So this is what happens when you're avoiding revising for an exam.

It's kind of rambly, and I'm not really sure where it came from exactly, and it might be terrible so if it is just let me know so I don't embarrass myself further by posting the other two chapters!

Disclaimer for not owning any of this stuff. Just started writing.

Note also that this short story shouldn't affect my updates for Killing Me Softly :)

Everyone before Beca had been average, at best.

The first girl he kissed was Samantha Rogers when he was seven years old. Yes, this one didn't really count as his first proper kiss – a half-second touch of lips during a game of truth or dare wasn't exactly enough to qualify - but she had been special, because she had taught him from that early age that girls were weird and understanding them was hard.

She had squealed after the not-really-a-kiss and declared he had boy lurgies.

He was glad he had boy lurgies because girl lurgies were evidently a lot more serious a disease.

In middle school, Samantha Rogers kissed him again at a birthday party, and he swear he saw sparks.

He crushed on her hard but she made no move to ever continue their juvenile relationship past that one kiss. When she turned up to school two weeks later holding hands with Jimmy Parker in the year above, Jesse swore he'd never love anyone ever again.

He kept his promise for about five months, until Ginny Oslo transferred.

Ginny was one of those girls who developed early, and the entire student body wanted to be her or be with her. He kept his distance, carrying on with his normal day-to-day business, until a week went by and she came up to him one day and asked him out on a date.

That's right, Jesse's first girlfriend asked him out first.

She was beautiful and intelligent and the perfect girlfriend. They would wander around the school with their hands linked, they would finish each other's sentences. And the biggest plus? Ginny was his ticket to town-wide stardom. Suddenly, girls like Samantha Rogers (and the actual Samantha Rogers) were throwing themselves at him, guys like Jimmy Parker (and the actual Jimmy Parker) threw parties just so they could invite him in the hopes he'd bring Ginny along. Those were glorious years for him, and he relished in all he had achieved. Jesse's life was perfect. And because he believed firmly in happy endings, Jesse convinced himself that as soon as he earned enough money from his paper round, he was going to buy Ginny a ring and marry her.

Jesse had their entire future mapped out in his head. He was head over heels and truly believed he had found the one, despite everything that his parents insisted otherwise.

But at the end of middle school, Ginny transferred back to Atlanta, and Jesse was left to face high school alone.

Not just alone, but surrounded by the many other boyfriends Ginny seemed to have had on the side.

But it was okay, because he let his broken heart push him, and Jesse got stuck in with his work. He studied and joined a club, started learning a sport, determined to experience everything he had believed high school was about from all the movies he had seem about it.

It worked. Jesse was one of popular kids in high school that everyone liked and yet no one really took under their wing.

He related to the nerdy clique because, well, that was obvious. He got on with the sport teams because he ran track a lot so they often bumped into each other on the playing fields. He was booksmart enough to be able to hold a compelling conversation with the academics, and his love of singing and playing the joker got him in with the drama club. He flirted his way in the "good enough" list of the cheerleaders. He even bonded pretty well with the band club when they let him practise playing drums and the piano in their rehearsal space during lunch.

He was the guy who would walk down the hallway to dozens of greetings and a hundred high fives.

He was also the guy that never had anyone to walk down the corridor with.

Jesse never really fit in anywhere in particular, but for the most part, he was okay with that. He didn't know any different so how could he miss what he never had?

Sure, he casually dated a few girls. Mel Forbes, Ginger Lancy, Taylor McAdams sprung to mind first. But none of them were Ginny. None of them were Samatha Rogers. None of them were his happy ending.

So when he went to Barden determined that he'd find his future wife there amongst the sea of people, Jesse could not have been more elated when he turned up at the station to find the girl from the taxi, staring at him like she had a block of ice for a heart.

A challenge. He loved a challenge.

Beca had been reluctant to his attempts at friendship at first. No, reluctant was the wrong word – completely opposed to the idea was more appropriate. Yet while it should have discouraged him away, Jesse couldn't seem to keep away. Her refusal to accept anyone into her life fascinated him, and he was more determined to crack her code than he had been when he was given a Rubik's Cube for his thirteenth birthday and he had spent ten straight months trying to solve it.

But Jesse was not one to be involved in just one thing, and so began to focus a bit of his attention on another ambition; becoming a Treble Maker.

Of course, he had been both shocked and highly amused that his two missions seemed to coincide quite wonderfully at the acapella auditions.

And it was when he heard her sing that kooky song with the cup that he realised his interest in her was not just a fascination in why she was so different to everyone he'd ever met; he was fascinated by her. In a similar yet very different way he had been fascinated by Ginny and Samantha Rogers.

But Beca was complicated. And the more he pushed over the subsequent weeks, the more he realised just how much. She was locked away and used sarcasm and harsh retorts to keep everyone at bay. She loved music and hated movies – typical, of course, that the one thing he loved most seemed to be the one thing she disliked – and never talked about anything too personal. The only thing he knew of her home life was her parents being divorced, but only because she had mentioned it as part of a joke.

But Jesse wouldn't let her push him away, and her quickly decreasing amount of effort to keep him away from her surprised him a little. She seemed almost a little eager about their developing friendship after a few months. She let him buy her juice pouches and she actually began to allow herself to laugh at his lame jokes. She would mention in passing how she was finding the Bella's and she let him listen to her music. She even let him try to show her a few movies.

Okay, so he had made a move when he knew he shouldn't, and it had made things awkward, but rather than use it as an excuse to push him away and continue on her apparently content way where she had no one, she just pretended it never happened. She continued to let him be her friend. If that wasn't a serious development in his mission to discover all about Beca, he didn't know what was.

And then she got arrested because of him and suddenly, the realisation hit him that maybe he'd made more progress than he'd thought.

Even if she did freak out on him after he called her dad.

His romantic feelings for her were very poorly hidden, from her and everyone else in the world apparently. Benjie knew it from as early on as initiation night when Beca had turned up at their dorm with Jesse leaning on her shoulders, making drunken jokes about her make up. The Treble's had known it since the Riff-Off due to the 'sexual tension flying everywhere' between them, according to one of the guys. From the glares Aubrey always seemed to send his way, she and all the Bella's knew…

Did Beca? Yeah. She did. And she made it abundantly clear they were not reciprocated at the semi-finals.

And that hurt way more than Ginny's leaving had ever created.

Jesse had never been one to give up, but he wondered if maybe his persistence to solve the Beca puzzle had been a step too far. Maybe he was not supposed to solve that riddle. Maybe all of his time and effort had been for nothing, and Beca was not his happy ending after all.

Because he had firmly believed it. Somewhere along the way he had fallen for her- fallen in love with her he realised despondently – and he had thought that his relationship with her had been something to work at because, really, you can't have a happy ending without putting the time in.

Doubts clouded his every thought, his every thought centred around her.

And after a miserable Spring Break, he had made it his spring time resolution to get her off his brain and to focus instead on his school work and the Treble's. So what if his happy ending wasn't here right now?

His resolution lasted about four days. That was the day he heard her knock and coax him out of his room.

And he saw the discomfort there. He saw how her misery seemed to reflect his. Her shoulders were sagged and she looked – vulnerable?

Jesse didn't dare to hope.

Instead, he pushed her away, because he was bitter and she just didn't seem to get it.

It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, shutting that door on her.

But she needed to see how what she did made other people feel.

And just as he lost hope there at Lincoln Center, she began to sing.

She sang the one song she knew would get his attention.

The one song that would portray exactly what she needed him to know.

His decision to give up on the mission had, effectively, helped him to complete it. And as she pulled him to her and kissed him hard, Jesse knew he had been right all along; he would find his happy ending here at Barden, and he would find it in Beca.

Everyone before Beca had been average, at best.

Because Beca was perfect.

Next chapter is Beca's 'before Jesse' and then the third and last chapter will be the 'after'. Please review and let me know what you think!