Beca's worries flare up like a firework, Stacie kept a reassuring hand on her shoulder which calmed her down a little but she could still feel everyone staring. There was no visible sense of panic though, which she classed as a victory.

As soon as they reached the reception, Stacie stopped them and turned to Beca. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Beca nodded firmly. "Yeah. Can't run away forever now, can I?"

Stacie threw her one more worried look before knocking politely and pressing the door open, the two brunettes stepped inside and saw the same friendly reception that they had met upon their enrolment.

Thank god for a familiar face. Beca thought.

"Ah here you are, I'd like for you to meet one of the students in your year, also the young lady who will be showing you around."

The girl in the seat got up and turned around to face Beca and Stacie, she grinned at them before offering her hand out for a shake.

"The name's Patricia, but you can call me Fat Amy."

As it turned out, Beca was dealing with the new school situation better than she thought she would, she had a feeling that Amy had been told some details about what had happened since she was very obviously trying to reassure Beca that Barden was a good place.

However whilst they were walking down the hallway, passing a number of lockers, they encountered a group of boys.

"Barden's a good school I guess, obviously since they let my sexy fat arse in, right?"

Stacie laughed at Amy; she thought her accent was amazing, even Beca was cracking a few smiles.

"Well looky what we have here…"

The three girls turned around to see a group of four boys staring at them, one with a malicious smirk, and the other three with indifference. There was another boy who had his back to the lockers; he stared at Amy with a pleading look, who responded with a small nod.

"What d'ya want, Bumper? Benji's done nothing to you turdburgers"

The boy at the front, Bumper, scoffed and glared at Amy. "This is none of your business; I just wanted to welcome the fresh meat to our school. They better know their place if they want to survive around here."

Amy's eyebrow arched. "As if you own this place, I've got baby koalas more threatening than you."

"Little Nerd here knows his place, he finds me plenty threatening."

Beca couldn't help herself; she ducked around Amy and spoke up before Stacie could stop her. "Yeah because you've got your little groupies here, I bet you couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag."

One of the three boys behind him, a tall and tanned boy with brown eyes glared at Beca, Bumper stepped forward and seethed. "Wanna bet?"

Beca smirked. "Try me."

Stacie was now standing behind Beca, there's no way she'd let this asshole hurt her, Bumper seemed like the kind of guy who would talk big but if his 'bros' were distracted he wouldn't do anything. So she turned to Amy and mentioned her head towards the lackeys, Amy grinned and the two moved to get Benji away from them.

The one who had glared at Beca bared his teeth at Stacie when she drew near, what was this guy, a fucking werewolf? She just raised an eyebrow and tensed her muscles, curling her hands into fists as she shoved this boy out of the way in an effort to get to Benji. He was thrown backwards a few steps which gave the younger boy the time to duck under his reach and move a safe distance away, the lack of a victim made the boy back off slightly. Stacie turned her head to see Amy with the two of the other boys up against the lockers as she, what looked as to be threatening, the boys in a foreign language. She then turned her head to see Beca and Bumper still trading insults, Stacie admired Beca's cold look of boredom but she noticed that her leg were shaking slightly. Stacie then moved to Bumper's side and shoved him as hard as she could, which sent him flying into the lockers and to the floor.

"Not so fun when it's happening to you, huh?" Beca glared, her voice was cold as ice, making even Stacie shiver.

"This is stupid." Bumper spat. "Kolio, Uni, Jesse, let's go."

The boys moved forward in unison, they hauled Bumper to his feet and stalked down the hallway, presumably to their first class.

"First day and we're already causing trouble, huh?" Stacie joked as she kneeled in front of Beca. Turning to Amy, she asked. "Can you give us a minute?" Amy nodded and walked down the hallway to where two other students were standing and joined in their conversation.

"You okay, Becs?"

Beca began taking deep breaths as soon as Amy had left hearing range; she placed a hand on Stacie's shoulder and gripped it tightly, trying to anchor herself to the present. She nodded in response to the question. "I don't think I'm ready to be starting fights yet, Stace. I'm okay it's just the adrenaline of waiting for him to hit me. John used to do that; he'd drag it out to make my fear worse."

They both kept their voices down as they spoke, not wanting anyone to hear them speak; Stacie encouraged Beca to breathe in time with her, which made the younger girl calm down a little.

"Just remember what Jones said to us." Stacie paused as she took on the voice of a British man. "Focus on something that marks your opponent as different from the man."

Beca couldn't stop the laugh that tore itself out of her throat at Stacie's impression; Jones was a British man in his mid-twenties who served as their personal trainer. He helped Beca get back into running and her sports of choice, he also taught them to fight. As soon as Beca had finished her physiotherapy, Cassie had hired Jones and they began their training. Not enough time had been spent learning actual techniques, but they could both handle themselves in a fight. Plus Beca had a knack for knowing someone's moves before they did them through their body language and the way their muscles tensed in that split second.

"E-excuse me?"

Stacie, and the now calm Beca, turned around to see the boy they had saved standing in front of them nervously; he scratched his arm and didn't meet their eyes. "I just wanted to say thank you, not many people other than the Bellas would stand up for me like that."

Beca didn't smile but her expression softened, she reached a hand out to the boy. "Benji, right? Well I'm Beca and this is Stacie, and don't worry about earlier I'd never leave someone like that."

Stacie grinned. "Don't mind her, she never smiles."

Benji laughed a little. "Welcome to Barden High."

"Who're the Bellas?" Stacie asked.

The boy looked around and shouted for Amy to re-join the group; she abandoned the two students immediately and stood next to Benji. "What's up?"

"Who're the Bellas?" Benji reiterated Stacie's question.

"Only the sexiest bunch of girls that Barden has to offer, they only got the 'sexy' part after I joined the group" Amy explained, whipping her hair over her shoulder.

Both Stacie and Beca raised their eyebrows as they laughed, Benji quickly took over. "Barden's kind of big on Acapella; one of the groups is the Barden Bellas."

"Oh yeah, that's like, a thing now?"

Benji and Amy nodded. "There are four groups on campus." Benji explained. "The Barden Bellas-"

"We're the Tits, as Chloe would say." Amy interrupted, nudging Benji playfully.

"Chloe's my cousin." Benji decided to mention. "Which is why the Bellas are protective over me, but the Treblemakers, who contains some of the guys you met earlier, then target me because I'm a sore spot."

Beca burst into laughter. "The Treblemakers? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Benji nodded, somewhat pitifully. "The tragic name courtesy of Bumper Allen himself, the other two groups is the BU Harmonics, who sing a lot of Madonna. Also the High Notes, who just say they're a group to get out of certain classes so they can just get high out in one of the corners of campus."

"Dye your hair and you're literally Chloe, you just spouted the same skit she give to the newbies."

"Well if you guys recruit these two then they'll have already heard the spiel from me, so no judgmental looks from Aubrey."

Stacie perked up. "Aubrey?"

Beca rolled her eyes. "Here we go…"

When Bea and Stacie actually took a moment to look at their new schedules, they had quite a few classes together, conveniently they had Physics together first period and no classes after 1:30. The two girls were the double team of Physics at their last school, to the surprise of the majority of the people that knew them, they were both extremely smart.

Their first class was a little awkward, given the stares that the students were giving them. Stacie had smiled at most whilst Beca had downright scowled at all of them, only changing her features for Amy and Benji when she saw them. Their teacher, Mr Johnson, had simply welcomed them into Junior Year. He then yelled at the boy who Stacie had called a werewolf to pay attention, that boy's name was Jesse, and the fact that he had just belittled one of Barden's 'bad-boys' if you will, the man had instantly gained the sisters' respect.

In the class before lunch; Beca had Music and she was ecstatic, not that she would show this visibly. She was also nervous because this was her first class without Stacie, they had agreed to text each other if they could get away with it. Given the size of the classroom, Beca would do just fine in that department. She looked around in awe at the extensive equipment that they had in this class, she felt a person move up behind her and she spun around instantly preparing for a strike.

The person was a woman, who was now holding her hands up in surrender; she had dark hair and kind eyes. "Jumpy?"

"Sorry" Beca shuffled her feet.

"It's alright" The woman smiled, everything about her oozed calmness and serenity, something that Beca was incredibly envious of. "New student? Beca, right?"

Beca nodded. "And you are?"

"Katherine Junk, the music teacher." Miss Junk replied.

Beca's eyes widened. "Oh god I'm sorry, I thought you were a student."

She shook her head. "I'll take that as a compliment" She laughed softly. "Welcome to music theory, since it's the first day I won't be teaching you anything. I'm leaving you to tinker on what you're familiar with; I'll go around and watch to get a good idea of what you guys are good at. Is that okay?"

Beca nodded, she spied a piano at the far side of the room so she instantly moved in that direction. Taking a seat at the bench, she cracked her knuckles and played a few basic scales so she could get into the state of mind. She then reached into her backpack and took out a notepad and a pen; she flipped through the book until she found her half-completed song that she had been working on. All over the page was an array of scribbles and notes that she had been poring over for the last few days. Beca then began to play a few notes and suddenly lost herself in the music, she let her memories of Cassie and Stacie influence which keys she pressed causing her to play an upbeat melody which had her grinning as soon as she finished.

She then quickly wrote down a series of notes in short-hand before she forgot and took out her phone, shooting Stacie a quick message.

The Tall One (11:24): Okay, so this school might not be as bad as I thought it was going to be.

The Small One (11:27): Told you so Beca, I saw Amy earlier she asked if we'll eat lunch with her? I think some of the other Bellas will be there, feel up to it?

The Tall One (11:28): Sure, but don't expect me to play nice.

The Small One (11:29): Wouldn't dream of it.

Beca then placed her phone back into the pocket of her jeans and smiled; she turned back to the keys and noticed a girl standing next to her. She jumped at the sudden appearance of this girl and arched an eyebrow.

"Sorry, I was just listening to you play, you're really good! I'm Emily, Emily Junk"

Beca went to give a disaffected reply, but the girl's name caught her attention. "Junk? As in-" She paused as she looked at the teacher, who was watching her with an impressed look.

"Yeah, I'm her daughter."

Beca pursed her lips. I should make an effort to be nice to this girl then. "Nice to meet you Emily, I'm Beca; do you have free periods later?"

"Oh I'm not a junior, I'm a sophomore. I have a free now so I decided to come up here and play some music."

Beca nodded her head absentmindedly; she didn't know how to interact with this girl so she played some songs to pass the time.

"You're the one who saved Benji earlier, right? From Bumper and his crew?" Emily's voice broke through Beca's concentration.

She shrugged modestly. "With the help of my sister and Amy, yeah. It was no big deal."

"Benji is special to me; it's a big deal to me, thank you." Emily spoke with conviction.

Beca stared into Emily's dark eyes, just like her mother's. "It was no problem; Benji seems like a nice guy, I'd be an asshole if I didn't step in."

The two girls sat in the class and carried on talking about life at Barden, Beca found out that there was six members of the Barden Bellas; Aubrey, Chloe, Fat Amy, Cynthia Rose, Jessica and Ashley. Acapella was taken very seriously at this school, and here was a massive respect for the music and sports departments.

"Wait, I get the music department thing, since Acapella's a big deal. Why sport though?" Beca asked.

"You mean besides the idiot football team? Our basketball team does really well here and Coach is part of some Acapella thing so she supports it too." Emily explained.

Idiot football team? Great. More assholes. Beca thought.

At lunch, Stacie and Beca met up with Amy who steered them towards the cafeteria and to a table where three girls were sat and talking animatedly.

Amy cleared her throat and motioned to the two brunettes. "Bellas, meet the fresh meat."

The blonde haired girl offered a bright smile. "Hi! I'm Jessica" she pointed to the girl with close cropped hair and dark skin. "That's Cynthia Rose" she finally pointed to the brunette sitting next to her. "And this is Ashley."

Cynthia Rose and Ashley gave nods and welcoming smiles. "I'd say you could meet our leaders but I'm pretty sure the Aca-Nazi is off fighting some Treblemaker."

"Aca-Nazi?" Stacie asked.

Amy answered. "Aubrey. She's really strict, like there's always a stick up her arse or something, maybe she's got crabs."

Beca almost choked on her own saliva. Amy grinned at her. "What? I'd be a bit crabby too if I had that."

That pun had all of them groaning, except Beca who would never admit her love for terrible humour.

Around an hour later, Beca sat in the toilets with her sweatpants with her head in her hands. Come on, it's okay, you can do this. She thought to herself furiously in an effort to get her hands to stop shaking. Stacie's waiting for me, she thinks I've done really well today; I can't let her see me like this.

Beca had managed to haul herself out of the bathroom and down to the gym, clothed in sweatpants and a skin tight black long-sleeved shirt; a thin blonde woman stopped her before she could enter.

"Who're you?" She asked.

"Beca Mitchell, new student." She replied.

The woman nodded her head in understanding. "I'm the Coach, I'd give you my name but no one uses it, just 'Coach' or even 'Gail' will do. Welcome to Barden, I heard from the Principal that you're interested in sports here?"

Beca nodded.

"See, obviously the teachers that needed to know have a little knowledge about what happened to you, and since you have gym with me I had to be told about your restrictions." Gail explained, looking somewhat guilty.

"It's okay." Beca reassured her, fighting down the feeling to vomit. "I've got most of my strength back so I'm okay for class but I'm gonna wait for a bit before I think joining teams."

"Well, there's a couple of girls on the court but your sister is shooting some hoops, go join her." Gail stepped out of Beca's way and allowed her to pass by, nodding at Beca's look of gratitude.

Walking inside, Beca felt calmer when she looked around at the court, it was massive. She closed her eyes and heard the sounds of sneakers on the polished floor, the buzzing sound of points being scored, the cheering from fellow students.

"Feeling nostalgic, eh champ?"

Beca opened her eyes to see Stacie stood in front of her with a wide grin and a basketball in her hands, she had her hair tied into a loose bun, wore BHS shorts and a tight-fitting tank top.

She nodded to the question and took the ball out of her hands. "Yeah… I miss the adrenaline, that feeling you get when you score a point or make a decent pass."

Beca began dribbling the ball absentmindedly as she spoke, the muscle memory taking over as she made her way down the court, dodging invisible opponents and sneaking her way to the basket. Stacie watched and sighed in happy familiarity as she watched Beca jump and nail a perfect shot, she rushed forward and grabbed the ball but as she was turning around and preparing to duck around Beca, she saw a familiar face sitting on the stands.

Stacie froze for a moment as she realised the girl was watching her and Beca play, along with another girl and Cynthia Rose. Beca took the opportunity to tackle her and laughed at her victory, she then noticed that Stacie wasn't paying attention.

"Earth to Conrad?"

Stacie tore her gaze away from the girl in the stands and grinned at Beca, they got back into the game then but more competitive than before. Beca was able to use her speed to counteract Stacie's height advantage but she had to use more energy to get her shots in as Stacie had a longer reach, therefore better defence. The two wore easy smiles as they danced across the court, too caught up in their little game to notice the three girls approaching them. When Stacie managed to execute a perfect layup, she hit the ground and finally noticed their audience.

"Aubrey, Cynthia Rose." Stacie spoke, wiping some sweat off her forehead.

Beca turned to them also after she had retrieved the ball and began to bounce it to give her hands something to do; she chose not to speak but didn't give them her best smile either.

"Nice to see you again Stacie, Mitchell."

Beca smirked. "Posen."

Stacie rolled her eyes and huffed, this was the second time they had spoken to her and Beca already had a rivalry with the girl.

Beca sighed and pouted. "Sorry I'm a little sweaty; Stacie got competitive and thought she could beat me since she was trying to impress her girlfriend over here."

Both Stacie and Aubrey blushed whilst Cynthia Rose burst out laughing and high-fived Beca. "Man I like this one, can we keep her?"

"You're not that good, Mitchell." Aubrey muttered under her breath indignantly.

Beca said nothing, arrogance was key in these situations, right? She raised an eyebrow and without breaking her eye contact with Aubrey, threw the ball with one hand and straight into the hoop.

Everyone's jaws dropped with an exception to Beca and Stacie.

Cynthia Rose whistled appreciatively. "Damn girl, you got skills. Thinking of joining the team?"

That made Beca pause for a moment; she shared an unreadable look with Stacie before replying. "I don't know, maybe."

CR nodded. "Well, if you change your mind, two members of the team are standing in front of you. Obviously me." She then turned and pointed at the other girl who hadn't taken her eyes of Beca since she had walked into the court. "This is our captain."

The mystery girl smiled warmly and spoke with a voice that made it obvious she was optimistic and excited by the thought of new students. "Hi! I'm Chloe Beale."

Beca narrowed her eyes. "Benji's cousin, right?"

Chloe nodded and smiled again, God does this girl ever stop smiling? "I want to thank you, I don't even want to think about what Bumper and his crew would have done to him."

Beca shrugged and went to reply but words failed her as Chloe jumped into her arms. She whispered into her ear gently "It's your first day and you've already made a few enemies on behalf of us, meaning to or not, outside of Acapella, consider yourselves Barden Bellas." Before stepping away.

"Cool it down Chloe." Aubrey whispered under her breath, but still loud enough for people to hear.

Beca shot Aubrey a grateful look before locking eyes with Stacie and motioning out the door.

They soon made their excuses and left the building following another thank you from the Bellas for protecting Benji, dragging their bags outside with them. Cassie was sat in the Parking Lot waiting for them and as soon as they had sat down in the car, her questioning had begun.

"So, how was your first day?" She asked.

"Well…" Stacie trailed away, but Beca grinned properly for the first time since they had left the house so she chose to let Beca take this one.

"We'd been there five minutes and almost had a fight with the school's 'bad-boys' so we've got enemies already. We saved a boy from our year from them, partially recruited into a group of girls since Benji's cousin was a part of it. We played some basketball; I had my intro to music today and finished another song I'm working on. Stacie met the love of her life again-"

Stacie gasped and shoved Beca playfully as Cassie laughed. "Are you guys going to be okay? It's your first day and you're already starting fights?"

"Beca actually dealt with it really well Mom!" Stacie gushed, throwing Beca a proud smile. "Only started shaking a little bit when Bumper towered over her, handled it like a pro."

Beca felt herself zone out as Stacie began to talk about her side of the story, she loved that Stacie was recognising that she was getting better. However there was still that desperate voice in the depths of her mind that kept saying Remember what happened earlier in the bathroom? You're weak. Your father killing you would have been a kindness to them; they don't deserve to be burdened with your sorry existence.

She fought back the feeling of bile rising in her throat and forced a convincing smile to Cassie when she asked about ordering pizza that night.

Soon. She thought. They won't have to deal with me for much longer.

"So what did you think of her?"

Chloe, Aubrey, Cynthia Rose and Amy were sat in Chloe's bedroom after school, all discussing the events of the day.

"I can't say I approve of the ear monstrosities or the tattoos but she's alright, a little arrogant though." Aubrey pursed her lips.

"Oh come on!" Chloe protested. "The tattoos are hot."

"Think with your mind not your toner, Chloe Beale."

Chloe smirked. "Same thing."

Cynthia Rose leaned over for a high five as she carried on speaking. "I think she was cool. We have to get her to trust us, but something tells me Stacie won't be much of a problem."

Everyone nudged Aubrey playfully who shot them all dark looks. "We've been asked to keep an eye on them, we can do that right? Besides, they did protect Benji without even thinking."

"Maybe they can sing?" CR shot out an idea.

"Apparently Beca's good at music." Chloe replied, playing with a lock of her hair as she held her hot cocoa.

"And how would you know ginger? Been stalkin' her already?" Amy winked not-so-subtly.

"Shush you" The red head glared playfully. "I heard it from Benji."

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. "And how did he know?"

"She has Miss Junk for music; obviously Emily was in that class."

The girls all hummed as if everything made sense, Benji was so head over heels for Emily it was enough to give them cavities.

"We'll have to ask them when we see them; hopefully we'll have classes together."

Aubrey glanced at Chloe with concern in her eyes. "Chlo, we were told that Beca's not big on affection, maybe take it down a notch or two?"

Chloe nodded and then got up and plugged her iPod in to her speakers, Party in the USA began to blare throughout the room and soon enough four of the six Bellas were on their feet dancing and singing to the tune.

So, in summary:

Jesse is an asshole for the foreseeable future (sorry) but Beca might be able to knock him down a few pegs. Chloe and Benji are cousins, Beca has more demons to deal with than everyone thinks, and why are the Bellas so invested in Beca and Stacie?

I feel like I need to make a point of saying that this is a slow-burn fic, there will be flirting, Beca's obliviousness and confusion about her sexuality (she's straight at the minute), and Chloe's curiosity and doubt for if she's preying on Beca's vulnerability.

As always, thank you to everyone who has favourited/followed and left a review, if you would be so kind as to let me know what you think of this chapter and maybe some ideas of what I should include then I would be very very grateful.

If people want to come and chat with me on my Tumblr (eidraith) about Carmilla Season Zero then I guess I'm cool with that too ;)