Author's Note: Thank you for reading. The title was oddly the most difficult thing to come up with. Since I like to make toasts and tweeted hopefully I will always love books that reference other books...may we always love...came from that. This was based on a dream I had, which got changed to suit Bechloe. It can also be viewed as the sequel to Needed or Wanted (which I would prefer any reader to do) but can be viewed as a 2 chapter story. If anyone is interested my twitter is PlaceForAnEcho.

"I'll just book a hotel or an Airbnb if they're part of the 21st century. There's civilization around here..somewhere..." She said into the phone while she looked at a barren countryside then she slammed her trunk shut.

"Beca you chose a random, middle of nowhere location for your vacation. You might as well have gone camping."

"I don't camp," she cut him off. "And I can't change the tire because there isn't a spare. Jesse...why doesn't your car have a spare tire?"

"Because I have roadside assistance." He said easily. "Glove box."

The brunette sighed, patience was not her strong suit, they both knew. "My phone is about to die." She said after she looked at the screen.

"It'll be okay." He said as she dug through the front compartment.

"You spoke too soon asshole," she had officially hit her limit. "Your AAA expired two months ago."

"Its still okay. I'll make a call and you'll be back on the road soon. Hang tight and-" then he cut off.

"Seriously Jesse. Fucking hang tight." Beca said to no one as she tossed her phone on the passenger seat. Now she was forced to either pace or sit and listen to music. Naturally she chose music.

Half hour later she didn't hear a car pull up behind her.

Fuck! She mentally screamed when someone tapped on her window. It was fall, she didn't feel like pacing in the chilled air and didn't recall penciling in a heart attack first day of her vacation. The whole point was to get away, detach from everything, and focus on music. The plan was just shot to hell, reincarnated and then stabbed a couple more times as Chloe looked down at her. Immediately she turned off the music.

What the hell...What the freaking hell. What. The. Absolute. Hell. Really. What the fucking fuck is going on?

She watched as Chloe nonchalantly told her to roll down the window. For a second Beca debated. She had spent years constructing an emotional barrier between her and Chloe, at the moment a physical one seemed like reinforcement. The option to stay in her car with a dead phone on a more or less deserted road didn't win out over logic...sadly.

Half the window was rolled down and somehow she managed to feel the air around her had been taken.

"Aubrey called." Chloe offered after a long pause. She waited, gave Beca the option to absorb what was happening. That after years of not talking they managed to meet in the middle of practically nowhere. Beca looked back with conflicting thoughts, a wave of resentment which passed in a second and settled into confusion.

"I have a cottage twenty minutes out." She said gently as though her soft tone would mollify their past and ease it into irrelevancy.

"Can I borrow your phone?" Beca tried to sound robotic but heard her anger slip out. She almost cringed but thought who the fuck cares, I'm not an actress, I'm freaking pissed. What the absolute fuck. By the time her thoughts completed Chloe had taken her phone from her back pocket and held it out.

Beca took it, purposefully avoided touching Chloe in any way and rolled the window back up. With a few breaths she tried to calm down as she turned her music back on. Luckily Iron and Wine came through. After a swipe she groaned and stopped to glare at the enter password prompt, completely ignoring Chloe in the process, who from out of the corner of her eye had taken a step away and had her back turned. The brunette didn't want to roll down the window again and ask another question and have any sort of conversation with Chloe. Instead she typed in what used to be Chloe's password, drawing it from memory like a high school locker combination. Only this was the date they became official. Then she really glared at the phone when it worked and allowed her access. Quickly she scrolled through the contacts, didn't find Jesse but Aubrey was in. Without thinking she hit the icon to call.

"That was quick. You're alive? She didn't verbally accost you?" Aubrey said in that annoying, caring tone that was rare and reserved for Chloe or anyone in her small group she felt loyal to

"She's fine," Beca seethed. "Put Jesse on." She demanded in her business tone that she had hoped she wouldn't have been forced to use on vacation.

"Beca.." The blonde tried.

"Put. Jesse. On." She didn't allow herself to add so help me god because she really wanted the call to be short.

"...hi Becaaaw," he tried to joke.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She yelled.

"Okay. So Chloe lives nearby and she can have one of the local guys change the tire out tomorrow cause they're closed, cause you chose a small town to go through," he said quickly.

"You're making this into my fault?" She asked and pinched the bridge of her nose because the tension headache officially made itself home.

"It was the only option Becs, she lives close by." Jesse said casually.

"Why does she live in the freaking country? She always liked cities," she said more so to her memory of Chloe than her college friend.

"You can ask her yourself and get off the phone or I'll give Aubrey back her phone," Jesse pushed, knowing Beca enjoyed talking to the blonde as much as she enjoyed going to the dentist and in fact talked to Aubrey so infrequently referred to it as her yearly check up of checking in.

With ease and without remorse she ended the call. Without turning her head she rolled down the window and focused on the steering wheel, the dashboard, the road, anything in front of her.

Castle by Halsey was playing lightly through the speakers but she could hear every word. Somehow it seemed fitting.

"It should only take a day."

"An entire twenty-four hours with you?" Beca asked bitterly and gripped the steering wheel, annoyed that she hadn't contained her anger. Years ago she had played scenarios of what she would say to Chloe if they met. Something sincere, something nice, and something not this. Because she never wanted to be mean. Or cruel. Or harsh, but she hated when she felt out of control.

"I'll try to make it less for you." Chloe said with consideration, having quickly picked up on Beca's attitude and took a step back. With a twist of her wrist the brunette took the keys out, refocused on minute details of the handle, the ground, where to step to create space between herself and Chloe as she got out. More than anything she tried to avoid looking at her.

She'll still be gorgeous.

"We don't have to..." Beca was already putting her headphones on and barely heard the word talk as she already made her way to the car behind hers. Again she opened the trunk and pulled out her antique travel bag. Quickly she shut it.The sooner this is done I'm out.

It was abundantly clear in the hard actions that Beca wanted it all over with.

To Chloe the act said enough but Beca skipped to the next track as Bon Iver's I Can't Make You Love Me started to play. Paramore doing an acoustic version of Misery Business worked better. She wasn't about to lay down her heart. A song inspiring her to do so was emotional suicide but she felt Chloe looking at her. It was a chose she kept looking out the window.

"Is there a hotel in town?" She asked having turned down her volume, cursing her phone for dying and not being able to look it up herself. She was two hours away from her destination and didn't exactly memorize emergency options.

"No. I have a guest room." Chloe stated factually and finally Beca looked at her for longer than a second.

Gorgeous. Tired. Beautiful.

She watched Chloe open her mouth and close it again.

It didn't take her long to get here. So she maybe wasn't busy. Again she subtly turned down her volume and watched Chloe raise her own on the dial. Taylor Swift's over fifteen year old song Everything Has Changed was coming through and Chloe tiled her head, leaned against the window and looked reserved and...exhaustedBeca thought but turned away to avoid anymore observations that would garner sympathy. It wasn't part of her duty or unwritten rules of friendship that she had to care for Chloe anymore. That applied if there was a friendship. Silence was easier. And also harder.

"We've wasted time. You were right. In the moment is all we have," Chloe said like she was giving a confession she had held in for years, memorized and finally presented with a relieved sigh.

"Don't. Don't do this." Beca said after it seeped in what Chloe was implying as she powered off her music completely.

"Okay. What have you been up to?" She asked like they were at a reunion.

After a pause and the slight shock dissipated Beca replied,"been studying the way the world works."

"Mmm that's nice. And what have you learned?" Chloe asked with patience.

"I am haunted by humans." She said without any emotion.

"Don't steal lines from books," Chloe said with slight amusement.

"The first line was from a book too," Beca replied without a beat and then dismissed Chloe because it was safer to pick references than honesty. And she wasn't about to ask Chloe 'what have you been up to' because it went against the second to last conversation Chloe had with her.

"We'll be there in three minutes. The door is unlocked, guest room is at the top of the stairs on the right. If you need anything," she paused and took a deep breath like she had run half a mile in a full sprint, "my room is at the bottom left, feel free to ask for anything," she finished and Beca glanced over. Fatigue reached her eyes, had taken hold and dulled the blue.

"I don't want to be in the same room as you so I doubt I'll ask anything."

"Beca, I know I asked a lot from you, but..."

"Nothing. There isn't anything to say. It was done when you asked me to stop caring." She whispered in anger, feeling it would come out as a yell otherwise and she hated yelling. With eyes focused on the driveway she waited for the car to at least come to a halt before she got out and made a point to not slam the door. Anger was there but she didn't feel the need to overtly display it.

"If you want...if you think there's anything to say I'll be downstairs," the redhead said once she was out of the car. She watched Beca stand still, turn around and look at her then somewhat through her which was more of a feeling than an expression.

"Time allowed caring to slip, fade, and dwindle." She said like she was telling a story, like she hadn't experienced it. You made that happen. You were the catalyst.

"That's...nicely.." she took an uneven breath, "stated."

"I'm a curator of words," she said sarcastically and walked through the front door.

By seven o'clock Chloe knocked and asked through the closed door "do you want anything to eat?" She waited a good ten seconds before knocking again when she didn't receive an answer. Five seconds later she opened the door and found the made bed with a phone charging and an empty room. When she turned around she almost ran into Beca who quickly took a step back to avoid collision or touching the redhead at all.

"I was wondering if you wanted anything to eat." The taller woman asked again. She wasn't surprised when Beca shook her head. She was a little surprised that the action made her sway slightly.

"Are you drunk?"

The brunette narrowed her eyes. "Tipsy." Beca said defensively.

"Brought it with you?" Chloe leaned against the door frame, feeling she needed the support against this Beca, one she should have prepared for but wasn't.

"I wasn't about to steal any of yours. My own. If you must know," she said with a fierceness that sounded like 'I dare you to ask me another one of your infernal fucking questions'. It made Chloe question if Beca was right...being in the same room together wasn't the best idea.

"I'll get you some water," the older woman said, seeing an escape and made to move around the smaller woman.

The minute break seemed to be enough to build up her courage. She knew it was insane to think Beca would be civil, but she found it hard to believe she was flat out hostile she thought as she slowly made her way down to the kitchen.

As she walked back to the stairs she looked up and saw Beca twist her neck. The cracks were heard from the fourteen steps down and made her cringe. Like she was preparing for a fight. She was surprised the brunette came down the stairs of her own volition.

"Do you want anything else?" She said after Beca had smoothly taken the glass, careful again not to touch her then took a drink. Obvious in her purposeful movements. In a daze she watched as the shorter woman drank, her neck muscles rippling, distracting, making her feel masochistic and parched.

"I wanted a lot of things." Beca said with a sigh as she held the empty glass cradled in her hand, pressed against her collar bone, shirt askew. Chloe breathed deeply, feeling the words and their weight. And she waited because if memory served her right Beca talked more when she indulged in a few drinks. "I wanted to love you once. Now I don't think I could allow it." She said in what seemed like a very long exhale. "I used to have rules. Don't text you when drinking or after midnight, everything seems like a good idea then. An illusion. Don't try, don't care. Sums it up."

"I still care about you."

"You said that years ago. Funny how I still don't believe it." Beca turned to go up the stairs but first placed the glass on the step.

"And what-you have to see it to believe it?" Chloe countered, forced the brunette to turn back around.

"That's how the saying goes," blue, almost grey eyes narrowed with a smirk following, like it was obvious and now she was just getting the chance to be a smart-ass. But Chloe was taking in how her eyes were more grey than their usual dark blue.

"How tipsy are you on a scale from one to ten?" Chloe asked in an odd professional tone.

"Two." Beca said with certainty and her eyes narrowed more, wondering where the redhead who was currently shorter was going with this.

"Okay." Chloe said with determination with threw Beca off from her previous, strangely medical tone she was used to doctors of nurses using.

"Okay?"

Chloe moved forward and kissed her. Like it was everything.

Part 2-The ending is next. I wanted to break this up because its tiring to write.

The line study of the world is from Crooked Heart. I am haunted by humans is fromThe Book Thief.