Tears and ashes

Ch.1 (Who died?)

It felt like the funeral came straight out of a movie. A man I have never seen before in my life and will probably never see again, is reading from the bible about how lord giveth and taketh away, it's raining and the dark clouds are shading the sunlight, everybody has the same black umbrella and the most important character from the story (or in this case: me) is turned with their back to the crowd crying and staring at the wooden casket with some flowers thrown on it.

"I wasn't ready to lose you", I say as I put down the umbrella and let the raindrops hide my tears….

4 months it has been since the auditions and as Chloe had predicted, Beca and she became close friends really fast.

Beca has been feeling rather confused about their friendship. She just feels so different when she's around the redhead and it's difficult not to smile whenever they are together.

The brunette leans back on her elbows as she listens to one of her mixes. Her headphones cover some of her beautiful brown hair and are connected to the laptop next to her.

She's so caught up in her music that she doesn't sense a certain ginger squatting next to her and saying her name.

She doesn't want to scare the DJ and just gently lays her hand on the girl's shoulder.

Beca jumps anyways and quickly takes her headphones off.

"Hey Red, what's up?", Beca closes her laptop and puts her stuff in her bag.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Just wondering if you want to go get lunch before rehearsals in the auditorium.", Chloe takes a lock of the brunette's hair that was in her face and puts it behind the girl's ear making Beca feel tingles.

They walk to the diner called 24/7 Barden and order the usual.

Beca always eats a cheeseburger with some mayo and hot sauce on it and some fries which she shares with Chloe. She drinks a black coffee in the morning, but in the afternoon it's usually Coke or Iced tea.

The waiter doesn't even have to ask what Chloe orders since everyone at the diner knows that the ginger is the only person at Barden university that eats the one non-fast-food dish on the menu: meatloaf.

Before she knew Beca she used to drink tea in the morning, but now she has switched to coffee with lots of milk, but no sugar and in the afternoon it's a strawberry or chocolate milkshake.

They eat for about 10 min and then chat and drink their drinks.

When they are all done and finished, they decide to take the long way to the auditorium and talk some more.

Beca never really was a talker, but it just feels so much easier when she's with Chloe. It doesn't feel annoying or awkward and she's really interested in the redhead too.

When they arrive at the auditorium, Aubrey is there as the only one, waiting for the rest. She always is about 30 min early, but she doesn't seem to mind.

"Hey Chlo!", she goes over to the tall girl and hugs her.

She just stares down Beca and they both give a small smile that they don't really seem to mean.

"Midget.", Aubrey says with a greeting voice and nods to the tiny girl who in return rolls her eyes and says: Always a pleasure Blondie.", Aubrey stares at her with narrow eyes for a few moments and then turns around to write today's `to-do list` on the board.

After a lot of cardio, Aubrey bossing the Bella's around and Chloe trying to teach everyone how to do what she thought was a simple dance, everyone's wrecked and the captains let them go. It's already dark out and some of the girls decide to walk home together, but the DJ wants some silence after the tiring training and says goodbye to all the Bella's.

Beca is on her way to her dormitory when she hears a whimper nearby.

She follows the sounds that seem to be coming from an alleyway and finds a male student forcing a girl against the brick wall and pulling her hair back so he can kiss her neck. She's squirming and trying to escape, but he's stronger and holds her in ways she can't fight against. Tears are running down her cheeks and from her chin to her neck and she keeps moving her head away from his face to the brick wall, his hot, dirty breath reeking of alcohol making his victim sick.

She's crying out for help and asks him to stop and to please let her go, but her voice is raspy and soft and every time she tries to shout he throws her against the wall harder and puts his hand on her neck letting her know that he's the boss of her.

"If you just stop trying to get away, this would be a lot easier for the both of us okay babe", he says with a gravelly voice and grins starting to reach for her chest when Beca throws herself at him and tries to pull him away from the girl, but the boy is way bigger than she is and gets pushed away so aggressively that she hits her face against the other wall cutting her lip and getting a hit to the head making her right eyebrow bleed. She holds her head in pain but picks herself up again trying to ignore the fact that there is blood streaming down her forehead. Her ribs hurt as well, but she can still move her body without stabbing pains in her chest, so they're probably not broken.

The young man is assaulting the other girl again, so Beca takes this as her shot.

"Hey!", she shouts at him.

He lets the girl go and twists his body far enough to see the brunette, "What? Do you want more?", Beca walks toward him and punches him right on his nose.

He stumbles back and whines holding the painful area and looking at his hand seeing blood stream down the ball of it. Beca is lucky since he's obviously drunk and thus easier to fight against.

"You little bitch! You broke my fucking nose!", he shouts. The girl that Tom was groping has now turned around and leans her back against the wall unable to move and watching the boy running towards the brunette.

He tries to punch her, but he was sprinting at her and lifting his arm in such an obvious drunken way that Beca simply just takes a step to the side and ducks her head a little.

Tom still feeling dizzy from the punch and being under the influence, almost falls, but catches himself and turns around to try again.

When he turns though he immediately finds the smaller girl punching him ones more on the right side of his jaw.

The bleeding young man takes a few uncoordinated steps and falls with his head against the cold bricks.

Beca makes sure he's passed out and then rushes to the young woman still frozen. She just has a few little scratches on her face from being pushed against the wall with such force, but other than that, she's okay physically.

When sure she's okay after asking her a few questions, she takes out her phone and dials 911.

The paramedics did not only take the assaulter to the hospital to fix him up but took Beca with them as well.

The punches fractured her hand. Her wrist is luckily not broken, but it still needs to rest and her knuckles are damaged and bleeding, so they gave her bandages to put around it and extra ones to change every day. They cleaned the blood off her lip and face and stitched her forehead. Her ribs took a big hit, but they aren't broken or fractured. She does have a big bruise on her abdomen and it does still hurt a lot if anything bumps against it.

After a couple of hours, she is ready to leave the hospital and just wants to check on the probably traumatized young woman. She doesn't know how the creep is doing, but she honestly doesn't care.

A police officer had questioned her about what had happened and the brunette had told him the full story and asked how the girl was doing.

"Physically: she's gonna be fine and just has some scratches on her face and bruises on her body, but emotionally… she's gonna take a few days or a week if needed, off from college and work and stay with her parents for a while. That boy assaulting her was her ex and apparently on his way to apologize and fix their relationship, but when they met outside her dorm in the alleyway, she had turned him down a couple of times and asked him to leave. He had way too much to drink tonight and wasn't thinking clearly, so instead of letting her go, he slammed her against the wall and was gonna do who knows what god awful things if you hadn't shown up.", the officer pads Beca's shoulder and in return the girl smiles softly, "And that godawful boy is gonna get the deserved punishment don't you worry about that.".

Beca feels a stinging pain in her hand and gently holds it with her other one. She tries to hide the grimace on her face, but the officer can see it.

"You threw some mean hits there kiddo. Where'd ya learn that?", Beca's head shoots up and her eyes widen.

Calming herself and trying not to breathe heavily she says: "I did MMA as a kid and I guess that stuff just stays with you forever.", she forces a closed mouth chuckle and the officer laughs with her.

"Well you did a great thing protecting that lady and you'd make a fine part of our squad.", he writes down some notes on his pad while Beca is still processing what he just said to her.

"You mean… the police?", the officer nods, wishes her the best and then gets up and walks out leaving Beca with a very confused face.

Beca had called Chloe and asked her if she could come to pick her up. She was now waiting outside the hospital when seeing the redhead basically run towards her with a worried but also relieved smile.

"Becs thank god you're okay!", the ginger pulls her friend into an embrace quickly letting go when she hears Beca groan and remembers that she probably has some serious injuries after the recent events.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Your hand must really hurt.", she curses at herself for being so stupid and reckless and Beca can see that so she gently leans forward and turns her head, so Chloe can give her a soft hug.

"It wasn't my hand btw, I have some bruises on my stomach. There small, so it's all fine. Just don't jump at me like that for a while.", they both chuckle.

They walk towards the parking space behind the hospital while Chloe is asking all sorts of questions.

Beca who's about to tell Chloe what had happened stops talking in the middle of her sentence and stands still when she sees her dad next to his jeep.

"You called my dad?! Chloe!", Beca turns to the redhead.

"I'm sorry. It's just… when we were on the phone and you said that you were in the hospital with police, I didn't know exactly how bad it was and I got nervous and I didn't know if I had to call someone. I remembered that your dad works at Barden so…", Chloe defends herself, but it doesn't seem to help and Beca just gets angrier.

"That doesn't mean you call my father! You know what, just go!", Beca walks towards her dad's jeep.

"I just wanted to help.", Chloe's eyes start to fill with tears. She's shocked that Beca would react this way.

"Well I don't need your help, so just back off!", when she turns around ones more she sees how Chloe is on the verge of crying and feels bad. She shouldn't have shouted, but the words were already out there.

"Dad I-I can explain.", she tries to tell him what happened, but he doesn't wanna hear it.

"No Beca save it! You got in a fight again and you could've easily stayed out of it and call the cops so they could handle it! You are not above the law and you are not an officer, so will you stop trying to 'make justice'.", her dad opens the door for her and slams it closed.

Chloe tries to figure out in her head what he meant by saying she got in a fight again and how she's trying to 'make justice'. She calls Aubrey and asks to give her a drive home. on the ride back to Barden she doesn't say a word and the blonde captain worries about her best friend gazing out the window and softly sobbing.