A/N: So some of you mentioned the original version of the ending feeling abrupt, so maybe this slight revision will help with that...

Chapter 6: Say You'll Remember Me Starin' at the Sunset, Babe

A week after leaving the Beta Epsilon house, Jesse and Beca stuck to one another like glue. They walked one another to classes when it was feasible. They ate meals in the caf or in their rooms. They studied at the center table in the library. They avoided questions and conversations about the house fire that killed the Trebles.

They'd been shocked to find out that the police had ruled it a tragic accident due to a faulty gas pipe within a few days. But since the house was nothing but ash and rubble by the time the fire department was able to extinguish the flames, and there was very little left in the way of human remains, there wasn't much to investigate.

Beca was grateful, because she hoped that meant everyone would move on quickly. She didn't remember much after being jumped and kidnapped when she walked away from Chloe, other than Bumper's grating voice, a lot of pain, and her own screams. Jesse refused to tell her any details other than that the Bellas did everything possible to help her, and that Chloe was especially heroic. And terrifying. Terrifyingly heroic.

He mentioned, once, that Chloe was taking a sabbatical and was ok. The look on his face, though, was less than reassuring. Beca tried not to care…too much.

She loved Chloe, of course. She wanted Chloe to be ok, to be happy and healthy. But with all the lies and craziness, Beca just couldn't deal with anything that involved her.

After a month of near codependency on one another, Beca could tell Jesse was missing something, or rather, someone. She felt guilty that he gave up his relationship for her sake, twice. Granted, she hadn't asked him to and she wouldn't have, either. He was loyal, in this case to a fault.

"Just go talk to her," she told him during an afternoon shift at the radio station.

He glanced up at her from his laptop and then averted his eyes.

"We agreed-"

"We agreed that me staying away from Chloe was what needed to be done," Beca sighed. "You decided that staying away from Aubrey was necessary out of solidarity or whatever 'bro code' excuse you threw out."

Jesse shut his laptop and opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off again.

"Look, don't think I don't appreciate you being around and there for me when the anxiety hits, and having my back through all of this. But it's obvious that you miss her, dude. And I don't think it's a coincidence that you've been seeing her around campus almost every day this past week."

"Ok, but-"

"Jesse, it's fine." At his dubious look, she pressed more firmly. "I'm fine. You deserve to be happy, ok? And if she's who makes you happy, and you guys can work through your shit, then go! Be happy!"

Jesse vacillated as he weighed the pros and cons. After a few moments, he stood up and wrapped Beca in a tight hug.

"You're the best bro a guy could ask for, Beca Mitchell," he said.

He and Aubrey had a lot to talk about and sort through before they'd be even remotely back to good. But he felt confident. Besides, if all else failed, he'd just cue up that Matchbox 20 song and let it work its magic. Aubrey loved music from the 90s.

And, if necessary, he'd get Benji and the few new members of Oral Magic (the a cappella group they started after the Treblemakers' demise) to sing for her, too.

2 months later…

It was late, nearing 1am. Beca set her laptop down onto her bed as she rolled to her right side in an attempt to get comfortable enough to finish watching The Breakfast Club—Jesse had finally pestered her enough to give in and really watch the stupid thing, but she still didn't get the big deal. Sure, the movie was alright, but it wasn't as if she was about to bawl her eyes out over it.

She glanced up and saw Chloe standing in the middle of her room and then-

"What the hell?!" Beca yelled as she scrambled up and practically smashed the light switch into the on position.

"Uh, hey?" Chloe replied, charmingly awkward with a lopsided smile.

"How did you-" Beca started, but stopped midsentence. "No, you know what? Nevermind. I don't care. Just please…"

She pointed towards the door and crawled over the end of her bed and back under the sheets.

Chloe bit her lip and debated whether to try and have this conversation with Beca right then or save it. To be honest, she hadn't expected Beca to be awake. She'd seen the light was off and, based on the numerous previous nights that she'd checked in on Beca—which was just about every night after she'd completed Gail's two weeks of treatments—she was always asleep after midnight. Chloe knew, though, if she waited then it would probably never happen. It was May and finals were a few days away.

"Beca, please just give me a chance to-" she paused when she saw Beca's jaw clench. If she didn't get it out quickly, Beca would probably physically try and throw her out. "I'm so, so sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt, ok? I tried to protect you as best as I could. And I wanted to tell you so badly what was happening, but if I had you would've run off…and now that I'm saying this I realize that that happened anyway. God…" Chloe felt tears sting her eyes and trail down her cheeks when she remembered the sight and the sound of Beca getting stabbed in the heart. She looked at the other girl whose face remained stoic. "I- I thought you were dead. No matter how many times Aubrey told me you were ok, I didn't believe her. Because how could you be? He stabbed you through the heart and I- Beca, I swear I felt it."

Something pinged in the back of Beca's mind—she hadn't just heard her own scream, she'd heard Chloe's too. She bit hard on her tongue to keep from saying a word.

"I know I can't say or do anything that will ever take away that pain. All I can do is tell you how sorry I am. And how much I loved you, do love you. And hope that, maybe one day, you can try to forgive me and we can start over. Whether that's just as friends or more—and I know I'm grasping at straws with that."

Chloe took a deep breath to calm herself. Beca's expression hadn't changed at all during her whole monologue. In fact, Beca had laid back down and stared at the ceiling near the end of it. So, Chloe nodded once to herself and headed, slowly, for the door.

Just as she touched the knob, she heard a soft, "Stay."

"Are you sure?" Chloe asked with trepidation, not taking her eyes off the door.

Beca leaned up on her elbows slightly to look at her.

"It's late and there are probably creepers running around campus," she said after a moment and laid back down.

Chloe smiled to herself and turned the light off before she removed her shoes and coat and climbed into Beca's bed, careful not to touch her too much.

After about 15 minutes, she heard Beca's breathing even out. She turned her head and looked at the back of Beca's head. The moment reminded her a lot of the one just after Initiation.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"You should be," Beca responded gruffly, obviously just on the verge of sleep.

She winced somewhat at the reply, but was surprised when Beca blindly reached back and grabbed Chloe's arm, wrapping it around her midsection.

Beca knew she and Chloe had a boatload of baggage to sort through. She also knew that, at the end of it, they might not be able to fix all that had been broken. But in that moment, she just needed to feel Chloe around her: her heartbeat, her breath, her warmth, her everything.

Everything else could wait until later.

November 2013

Beca laid on Chloe's bed, her head in Chloe's lap, and watched her pen spin in the air. Her face creased in contemplation.

"You bleed me for months, and I legitimately almost die. Now you have seemingly infinite power," she said and turned to face Chloe, motioning towards the still spinning pen. "And this is how you use it? I feel cheap."

"Oh, you think you could do better?" Chloe smirked at Beca's pout.

They had come a long way in the past few months. It wasn't an easy road to travel to regain Beca's trust and to try and rebuild the foundation of friendship they had. There had been nights of screaming fights and sobbing embraces. There had been times where Beca called her or vice versa in the middle of the night because of a nightmare that revisited that horrible evening at the Treblemakers' house. Beca had returned to Seattle for summer break, so she and Chloe could only talk via phone or Skype. It was for the best, though.

The separation gave each of them the ability to sort out their priorities and what they wanted from and for one another. It allowed them to work out a better form of communication and develop a new, deeper bond.

They returned to Barden in late August strictly as friends. They got back together at the Bellas' Halloween party two weeks prior, after realizing there was too much pull to fight against anymore.

Of course, Aubrey still didn't get the attraction, and Jesse had given Chloe quite the long bro code lecture, but all that mattered to Chloe was that she and Beca were good. Happy. Healthy, in all senses of the word.

"Uh, yeah," Beca chuckled. "I definitely could."

"I guess we'll never know."

Beca sat up quickly and leaned in, almost touching Chloe's lips with her own.

"Oh really?" she said, eyebrow cocked.

Beca raked her fingers through Chloe's hair and gently cradled the back of her head before she closed the small distance between them, placing the softest kiss on her lips.

Chloe's eyes drifted shut immediately at the gentle touch.

For a moment, she felt the temperature in her room rise at least 20 degrees. She would swear that she heard the ocean and felt the salt-water breeze on her skin.

When Chloe opened her eyes, they were still in her room. But there, on the floor, were two pineapples, two coconuts, and a box of Honolulu Cookie Company cookies.

She looked back and forth between Beca and the items on the floor several times before she spoke.

"But how-"

"I'm thinking of changing my name to Sabrina," Beca mused with a light smile and a wink.

"You're nearing 20, so your teenage witch days are numbered," she responded, not missing a beat.

Apparently Beca had gained some powers of her own from the whole ordeal.

I wonder if Aubrey knew that could happen, Chloe wondered.

It would certainly make for a fun surprise on their double date with Aubrey and Jesse later that night.

"POWERS?!" Aubrey yelled, then quickly slapped her hands over her mouth as she remembered they were in the middle of a fairly crowded restaurant.

"Aubrey, geez," Chloe scolded and glanced around to note how much attention had been drawn to their table—not much, thankfully. She had hoped that by telling Aubrey in public that her outburst would've been more subdued but clearly she'd overestimated her friend's restraint.

Aubrey took a deep breath and tried again, leveling Beca—who, to her credit, was valiantly trying to keep a straight face—with a severe glare. Jesse noticed and immediately tried to sooth his girlfriend with a warm, comforting squeeze to her hand which was clenched tightly in a fist near the edge of the table. He was pretty curious, though. Beca hadn't mentioned anything about this to him.

"What do you mean she has powers?" she said through clenched teeth.

"Well," Chloe began, looking to Beca with a small smile and then back to Aubrey. "She took me on a 10 second trip to Hawaii earlier."

"Beca, would you care to elaborate?" Aubrey pointedly inquired. "Like, how long you've known about these…abilities?"

Beca fidgeted with her napkin a little, unsure of how to explain it.

"Well, after I got back to Seattle I noticed that if I thought really hard about something, like the TV remote or whatever, that it would levitate over to me. Sort of. It was iffy at first. I figured it was some kind of fluke. Like I had some residual juju from housing not one, but two, supernatural beings and that it would go away in a week or so. But then I kept testing it, and I just seemed to be getting better, so to speak, at controlling it. By the end of the summer I could jump from room to room," she shrugged. "Didn't you know that this could happen?"

Based on the look she got in return, Aubrey definitely did not know.

"That's so awesome," Jesse breathed out in awe.

Aubrey whipped her head to her left and glared at him, "Did you know about this? Did you know and not tell me? Jesse Swanson, so help me-"

Jesse's eyes widened and he put his hands up in a surrender motion as he shook his head.

"Babe, I promise. She didn't say a word to me about this!"

"I didn't tell anyone, Aubrey," Beca jumped in, attempting to save Jesse. "Like I said, I thought it would go away. But I mean, it kind of makes sense, right? Harry Potter absorbed some of Voldemort's powers when he tried to kill him, right?"

"This is not a fictional universe, Beca," Aubrey rolled her eyes and then gave Chloe a look that read like: Honestly, this girl?

"Right, because everything that happened this past year has screamed completely ordinary," Beca tossed back.

Aubrey wanted to rebut, but Beca, unfortunately, had a point…

"I'm making a call to the Alumnae office tomorrow morning. They need to know and explain how they could have possibly not foreseen this consequence. But this means you're back to all of our meetings, Beca! You have a lot of work to make up for from missing the adoption drive," she smirked.

Aubrey may have had to tolerate Beca for Chloe's sake, and if she was honest Beca wasn't completely awful. But that didn't mean she couldn't still have a little fun in the form of pulling rank in the sorority.

Beca had been on the verge of arguing that she had a damn good reason for missing said pet adoption drive, re: almost dying, but Chloe's soft touch to her knee stopped her.

She glanced over to Chloe's appeasing eyes and heard her whisper, "Pick your battles, Bec."

Nodding, Beca leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes. She wasn't necessarily sure she wanted to stay in Beta Epsilon Lambda Lambda Alpha, but at least she had Chloe to take her mind off things.

And a bunch of badass magical abilities to mess with Aubrey, she thought.

Yeah, maybe it wouldn't be so terrible after all.

The End