A/N: Just as some subtext, standard piercings become more or less permanent after six weeks; that is, they can still heal over in the first few weeks (if you take out your starters).

Beca has them all. Ink-darkened skin and epitaphs printed across creamy canvas. Studded ears and lacquered metal impaled on delicate cartilage. Some of them are faded and grey; sun-kissed paintings and weathered jewels aging on her similarly growing body. Others are still rimmed angrily in red, tender to the touch.

She has so many tattoos now, Beca's long forgotten the exact number. She's not really sure which parts of the mosaic that is her body are really her anymore, and whether her ears are more piercings than flesh.

She doesn't really think it matters.

x

When her dad comes into her room one day, brimming with self-proclaimed superiority, telling her that she's going to college, Beca makes a pretty big shit about it. She yells and screams and argues with the man, providing petty disputes and lame excuses. But really, the whole time he's ranting on about how amazing the college experience will be for her and maybe she'll meet some great people, she isn't really listening. She's thinking it might not be such a bad idea.

Free board and food and wi-fi? Beca's all set. She could just mix all day and no one would care.

(It's not like she blew all of her LA money on tattoos and earrings or anything.)

x

She gets her first piercings when she's fourteen.

(She learns later that she's four years too young without a legal guardian, but then, the place was shady to begin with.)

It's not like Beca really wants them; she thinks they're kind of girly and unnecessary. But she gets them anyway.

It starts off as a joke, really. Her grandmother on her mom's side comes to visit one day, and it just pops up in the conversation. They poke and laugh at each other, and she tells Beca she can get her ears pierced over her dead body.

So, naturally, the day Beca's grandmother dies, she runs dazedly to the dark piercing parlour on the corner of the street by herself. The walls are crumbling and dirty and something that looks suspiciously like mould grows between the seams in the brick. Beca doesn't go to any of the mall stores where the workers all wear pink and hover over her overbearingly. She doesn't need any of that. There is an urgency in Beca's step as she strides towards the rusty register and slaps some old birthday money onto the front counter.

.

If anyone ever asked, Beca would deny the reason she got her ears pierced that day.

(And she does; Beca denies herself it every single day.)

She almost enjoys it, though. There's just something about the process, that infinitesimal moment of pain when the gun pierces her ear that really gets her. It hurts, sure, but it's gone the very next second. And it's that quality about it that she just can't ignore. It feels good somehow. Beca keeps that notion in mind as she walks out, fingering her newly studded ears, and pushes the thought to the back of her head.

She might need it someday.

x

The first thing she thinks when Beca steps onto Barden campus is weirdoes. Beca doesn't think she's ever seen such a huge crowd of dorks. (Rape whistles? They probably do more to put the idea into people's heads than prevent it.) Kids do synchronized back flips in the air and she can see guys decked out in full-on military gear marching in the distance. Some dude even starts serenading her when he passes her in a car, and Beca can't help but smile because wow, who knew oddballs like this really existed outside of dramatized musicals.

Truth be told, though, Beca likes it. Like, actually. She likes the atmosphere in Barden, the ambience of it. Surrounded by these people, she kind of just feels like the bass line to a mix. She doesn't stand out.

Or at least, not until people notice her.

.

Which happens pretty much instantly, because some girl with red hair and eyes that are wow way too big and blue to be real calls Beca over to her kiosk when she's checking out the club fair. Normally, she'd ignore girls like her, but this time she slips. By the time Beca's cursing inwardly, it's too late and she's standing in front of her. The girl says something about singing and dreams and mouths and sure Beca listens, but she's not really paying attention. (She's still on too blue to be real.) But Beca does catch that singing bit and makes a lame excuse about not being able to sing before walking away.

Crisis avoided: she's got this. All Beca's going to do at Barden this year is lay low, get some experience, and mix.

Nothing about clear blue eyes and fiery red hair or anything like that.

Nothing at all.

.

She does a pretty damn good job of staying under the radar, too, if holing herself up in her dorm is any indication. At least Beca's never given her roommate an incentive to tell her dad about Beca in the month she's lived with her and Beca thinks that's worth something considering it's Kimmy Jin.

Apparently Beca's dad is more attentive with Beca's education than he was with his family, though, because he visits her dorm one day to tell her to go put herself out there and some other shit.

And that other shit just happens to be that he's going to help her get to LA.

All Beca has to do is find some stupid club to join.

.

As it turns out, that happens a lot sooner than she thought it would, because the club comes to find her.

Or more specifically, the redhead from the club fair with the blue eyes does. In the middle of the night. In the shower room. Where Beca is very much naked. And she isn't the only one.

Beca's not really sure which is harder to not get lost in, the girl's junk, or her eyes. The crazy girl with the rippling red hair makes Beca all nervous and jittery in a way she can't comprehend. Like, what the hell is Beca doing making starry eyes at a complete stranger. But her voice, her voice has Beca staring, lost, after their impromptu duet ends. She only just manages to pull herself together to exchange a tentative smile, and the girl turns to leave, shouting behind her, "See you at auditions!"

Beca thinks the girl will see her, because she actually really wants to go, as odd as that is. Or, okay, maybe it's not really that odd at all.

Beca turns the shower back on, water streaming down her body as the last high B the blue-eyed freak sang rings in her ears.

.

(This guy, Jesse, who turns out to be the kid who sang to her on her first day, works at her radio station. He makes this comment about Beca taking out her ear spike and becoming beautiful that kind of makes her want to slap him across the face, but that would possibly just get her fired, and Beca doesn't think he's worth it. So she just clenches her fingers around a CD and bites back a slew of curses.)

x

The first tattoo Beca gets falls on the day her parents finally split. It was a pretty drawn out process, and she'd say it was a relief, you know, if it was like, appropriate.

This time she's sixteen when she runs to the corner shop, not even greeting Sam, who she's gotten to be friends with over two years of small talk while he poked holes in her ears. Beca just slams the money down on the counter so hard it shudders and sits down angrily on a rickety stool that looks like it came from a bar.

"Hey, you know the price for a piercing," Sam says, but his tone suggests he already knows what Beca wants.

Beca rolls up her sleeve in lieu of an answer.

.

The tattoo isn't really a drastic one, just a grasshopper on the inside of her arm, but god does it hurt. It's like getting her ears pierced, except the pain is drawn out and continuous. Beca almost wants to cry with relief once the procedure is over as she leaves the shop, refraining from touching the bundle of gauze on her arm while she treks back home.

When she gets there, Beca meets her mother in the entryway, arms crossed over her chest. She frowns at Beca, wizened eyebrows scrunching, and it kind of angers Beca how much the gesture reminds her of herself. Her mother purses her lips belligerently at the bandages on Beca's arm. With a hard glare and a raised eyebrow, Beca dares the older woman to say something. But she doesn't.

She never does.

Beca stomps up the stairs loudly, steps creaking, and throws her bedroom door open before making a point to slam it shut, grabbing at her headphones aggressively as she lies down, losing herself in her music.

.

Thirty minutes later, she gasps as the pain begins to emerge into what really feels like a whole swarm of grasshoppers on her arm.

Beca was under the impression that the initial hurt from the needle was all there was to it, but evidently not. This prolongation of torture is what she's looking for, though. It helps her. The pain does what her music couldn't; it drives every thought about her shattered family from her head.

Because pain doesn't take a shape, and the best music always does.

x

Over the weeks of Bella's rehearsals (because yes, she did audition, and yes, she made the cut), Beca gets to know Chloe, the lively red-haired senior from the showers.

(And she hangs out with Jesse some more, too. Beca doesn't really think about him a lot, though.)

More often than not, she gets texts from Chloe during breaks that say a lot of really, really random shit, and when she replies while they're running through a set, Chloe sends her a quick not during rehearsals Beca! But Beca just smiles and rolls her eyes, because the redhead sneaks her phone into her pocket during rehearsals just like Beca does.

It's stupid, but Beca gets a kind of weird halting feeling in her heart every time she feels the vibration of her phone in her jeans, regardless of where she is. Her mouth pulls up into a goofy grin when she sees the redhead's name on her screen; she knows, she can feel it stretching across her face. Beca swears she even caught Kimmy Jin giving her a dirty look once while Beca was texting Chloe. (Then again, Kimmy Jin always looks like that, so she can't be sure.)

Point is, it's weird and stupid and it should stop, because Chloe was naked with a questionable guy in the showers at like, one in the morning when she met her. Beca can't really help it, though.

She thinks she's been taken since too blue to be real.

x

The first time Beca makes a mix for and about another person is after some random frat party. It's a pretty big deal because piercings and tattoos are more her thing for that.

Beca doesn't really want to go, it's not really her scene, but Chloe drags her out of her room one night and she finds herself in a crowd of sweaty guys and girls dressed in skimpy clothes.

Well actually, Beca really doesn't want to go. She cringes every time she feels a rough hand on her shoulder. She trips trying to avoid the mass of bodies around her.

And the music sucks.

.

The weird thing is, Chloe stays with her the whole time. Beca expects her to run off and hook up with some frat boys, because a bunch of them come up to her drunkenly like they want her to, but she doesn't; she stays. Chloe's a constant in Beca's life; she stays like nothing ever has.

With Chloe, Beca feels safe. She drinks like everyone else and laughs and dances with the other girl. Halfway through the night, the redhead throws a comforting arm around Beca's shoulders, and maybe it's just the alcohol.

But Beca doesn't throw it off.

.

They stumble out into the cold air together some time around three in the morning, laughing arm in arm. Luckily, when they stumble into Beca's dorm, Kimmy Jin is absent and Beca remembers that she's out with some of her Asian friends, playing Wii or something, because apparently you can do that for more than an hour without getting bored.

Chloe instantly finds her way to Beca's bed, curling up on top of the blankets fully clothed. Beca, on the other hand, isn't all that drunk. She's still riding a high from the night, and she turns on her desktop before grabbing a glass of water for the two of them.

As Beca hands the cup to a sleepy Chloe, the redhead's eyes suddenly snap open and she grabs Beca's outstretched arm, the water almost toppling out of her hand.

"Jesus, Chloe!" Beca whispers harshly, letting out a shaky breath. The fingers on her arm feel unbearably warm.

"I have a bug tattoo!" Chloe shouts eagerly, tracing the outline of Beca's tattoo lightly with her thumb.

"I—what?" Beca says, momentarily perturbed.

"You have a bug tattoo, I have a bug tattoo!" the redhead says again, blue eyes shining as if it's the most important thing in the world and it's imperative for Beca to know. Distracted, Beca follows the movement of Chloe's fingers intently.

.

To the backdrop of the sleeping girl's breathing, Beca makes the mix. She creates it with the image of bright blue and vibrant red in her mind, but it doesn't turn out quite like that. The mix is like a combination of Beca's typical heavy tracks and something livelier, something that only Chloe brings out in her. Beca's black and white turn into a deep ice blue and the colour of the sun. The thing turns out to be a mess of different songs and jumbled strings of lyrics. It's disarrayed and unorganized, but in a comforting way like Chloe makes her feel.

It's different and too soft and light for Beca, but it works in a way that she doesn't expect.

.

After she's done, Beca steps carefully over Chloe to squeeze into the space between the redhead and the wall. She lies down carefully, but Chloe stirs anyway, grabbing Beca's waist slowly, pulling her close.

"I really ... really like your earrings," Chloe slurs after a moment of pregnant silence in which Beca doesn't breathe. Chloe's lips are almost pressed against the spike in Beca's lobe. "But you know, they're not really you," she says quietly. "They're you, but they're not you."

Beca's heart stops right then and there. Her breath hitches. She doesn't think Chloe should know what she's talking about, but Beca's pretty sure she actually might.

Beca thinks Chloe gets it even better than she does.

x

Beca gets a tattoo after regionals, when the Bellas stayed up all night to wait for her.

(That would be a pretty big dramatic irony if Beca hadn't known the stereotype about getting them in jail.)

She tells herself there's no reason for it. She even talks briefly with Sam while she's getting it (but maybe that's because this one actually hurts like fucking hell and she's just trying to deal). She gets this one on her ribs, and she didn't think it was possible, but it hurts even more than the one she got across her shoulder, and she almost passed out that time.

Beca grits her teeth as she trades snippets of conversation with Sam, knuckles turning white on the edges of her seat. She lets out a huge breath after it's over, wheezing a soft thanks to the man.

Leaving the shop, she cradles her abdomen lightly as she walks slowly back to campus. When Beca reaches her dorm, she accidently drops her keys at the door and almost screeches as she bends down to pick them up.

.

She's not supposed to, but Beca can't hold out any longer and rips the bandages from her side, looking at her reflection in the mirror. She doesn't even care that Kimmy Jin's there to see.

Beca outlines the words trailing across her ribs delicately. The irritated red tint of them seem to make the lyrics pop out at her. She hears Kimmy Jin groan quietly. Beca's pretty sure she knows why. You shoot me down, but I won't fall reads in typewriter on her body, followed by another lyric.

Kimmy Jin's probably heard I am titanium a thousand different ways in the time she's lived with Beca.

.

She tells herself there's no reason for getting the tattoo when the pain kicks in about an hour later. It burns and tugs at her skin and she practically writhes in discomfort. Beca keeps telling herself there is absolutely no explanation, no motive for the tattoo as she listens to her mixes, just like she always does.

It almost works.

x

There's a knock on her door, and Beca slips her headphones around her neck. She gets up to open it to a smiling Chloe leaning against the wooden frame, lugging a huge messenger bag.

"Hey Beca!" Chloe says eagerly, jumping inside after Beca steps out of the way. "Hi Kimmy Jin," she adds politely.

Kimmy Jin's face betrays no emotion, but Beca takes it as a good sign that she replies monotonously, "Hello".

Chloe stays for hours, pulling random things from her bag as she hangs with Beca. She only notices the time when Kimmy Jin shuffles the things around on her desk. Beca's eyes widen at how long she's stayed in the redhead's company. When Chloe finally packs in preparation to leave, Beca notices that her bag is still half full.

.

Later, she wonders if maybe it's full of more things, just in case Chloe runs out of stuff for Beca to enjoy. Something warm spreads throughout her body at the thought.

She knows it's not fair to compare, but she thinks it's a whole lot better than watching movies.

x

After their loss at semi-finals, she adds to the number of holes in her ears. To be honest, Beca isn't really sure why she gets these piercings. Not in the I'm not getting them for any reason way, but really why am I getting these earrings? Everything's over, everything should be good and done.

She just knows that she really wants to hurt. Beca doesn't get it. She doesn't get why she needs to hold back her tears, because where'd they come from in the first place? Everything should be great. It should all be fucking great. She's done with the Bellas, she's free. She never liked being in the group to begin with, right?

.

Chloe (so it's Chloe?) inspires the weirdest feelings in Beca, but these ones confuse her more than anything.

She chooses her cartilage because they always hurt the most.

.

Sam begins to prepare the needle, but Beca shakes her head. She wants the gun. He looks at her weirdly in concern, because that could easily shatter the delicate tissue in her ears. "Beca—" he begins.

"Just ... give it to me, Sam," she says calmly. Beca wants it to hurt. A lot.

.

It doesn't work. The piercings are just as futile as trying to convince herself the tattoo meant nothing.

She can still see the look on Chloe's face before Beca abandoned the Bellas.

x

Beca learns later, during the confessions at the Bellas meeting—after their not-fight—that Chloe had her nodes removed over Spring Break. Which is pretty much her fault. Well, it's everyone's, but a lot of it is hers.

Chloe only gets the surgery because she thinks the season is over, and Beca kind of contributed the most to that. Every time Chloe lowers the pitch of a note, or sings in a harmony she normally wouldn't to avoid straining herself, Beca's heart pangs unbearably and she screams just a little on the inside.

It's the first time she cries over Chloe Beale.

x

Everything's fine and dandy after they win finals. They all hug and cheer, grudges and negative feelings put aside. Aubrey even reconciles with the Trebles (and has her way with Unicycle). The a cappella groups of Barden go out to a New York club and drink and everything.

After Beca kisses Jesse, of course.

.

Beca gets more piercings that night in New York. She gets up at like, four in the morning, still drunk, and of all things, from souvenir coffee mugs to NYC baseball caps, Beca gets piercings in New York. They just won. They just fucking won. Why the hell is she getting more perforations in her ears?

.

She wakes up with a hangover four hours later.

It doesn't stop her from remembering the heartbreak on Chloe's face.

.

Maybe she does know why she got the piercings. Beca just can't understand why she needed them in the first place. Because really. Holy fucking hell, really?

Why did she kiss Jesse?

x

Chloe bursts into Beca's room in the evening some time after the hype of the finals win fizzles out. The days where the redhead knocked before peeking around the door with a furtive blue eye are long forgotten and over.

Which is a bit of a shame at that moment.

Chloe stumbles upon Beca and Jesse sitting side by side watching a movie.

(Well, Beca sits as far away from Jesse as is socially acceptable as his girlfriend.)

She hears Jesse beside her sigh quietly at the intrusion. Beca jumps up from the bed, startled, immediately launching into an explanation (which is weird because what does she have to explain?). "Chloe! I was just—I was—"

"Hey Beca, hi Jesse," the girl in question says simply, smiling. Beca falters. The expression makes her heart hurt all over again. Never has she seen Chloe's eyes look so empty.

"Chloe," Jesse nods. Beca frowns, eyebrows scrunching at the almost hostile tone in Jesse's voice. His face is carefully apathetic. "We were just watching a movie." Beca definitely hears the sound in his voice now, accented by a bit of smugness, as if he's saying I got Beca, Beca Mitchell to watch a movie.

"Sorry, I didn't know Beca had company," Chloe replies, eyes flicking between the laptop on Jesse's lap and the boy himself. Everywhere but Beca.

A silence falls in the room, and Jesse opens his mouth to say something, probably to ask Chloe to leave, so Beca beats him to it. "Do you," she clears her suddenly dry throat, "d'you want to join us?" Jesse groans loudly behind her, but she ignores him, eyes on Chloe.

"No, no, I'm really sorry to bother you guys," the redhead says with a small chuckle. The sound is as devoid of feeling as her eyes. "I'll leave you to it," she whispers, turning.

"Chloe, wait," Beca calls desperately now. The other girl halts in her steps, spinning around slowly.

"No, really," she says, eyes flitting upwards quickly to meet Beca's. This time Beca sees it as it flickers in the blue; the loss, the desperation, the sadness. She opens her mouth to say something, but Chloe is already turning away, adding, "I'll see you some other time, Beca."

She doesn't.

.

Beca loses sleep over Chloe later that night, after she kicks Jesse out with the excuse of a migraine. She actually lies in bed, tossing and turning, bed sheets tangling around her limbs like a spider web.

The expression on Chloe's face and in her eyes doesn't leave her. The sheer turmoil in them sucks her in and each whirlpool of dizzying blue captivates her. Beca would say that Chloe's face haunts her every time she succumbs to her drowsiness, but that's a little too dramatic for her.

(Not to mention a huge understatement.)

There are hundreds of emotions flitting across and ricocheting inside Chloe's eyes, and for every fleck of feeling in them, a hundred more plague Beca's mind.

The thing is, it hurts. It's a different kind of pain from her piercings. At least they're sharp and brief with, at most, a couple days' soreness. Not Chloe.

Chloe is different; where Beca is concerned, she usually is. While Beca's tattoos and piercings are like gunshot wounds, the things that Chloe makes her feel are prolonged. Instead of dying in the instant that a bullet enters and leaves her body, she's slowly burning from the inside out, as if Chloe's vivid, fiery red hair is furling and twisting inside her gut. Beca expects to find solace in Chloe's clear water blue eyes. She just doesn't like how they're watery with tears.

It's too late for Beca. It always was.

If Beca is Alice, then Chloe's pupils are rabbit holes, and god is she falling.

She sighs; she should get to sleep. Beca tries in vain to unravel the bedspread around her, but falls back onto the mattress with a huff. It gets her thinking. Is she wrapped up in Jesse's web? Or is she entangled in Chloe's?

Beca's starting to think that maybe she got caught in her own snare.

x

She sits in front of her computer one day at two in the morning. Empty cans of Red Bull lay scattered on Beca's desk and her fingers shake as they fly across her keyboard.

This mix turns out distinctively unlike her other one. Beca arranges and layers it with thoughts of Chloe's red hair and baby blues in mind, but her deft hands warp the colours again. They turn into a burning red and a steely blue, and it's all too dark and deep again. It doesn't suit Chloe, but at the same time it's completely appropriate and fitting. Almost everything about this arrangement is different.

Everything except that it's just as much of a mess and clutter of emotions as her last.

x

It blows over. Jesse suddenly breaks up with Beca after he comes over for a movie night.

He knocks on the door and Beca shouts that it's unlocked from the bathroom. She hears the creak of her desk chair as Jesse sits down.

"I'll be right out!" Beca yells. She mentally prepares herself for the dull task of watching cinematic genius and the best scored movies in history and ends up wondering again why she doesn't have the heart to end their relationship.

Which is taken out of her hands moments later.

"Hey," she says, flopping onto the bed. "So what 'masterpiece' are we watching today?" Beca drawls. Silence follows her words and she adds confusedly, "Jesse? What's up?" He doesn't move from his seat.

"Nothing," Jesse mumbles after a long pause, exiting the room with no explanation.

.

Sometime after she gets over her bewilderment, Beca goes to sit in the vacated desk chair and notices that her computer is still on. Bothering the mouse, the screen lights up, and her eyes widen at what she sees.

Her mix, so creatively titled Chloe, is opened up.

First, Beca feels kind of outraged because Jesse snooped around her computer without asking. Second, she just feels a whole lot of guilt, because wow, how could she be so stupid as to leave the program up?

Beca quickly checks Facebook and, how typical, the first update she gets when she logs in is Jesse Swanson went from "being in a relationship" to "single".

Third, Beca just thinks finally.

(Which kind of makes her feel bad all over again but hey, what happens, happens.)

.

Moments, literally moments later, Chloe bursts into Beca's dorm. They haven't spoken to or seen each other in weeks, but somehow the redhead makes it to her room in a matter of minutes.

Beca turns in her chair to look at her. Sweat beads down Chloe's face and throat and her hair fans out behind her in a stream of tumbling red locks. Her hand still grips the knob and the doorway frames her in all of her glory.

Beca thinks she looks absolutely breathtaking. Chloe pants softly from the sprint she evidently took and, cheeks flushed, she kneels down in front of Beca so that their faces are level. Beca looks up into Chloe's eyes and the utter sympathy she finds in them has her breaking down in tears.

Chloe embraces her immediately, running a soothing hand up and down her back. Beca sobs harder at that, burying her head into the crook of Chloe's neck. Her hair ripples with the muffled sound of Chloe murmuring into it.

She wants to tell Chloe, make her understand, that she isn't crying over Jesse. It's crucial, and she begins to blubber out a couple of words, but Chloe shushes her in an instant, combing a hand through Beca's brunette hair. And suddenly, it doesn't seem to matter that much anymore.

Not with Chloe there.

.

Beca stops crying a few minutes later.

As her sniffling begins to subside, Chloe pulls back to get a good look, her arms still wound around Beca. She gives Chloe a weak smirk which probably completely fails with her running makeup, but Chloe visibly lets out a sigh of relief and returns the smile. Beca bursts out laughing when she sees the mess she left on Chloe, reaching out to wipe away the smeared mascara on Chloe's collarbone.

The room is quiet as Beca dabs at the exposed neck, absorbed in her work. She frowns a little, the silence surprising her, because she expects Chloe to have said something by now. Beca looks back up at the girl across from her in concern and her eyes widen at what she sees.

Chloe's eyes are hooded, but she doesn't miss the redhead's blown pupils. Beca can see the darkness clouding her brilliant blue eyes. The girl's cheeks are accented a light pink and Beca can feel the warmth of Chloe's laboured breath on her face. Her fingers freeze a little in their movements as something warm drops fluidly into a region below her stomach. Before she knows it, Beca says aloud, "Thanks for coming, Chlo'."

The redhead snaps out of whatever stupor she is in and stares unashamedly at Beca for a tense moment. Her face pulls up slowly in a wide grin and she replies, "Of course!"

x

The thing is, Beca's gotten piercings and tattoos and all that shit more frequently during her college freshman year than she has in the past four years as a 'rebellious teenager'. She doesn't want to be an overdramatic and dejected 'victim', but she went through a lot. On top of her grandmother's death and her dad cheating on her mom, and a whole bunch of other things like her dad stamping out Beca's dreams, she's kind of amazed she's still sane.

But in the past year or so, Beca's felt more crazy than she ever has in her eighteen years.

Aubrey drives her mad, and Amy gets her into loads of questionable situations. Stacie's made Beca—and everyone else—blush more times than she can count, and Lilly makes her blanch daily.

Chloe Beale has done all of those things. Beca goes pale and her palms get sweaty whenever Chloe grabs her that much tighter and edges that much closer to her. She turns the colour of Chloe's hair when their fingers brush and their eyes meet. And Chloe, throughout all of these things, never fails to make Beca feel like a frenzied idiot.

It says something to Beca. She has this huge epiphany, like wow, how did I not notice this before?

College is nuts.

.

(She won't admit it, but Beca's pretty sure she's been crushing on Chloe since the day they met.)

x

Beca gets more lyrics to add to the ones on her ribs. She gets a couple more piercings, too. She'll confess, they kind of comfort her and calm her down, in the way a security blanket would a toddler.

Beca says hello to Sam as she walks in, placing money civilly on the countertop while whistling tunelessly to herself. Sam's eyes grow huge at Beca's behaviour and he trips over his feet while leading her to a stool.

"Something good happen?" he says cautiously, tucking her hair behind her ears.

Beca's lips curve in a lopsided grin, "Nothing bad, at least."

x

Sitting in bed, Beca pores over her textbooks, studying during the last few weeks before finals. She wouldn't have thought about preparing for them at the beginning of the year, but somehow—it's the Bellas, but she won't say that aloud—she's changed her mind and Beca actually wants to stay for sophomore year (and junior and senior year, but she'll get to that later).

Just as she stands up to stretch, the door flies open and Chloe appears in a flurry of red hair.

Beca nearly jumps out of her skin, uttering an alarmed, "Chloe!" before she is engulfed in a bone-crushing hug.

She sucks in a sharp breath, ribs protesting severely. The redhead freezes immediately, pulling back slowly to look at Beca with narrowed eyes. "H-hey," Beca stutters out through gritted teeth, surreptitiously pushing Chloe's hands down from her sides to her waist.

"What was that?" Chloe asks suspiciously, moving a hand to inch across Beca's ribs. Beca turns, pulling away to avoid the redhead's eyes and arms.

"Nothing!" she shouts, laughing in a hysterically raised pitch. She curses internally at the slip up.

Chloe looks at her dubiously before closing the door and stepping further into the room. She hangs her coat on the back of Beca's chair.

"New earrings?" Chloe asks nonchalantly.

Beca rolls her eyes; only Chloe notices every new piercing she gets. "Well, I still have a few weeks to decide if I want them permanently." Chloe gives her a doubtful look and begins to scrutinize Beca's side again.

"So, what's up?" Beca says loudly, jumping onto her bed—she hisses quietly as the action jostles her tattoo—and invites Chloe to join her. Chloe's eyes dilate and Beca looks down at her slightly exposed ribs, muttering a quiet, "Shit."

The other girl lunges forward and all but rips Beca's shirt up to examine the skin underneath. Beca squeezes her eyes shut tightly, expecting pain, but is surprised at how Chloe manages to do it so carefully and actually ends up shivering at the sensation of Chloe's cold fingers trailing along her ribs.

Beca turns her head away, embarrassed, as the other girl considers the ink in silence. She blushes all the way down to her throat and shudders again as Chloe traces the letters. Her fingers pause at Beca's tremble.

"When did you get this?" Chloe asks quietly.

"Uh, some of it was after regionals, and the other bit was yesterday," Beca whispers.

"Why?" the redhead adds, finally letting go of the hem of Beca's shirt and straightening.

Face still pointed away, Beca tries to arrange her mouth into a smooth smirk. The attempt fails miserably.

"Well, you know, it's a good song, I guess," Beca says finally, although it ends up sounding more like a question than a statement. She curses at herself again.

"Beca," Chloe says sternly. Beca lifts her gaze to the redhead's slowly.

"It's nothing," Beca murmurs. Chloe raises a sceptical eyebrow. Sighing, Beca adds softly, "I'll tell you later." And she really thinks she will.

Chloe has the good grace to drop it.

.

For the next week, by some unspoken agreement, Chloe joins Beca in her room to study every day. (Kimmy Jin is away studying with her Asian friends.) The sessions are mostly spent in companionable silence except for an occasional exchange of words.

The first day after Chloe confronted her, Beca sits at her desk while the redhead perches cross-legged on her bed, a textbook in her lap. The air is thick with tension as the ghosts of the day before linger in the room.

"I like it," Chloe says finally after a long span of silence. Beca doesn't move, looking at the redhead through her peripherals. Chloe's eyes stay glued to the page. "I mean, I don't think you could tell I did, but it's nice. I love it," she amends.

Beca finally swivels in the chair to face Chloe, grinning. "You love it?"

The redhead doesn't lift her gaze, but still smiles tenderly. "I do."

.

"You're moving to LA after senior year, right?" Chloe asks in a casual tone. Beca smirks, because of course Chloe can tell she's planning to graduate.

"Yeah, I am," Beca says, looking up. "Why do you ask?"

Chloe levels her icy blue eyes on the girl beside her. She tilts her head.

"No reason."

.

(Beca's not going to lie; she's searched up the medical schools in the Los Angeles county. She's convinced herself that they're great choices for any aspiring medical major.

Like, oh, Chloe Beale for example.)

.

"So where do you think you're going for medical school?" Beca asks Chloe some time later.

The redhead grins, tipping her head back to look up at the ceiling. "I've applied to a lot of places," she answers vaguely.

"Oh," Beca says simply, trying to stifle the disappointment in her voice.

"The odds for UCLA are looking pretty good right now, though," Chloe supplies offhandedly.

Beca turns to look at the other girl after a long second, meeting her almost knowing smile.

"Oh."

.

The day before her first exam, the atmosphere in Beca's room is acutely tense and stressed. This could very well be one of the last times Beca sees Chloe before the graduation ceremony, and then the redhead will be off to who knows where—although Beca secretly hopes it really is UCLA—doing god knows what. It's weirdly sobering.

And entirely nerve-wracking.

Beca's eyes dart back and forth between her notes and the red numbers on her alarm clock like a metronome. She doesn't get much studying done.

Beca has shared so many firsts with Chloe and done so many things that she normally wouldn't. She's been through emotional hell and back—which is saying something for Beca—and it's weird; she'd do it a hundred more times just to be with Chloe a little longer. In that moment, possibly Beca's last with the redhead seated beside her, Chloe feels unbelievably real and close and far at the same time.

It makes her heart beat uneasily.

.

When the numbers on the clock glare a blood red she's going to leave at her, Beca finally speaks up.

"I got it because of you," Beca mumbles, them she thinks. She feels a strange, desperate need to admit something; to be truthful for once.

The mattress creaks as Chloe shifts to face Beca, shuffling her textbook to the side. "Why?" she wonders again. Even as Chloe asks the question, a slow smile begins to completely engulf her face. The redhead inches closer, and Beca finds herself, once again, immersed in swirling torrents of blue.

She can think of one good way to answer that.

.

As Beca pulls away in an achingly slow tilt of her head, she smiles and murmurs quietly, "So, UCLA?"

Chloe hums low in her throat, leaning forward again as she grabs hold of Beca's hand and intertwines their fingers while her other hand cups her face. Chloe grins playfully against Beca's lips as she says in a convincing imitation of Beca's voice, "Well, you know, it's a good school, I guess."

x

For the first time, on the day she kisses Chloe, Beca takes out her new earrings.