The two weeks since Beca had taken hold of the pitch pipe had passed in a blur. In that short space of time, the group of girls worked far better under Beca's leadership than they ever had with Aubrey, and the blonde-haired older woman was, surprisingly, the first to admit it. By the end of that first rehearsal with Beca as Captain (which turned in to less of an actual rehearsal but rather just a meeting to air out all of their problems), they'd managed to come up with and agree on a schedule that worked for them all. Chloe and Aubrey would both be graduating at the end of the year; therefore they would need to greatly scale back the amount of time they spent in the auditorium, in order to prepare for their finals. It was decided they'd split their rehearsal time; spend a portion all studying together before moving on to actually rehearsing, with the last twenty minutes or so just talking about any and everything that doesn't relate to school or the ICCA's. So far, it was working, and they all seemed to have a lot more control over their own personal time management, all finally being able to find that balance that kept them from being completely overworked. Overall, the group of young women were far happier than they were two weeks ago.

Saturday night found Beca and Jesse coming to the end of their weekly movie night. This week had been the first in the Jurassic Park trilogy. Beca hadn't minded the film itself, but she was a lot more interested in listening to Jesse and watching out the corner of her eyes how he mouthed along to every single line of dialogue. He'd caught her looking at him more than once, smiling each time as he told her to focus on the screen.

The movie finished, and while neither of them wanted to leave (though that went upspoken between them), both knew they had to call it a night. Jesse took his time with packing away his laptop and DVD, making sure he had everything in his bag. Beca wanted him to stay the night, as he had done the previous week seeing as he didn't have to meet the rest of the Trebles until the following morning and the Bella's having had their rehearsal earlier that day. She really wanted him to stay, but not only did she know he had rehearsal with the Trebles when he did finally leave her dorm, she also had Bella rehearsals planned for that night, but of course – she couldn't tell Jesse that. Jesse helped her clear up the trash from their many snacks, offering to throw it out on his way to the Treble house.

During the first movie night they'd had since they'd started speaking again, and unspoken rule had been made between the two of them to not discuss the ICCAs. Jesse believed it was unfair as Beca was no longer able to take part (or so he thought), but Beca didn't like to as it was as though she was spying on the competition, giving the Bella's an unfair advantage. Tonight was different, however. Beca wanted to delay and extended Jesse leaving for as long as possible, and she had two ways of making that happen, one of which she wasn't going to do.

"So… how's your set coming along?"

As expected, Jesse did a double take. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips and a glint appeared in his eyes though he was quick in trying not to let it show. "Good enough to win, I think – we've been putting the effort in and working really hard," he said with a shrug, trying to appear nonchalant though Beca could see right through his façade. He tilted his head a little to the side as if debating on his next question. "You know how the Bella's are doing?"

It was time now for the secretly reinstated Bella to fight her own smile. She just hoped she could hide it well enough that Jesse wouldn't notice. When he didn't question it, Beca breathed a silent sigh of relief – he hadn't noticed.

"They're okay; training hard, as far as I know," Beca said, biting her lip and giving him a small shrug. "We don't really talk about it all that much, you know, given everything…"

She trailed off and Jesse nodded before turning away to fiddle with the zip of his bag. Beca watched him. She felt bad for lying and part of her wanted to blurt everything out, just so he'd stay but she and the girls had a plan and she was determined to stick to it. Jesse nodded at her again in understanding.

Silence settled between them, though not uncomfortable, both knowing the night was over. Beca handed Jesse over his bag. He thanked her, slinging it over his shoulder. They walked the few short steps to the door together, Jesse grabbing the trash bag on the way. Beca opened the door for him but he stopped on the threshold, turning back round to her, a smile tracing his lips.

"Sure I can't tempt you to come sit in a rehearsal?"

Beca wanted to laugh, she really did. She had just been given the opportunity to spy on the opposition without them being aware that she's the competition! She refrained from laughing however, for fear of giving herself and the game away. She gently shook her head.

"Yes, I'm sure," she said, biting at the corners of her lip. "I wanna be surprised."

"Alright," Jesse conceded, tightening his hold on the trash bag. He shifted slightly on his feet as he smiled at her. "I should really be heading off. How about I come around tomorrow night, we can pick up where we left off?"

Beca's heart pounded against her chest, knowing that Jesse was pushing to spend more time with her again. She wanted to accept, she really did, but she had plans for the following night. She shook her head gently. "Ah, dinner with Dad." She watched his face fall slightly and bit her lip again. "I'll call you when I'm done though, maybe you can come around after?"

Jesse grinned openly at her now, nodding. "Sure. Bye Becs."

She watched him walk away, him pausing briefly to toss the trash down the chute. He turned around to face her when he reached the corner leading to the stairwell, waved to her before disappearing from sight. Beca turned back in to her room, closing the door softly behind her, leaning against it. Since admitting to her group of friends her feelings for Jesse, she'd found it increasingly hard to spend time with him without thinking about him. It was amazing how the simple task of actually admitting something made all the difference. She was seeing things differently now, comparing to before she'd completely bared her soul for all to see.

Bella's had rehearsals in little over an hour and, though Beca could use the time to actively keep on top of her assignments, she also knew the time would be well spent working on getting her body healed enough for the ICCA finals. She'd healed pretty well in the couple of weeks since the accident, but she still had a lot of discomfort when she over-exerted herself. She'd found though, spending thirty-minute sessions with Stacie a couple of times a week when their schedules allowed for it. It was helping, the gently exercise her friend had been putting her through was slowly helping her tolerate the pain during extensive rehearsals that would only become worse once she'd completed the set and Stacie devised the final choreography.

Beca pulled her phone from her back pocket, unlocking it and dialling Stacie's number. She answered on the third ring.

"Hey, he's gone," she said with a sigh. "Auditorium in ten?"

Just over fifteen minutes after she'd called her friend, Beca sat with Stacie on yoga mats in the middle of the auditorium floor. They'd started off with easy stretches before moving on to the list of poses Stacie had come up with for her. Beca knew she'd be exhausted by the end of the night, but it would all be worth it in the end.

"Thanks for still doing this, Stacie."

She saw Stacie smile at her before they both closed her eyes and moved on to the next pose.

"Yoga is the perfect exercise," Stacie whispered, moving on to the next pose. "Really stretches your muscles."

Beca opened her eyes briefly, finding Stacie smiling beside her. "Is there a sexual reference in there?"

Stacie smirked at her. "When isn't there?"

By the time Beca and Stacie were finished and packing away their yoga things, the rest of the girls were beginning to arrive. While they took to talking amongst themselves, Beca set up her laptop and pulled out her headphones. There was still at least ten minutes before the arranged time for rehearsals to start and not everyone had turned up yet. She pulled up the playlist for their set she'd been working on and set to putting the finishing touches to it. She had enough time to listen through it twice before the auditorium doors slammed shut after Denise, signalling everyone had finally arrived. Beca put the final touches to the set before removing her headphones and laying them next to her laptop, stepping in front of the whiteboard in full business mode, ready to start.

"Alright nerds, listen up." As usual, all attention was on her in an instant, and she gave them all a sincere smile. "I know we've been at this for two weeks now and there's only a couple of weeks left to go before the finals, but we've made really good head way, working better as a team."

"Beca's right," Aubrey said loudly, everyone nodding with her.

"Thanks." Beca grinned at Aubrey, before turning her focus to Stacie, nodding her head at her. "Stacie, how's the choreography going?"

"All I need is the set and I can put it all the bits together and show you guys."

Beca nodded at her before taking a pen and marking it off their to do list on the board. Slowly, she noticed, there were more ticks than checkboxes. Things were looking good. She turned back to find Fat Amy pointing at her.

"How's that going Shawshank?"

"Now that you mention it…" Beca bit her lip and turned back briefly to glance at her laptop. She ran through the set in her head, remembering each part and mentally checking if she was indeed happy with it. Finally she turned nodded to herself and turned back to the girls, giving each of them a smile. "I think it's finally perfect."

"Really!" Chloe all but screamed. Beca laughed and nodded at her. "Well then, let's hear it."

Beca nodded again and went over to grab her laptop, removing the headphone lead from the port. The mix was still open, so she simply set the laptop down on a chair in the centre of the group and pressed play. Of course, it would sound difference with them performing, but immediately, everyone started to bop their heads along to the track and once the tempo changed Stacie stood suddenly, swinging her hips. Soon, the rest of the girls were standing, dancing with each other and catching on very quickly to each and every change. Everyone had grins on their faces and when the track was finally coming to a close, they all stopped dancing to stare at Beca, who started to look a little intimidated.

"Wow," Cynthia-Rose breathed.

"Well," Beca said slowly. "What do you think?"

"It's perfect," Jessica and Ashley said together.

Beca nodded, breathing a sigh of relief. She turned to Stacie, who was replaying the track on a much quieter volume, moving her hips to the beat. "Stacie?"

Stacie grinned at her. "I can definitely work with this."

The following Saturday found Beca halfway through her latest assignment when her phone rang on the desk next to her. Technical difficulties at the radio station meant she'd had the morning free, rather than having to work her shift, meaning she was able to make headway on school work. She glanced at the screen and, seeing Jesse's name, her heart sank. He never called her before movie night, he always just turned up. Somehow, without even answering, she knew he was going to cancel, though she also knew he'd have a genuine reason for doing so. Beca picked up the phone, swiping her thumb across the screen and bring the device up to her ear.

"Hey nerd."

"I'm so sorry, I'm gonna have to cancel on movie night."

She was right. She could hear the disappointment in his voice, and hoped she was able to mask her own. "Boo," she said, biting her lip. "How comes?"

Jesse sighed on the other end of the line. "Benji's freaking out about finals. I'm talking full on freak out; muttering to himself, sleepwalking. Dube can't even complete the simplest of music tricks because his anxiety is so bad."

"Damn, that's bad," Beca said, throwing herself down on her bed, arm behind head. She switched the call to speaker, laying the phone on the pillow next to her head. "To be fair, it's his first major performance, of course he's nervous – it was inevitable."

"Nervous doesn't quite cover it, Becs."

Beca rolled her eyes. "Go easy on him and tell the others to as well. Benji doesn't need those idiots on his back being hard-asses."

Jesse laughed. "We are. We're all taking him to some magic show happening in the theatre a couple of blocks away. Tonight's the last night it's on."

"Exciting," Beca said.

"Hopefully it'll help." He paused, but Beca waited for him to speak. "You're not mad are you?"

Beca kept the sigh inaudible, not waiting to seem selfish when his friend was in need of cheering up. In any case yes, she was disappointed, but she was mad – far from it. It made her love him that little but more, the way he cared about his friend. "No, I'm not, Nerd. Go spend time with your friend."

"What you gonna do instead?"

Beca had Bella's in a couple of hours, and she did have to finish her assignment. There were plenty of things she could occupy herself with. Her phone vibrated and checked the incoming messages. It appeared most of the girls were free earlier than originally planned. Beca grinned to herself before shooting off a reply and turning her attention back to the call. "Believe it or not, I might invite the girls over for a study sleepover."

Jesse broke out into a full fit of laughter. "I don't believe that but okay."

Rehearsals were fast drawing to a close for the night. They'd all worked non-stop for the past five hours, all agreeing to meet earlier and go at it until they perfected the set. This rehearsal was the first where they could properly practice. During the week, Stacie had still been coming up with the choreography, and Beca had still been delegating parts to everyone. A few changes had to be made here and there when it became clear the vocals would better be sung by someone else.

Each and every time they'd run through the set, there were critiques coming from Beca and Stacie. Not a single run through was perfect, but no one was disheartened. Yes, they only had two weeks left until the finals, but they knew the competition had a good few weeks of rehearsal on them, given their late re-entry. There were slips and falls, mis-sung lyrics, out of key vocals but not a single one of them felt like throwing in the towel.

To anyone, it would be easy to see the group of them were exhausted, but they still had half an hour of scheduled rehearsal time left. It would be enough time to give the set another few run throughs and if they could get through it at least once without any issues, they could all leave the auditorium with smiles on their faces. A five-minute break and they were back at it, all standing in their places before Beca brought the pitch pipe to her lips and blew.

"One, two, three, four."

"Seems like everybody's got a price…"

Beca couldn't believe it as, the further they got in to the set, she realised not a single one of them had made a mistake. Every single one of them harmonised with each other perfectly, sang each line in time with no delays and moved around each other without bumping shoulders. Every single step was performed in sync, right down to the very last moment where, for the first time since they all became Bella's, they came together to lift their arms in perfect sync and sing the last note as one, ending the song.

They all stood, breathing heavily, not one of them saying a word. Slowly, they all starting to look around at one another, gaging each other's reactions. Still not one of them said anything, but slowly, one by one, they started to smile until the sole focus was on Beca. Beca had her own smile of disbelief on her face, not quite believing they had finally managed to run through the set without making a single mistake.

"Did we just…" she started to say, though found she couldn't finish, just needing the others to clarify it for her.

Aubrey, grinning, nodded at her with tears glistening in her eyes. "I think we did."

Everyone nodded in agreement. All signs of exhaustion from the evenings rehearsal had disappeared, replaced with a renewed purpose. Beca looked at each of them in turn, every single one of them nodding back at her.

"From the top?"

Beca, walking back to her dorm from her shift at the radio station, spotted Jesse sitting cross-legged in the courtyard. The closer she got, she could see books spread across the grass, laptop open with a film playing, him listening through headphones. A notebook was open and resting on his knee as he thumbed through the pages of a textbook with one hand, the other tapped his pen against the pages. Beca smiled to herself as she approached him from behind, dropping down beside as gracefully as she could while still experiencing discomfort from her accident. Jesse turned to her instantly, wide-eyed and startled, yanking the headphones from his ears.

Beca grinned at him. "Hey, nerd."

"Hi?"

Beca laughed at him openly now, nudging his shoulder with her own. "What's up?"

Jesse, over his shock of her literally dropping down next to him, simply paused his movie and gestured to the mess he'd created around him. "Go an essay due. You?"

"Same old, same old," she said with a shrug. She glanced at the notepad in his lap, finding it full of scribbles. She smiled to herself. She flicked her eyes to the paused movie, finding a dinosaur frozen on the screen. He was re-watching Jurassic Park. She rolled her eyes but didn't comment, instead remembering why he'd had to cancel on their previously planned movication. "How's Benji doing, feeling better?"

"Yeah, a bit," Jesse said, nodding. He yawned and rubbed his eyes before laying back against the grass, pulling Beca down with him. She grunted but didn't protest, going along down with him. He turned to face her, an unreadable expression settling on his features. "You're definitely coming to the finals, right?"

Beca bit her lip before facing him herself. It was another one of the moments where she was forced to lie to him, one of those times where she wished her return to the Bella's wasn't a secret. She sighed to herself - at least there was only another two weeks to go before she couldn't determine whether or not it has all been worth it.

"I wouldn't miss it," Beca said softly and Jesse breathed a sigh of relief next to her. She smiled at him. "I have to show my support."

Jesse's eyes narrowed slightly as he lifted himself up on his elbow, turning his body to face her. "To who?"

Beca grinned mischievously at him, closing her eyes. "Barden."

Jesse was silent for a moment, staring at her open mouthed before laughing and laying back down next to her. "Smooth."

Hey, Guys.

So, I am making my way through this fic - we are only 2 chapters and an epilogue left to go!

I'm finding it so hard to write at the moment. My son is 5 going on 15, I have quite big family issues and I work in Greggs (any of you lovelies that live in England will know how big that chain is) we get VERY busy in the lead up to Christmas (and certain colleagues are pains in the fucking asses). My writers block is also back - unfortunately, it didn't stay away for long.

I really wanted to get 'I've got you, Beca' finished by the end of the year but I highly doubt that will happen.

For all of you that have been here since the beginning, I sincerely thank you for sticking around. It's been a long time (FOUR YEARS?!), but just know the end IS near.

Thank you all again.

Please like, comment and review.

Court xx