Aca-moms

On the way back from the diner Chloe gets a phone call from her landlord who tells her that pipes in the apartment building had burst. After dropping off Mrs Junk and Emily Beca drives the three of them to Chloe's apartment to check it out.

When they enter, Beca is shocked, not so much by the layer of water on the floor, but by the apartment. It is pretty small and so not Chloe. The furniture is pretty generic and the colours are boring. Unlike Chloe’s room at Barden, there are hardly any personal touches to the interior. There’s the bookshelves with a couple of pictures on them, one is a picture of their time at Worlds, one is a picture of Chloe and Aubrey as Bella captains, and then there are some of Chloe’s parents and her brothers.

Chloe comes back into the living room and sighs:

"Okay, I talked to my landlord. Apparently this in going to take a while, and in the meantime I will have to stay somewhere else..."

David tugs on his mother's jacket and asks: ""Mom, she can stay with us, right?"

"Oh Becs, please can I?" Chloe pouts.

"Well, you've got the keys to my house, so I guess I can't keep you out", Beca smirks.

Chloe high fives David and crushes Beca in a hug.

After gathering the necessary items they leave the apartments with two big bags of Chloe's stuff.

Back at Beca’s apartment, Beca hesitates for a minute.

"Uhm, I haven't set up the guest rooms yet, but we could go pick out some furniture over the weekend for your room. Until then you're free to sleep with me, or on the couch, whatever you prefer."

Chloe knows that it was probably a bad idea to move in with Beca, albeit temporarily. And she knows that she definitely should have opted for the couch, but she can’t help herself. She just wants to be close to the little brunette. She loves the girl and even though she knows that her love will probably never be returned like that, she’ll take what she can get. If that is being friends, then she’ll be Beca’s best friend. And sure she can cuddle with her, friends do that, right?

Quickly they settle into a routine, Chloe helps with the little things around the house, although Beca keeps insisting that she doesn’t have to. The evenings usually ended with all three of them in front of the TV, watching cartoons or Disney movies with David, until it was David's bed time. After that Beca would allow Chloe to pick the channels, not minding what they'd watch, as long as they could sit there together, talking incidentally, parts of their bodies always touching.

For the third weekend in a row they decided that the weather was just too nice not to go to the park and that it would be a shame to spend it inside looking at furniture. They both felt like this procrastination was actually a silent agreement on their current sleeping arrangements. Chloe's clothes had made their way into the walk-in closet in the master bedroom and Beca suspects that Chloe had been back to her own apartment a few times, dragging more and more stuff over to Beca's.

One afternoon Beca is home early, and when Chloe an David come home from school, David asks the two girls to go swimming in the pool. Chloe easily gets infected with David's enthusiasm and after a little convincing Beca agrees and they head to the basement where the pool is.

Most occupants of the building use the pool in the early morning or at night to get a workout in, so at this time of the day they are the only visitors. David can't really swim yet, but likes to practice it. With the help of his armbands he swims between the two girls. After a while David gets tired and he and Beca hang on to the edge as Chloe swims some laps. After a little while the boy gets cold and they get out of the pool, wrapping themselves in the towels they brought.

In the meantime one of the other tenants has arrived, some smug guy that Beca had seen in the elevator a couple of times. He puts his stuff down on one of the other poolside benches. When he sees Chloe emerging from the water, he whistles at her. Beca’s jaw clenches and her brow furrows, and she shouts at him:

“Hey dude, keep it in your pants”

The blunt shout makes Chloe giggle and the man looks disturbed. When they gather their stuff to head upstairs, the redhead gives her a quick peck on the shoulder.

“My pocket-sized knight-in-shining-amour”

Beca huffs, but the corners of her mouth curl upwards.

On Monday Chloe comes home with a stressed look on her face. Beca is sitting at one end of the dining table and Chloe settles across from her.

"Beca, I need a huge favor. Mrs Bloom, who plays the piano for the recitals, tripped and broke her wrist. And you are the only one I know who can accompany singers on the piano. Please, help me out? The concert is at the end of the week and you are the only one I could think of on such short notice." Chloe looks at her with a pleading look in those baby blues.

Beca sighs, knowing she'll have a hard time resisting her. "Let me check with the office if I can block some time this week."

When Beca checked with her assistant, it turned out that she had a few deadlines coming up, but no meetings. Not wanting to let Chloe down, she ends up working early mornings so she can spend the afternoons at the school to practice.

Beca had been at the school for four afternoons that week, rehearsing with various groups of children. She had enjoyed it more than she thought she would. She had done it for Chloe and David in the first place, but the love of music she saw in some of these kids had truly moved her. One day after school a little boy and girl had hesitantly come up to her, asking her about playing the piano. She had let them behind the piano, played a bit for them and taught them a simple piece. The looks on the kids’ faces had been priceless.

The parent committee had arranged food for the kids so they could eat before the concert and they had all gone to their classrooms to eat. Beca was in the auditorium setting up at the piano. After putting the sheet music in the right order, she warms up her hands by playing some scales. After that she plays some random songs that come to mind. When she plays Emily's song Flashlight, she starts to sing along. She doesn't notice when Alice comes in until she finishes.

"Oh hi, Beca, I didn't mean to disturb you, but I brought you some food. You've got quite a voice if you don't mind me saying."

"Thank you."

"I was surprised to hear that you were going to play at the recital. I thought you didn't have time for that?"

"Well..erhm Music is my passion, and the kids would be so disappointed if they had to cancel the whole thing. So yeah, I made an exception." Beca replies, leaving out the big role Chloe had played in her decision.

Beca and Alice walked over to some of the benches at the side of the stage, so they could sit as Beca ate.

"So, do you work in music? Are you a singer? That song you were singing is from some other girl, right? Emma or something?"

"It's Emily, and I'm a producer. I actually helped Emily with the demo of that song back when we were in college. After college I moved to LA, and she stayed behind to finish college. Now that I moved to Atlanta to run a studio here, we're actually working together again"

"Wow, that's impressive, a music producer. But no performer then?"

"No, I'm just way more comfortable doing what I do in relative anonymity. And composing and arranging is what I love to do, finding parts that go together to create something beautiful. Plus I get to work with a lot of talented people on a range of projects... So yeah.."

"Wow, impressive. I used to sing in college and I loved it, but I just became a legal assistant until I had kids."

"Oh, what kind of singing did you do?"

"Well, I was in acapella, but nothing major, we didn't really win competitions or anything."

"That's funny, believe it or not, I was in acapella too. What group were you part of?"

"I was a member of The Aca-demiX, but we never made it past regionals. What group were you in?"

"Actually I am a Barden Bella..."

Alice clasps her hands over her mouth. "Oh my, so you already knew Ms Beale when I-"

Alice is interrupted by a voice that comes from the hallway. "Becs, are you still in here? I got you some food, we wouldn't want you to-"

Chloe stops when she sees that Beca isn't alone. "Oh, hi Alice, I didn't see you there.."

"Come in Beale, we were just talking about music. Did you know Alice was in acapella too?"

"Really, so you told her about your aca-college days?"

"Well I am a proud Bella woman,” Beca grins, “But nothing specific, Alice was just figuring out that I probably knew you already, that night she introduced us when you came in."

"Oh, I'm sorry about that, Alice, I was just having a little fun with Beca."

"Oh, it's fine Ms Beale, but do you also mean that Beca was your co-captain?"

Beca takes it upon her to answer that, because Chloe looks at her questioning. "Yeah, I was. We hadn't seen each other in a while. With the general school policy and to prevent others from judging David, we sorta kept our friendship under the radar, being the new kid is already hard enough. So we would like your discretion, if you understand."

Alice nods.

The three women chat for a little while longer until it is time to get the kids ready and to let the parents in. Alice and Chloe go back to help with that and Beca goes backstage to prepare.

The concert turns out to be a great success. Beca is very happy with it, she doesn't even mind the compulsory mingling that much today. Chloe notices and in the car on the way back she asks about it.

"So, you enjoyed yourself today?"

"Yeah, I really did, not just today, the entire week."

"And you made friends with Alice..."

"Well, friends... But she is okay. When I first met her I thought she was one of those moms who try to control everything. But I think she does it for the kids, and that's good. I mean the kids really enjoy it and there is no way the staff can do it all, so it's great there are people like Alice."

They sit in silence for a while, until Beca speaks up again.

"Chloe, I loved the love of music in those children."

"Aww, you're turning into a softy Mitchell."

" No Chlo, I'm serious. I want to contribute more to the music program. Just let me know what I can do. I mean I have more than enough resources if you need instruments or equipment, but I would also really like to put my time in, maybe get some of my people involved too.."

Another silence follows in which Beca starts to play with Chloe’s hand that is on the armrest between them.

“Hey Chlo, I really want to thank you for all your help. Even though you don’t have to, but I really appreciate it. It’s just… I thought David and I were doing fine, and we were, but now that we do the stuff together, I don’t know, I just like how we have more time to things. To relax, or to do things like this week. I never allowed myself to have time for that… Thank you.”

Chloe patiently listens to the rambling of the little brunette while David is sleeping in the backseat. When Beca stops talking, Chloe lifts their joint hands and presses her lips to them for a few seconds. The couple of minute remaining on their journey home they sit in a comfortable silence.