Aca-moms

Beca has just shown one of her clients out when she feels her phone buzz.

Chloe 2:30PM Hey Becs, please call me ASAP

Beca immediately picks up the phone, worried about David. It takes a while for Chloe to pick up, and from her hushed tone Beca gathers she has just stepped outside her classroom.

"Hey Chlo, what's wrong?"

"Uhm, David has been in a fight. According to school policy both parents need to come to school and talk about it."

" Uhm, okay… what happened?"

"We think another boy bullied him and he reacted violently... But he won't talk to me anymore...suddenly he shut himself off completely... Becs, please come and talk to him. Then we can figure out what happened before the other parents come to talk."

"Okay, I'm on my way."

When Beca reaches the school, Chloe lets Beca into a small room.

"Beca, in the meantime I've talked to some other kids and they tell me he was being bullied about his family, but they didn't really know details... I'll get David" she says and leaves the room.

When Chloe returns with David, the boy rushes over to his mother, who draws him tight to her, comforting him.

"Okay, I'll leave you guys to it." Chloe says.

"No", comes a muffled cry from Beca's chest, "please stay"

"Can you?" Beca looks up to Chloe.

"Yeah, I left the kids with an assignment and one of the supporting staff is looking after them."

Chloe comes closer and sits next to Beca.

"Okay, can you tell us what happened?" Beca asks as she moves David in her lap, so they can talk.

"We were outside... and Jake came and he said really mean things. He said that nobody loved me... Cause I only had a weird mom. And... and I was really hurt, cause it isn't true right?" He said, looking up to Beca, who nodded at him, before he continues. "And I told him I have Jesse...and Stacie... And Emily...and I have my moms."

Beca and Chloe's eyes shoot up to meet in shock. But David just continues.

"And they said that that wasn't real and I said it was, cause Jesse is like... an uncle and Stacie is like my aunt and Emily always says she is my big sis, but then Jake started singing ‘liar, liar’ and I kicked him. And he pushed me and I pushed back and tried to run, but he tripped me and then I called for Chloe, but I was confused, cause I was so sad, so I didn't say Ms Beale, but I said Mom, and all the other kids laughed again. I'm so sorry. Please don't be mad." David starts to sob again and pulls back against Beca.

"Hey, it's okay." Chloe says as she gently strokes his arm. "You were upset."

"But why did you say you have two moms?" Beca asks, afraid she already knows the answer.

"Well …" David starts "Chloe lives with us, right? And she makes me dinner, and breakfast and lunch. And when I'm sad she cuddles me. And when I was sick she took care of me too. And she puts me to bed. And she does so much more, like all stuff you do? And she loves us and we love her, right? So she is like my mom too?" He finishes hesitantly. “But I wasn’t going to tell them it’s Ms Beale..” he adds.

"Oh that's so sweet" Chloe answers and Beca looks at her with disbelief.

Beca then speaks up and says: " I guess what you're saying about Chloe is true, but technically she’s not…"

Then there is a knock on the door and the principal announces that he sent her class home and that Jake's father is here. Chloe thanks him and tells him they'll be out in a minute.

"Okay, David we'll talk about this later. You go home with Jesse, and we will see you there okay?"

"Chlo, I'll go talk to Jesse and tell him to go ahead to the apartment and that we'll join him later. Did I forget to tell you he was taking David for the weekend?" Beca asks as she sees the puzzled look on Chloe’s face.

Beca quickly rushes outside and hands a confused Jesse her keys and tells him to take David and go to the apartment.

To her surprise the redhead is waiting for her in the hallway.

"Look Chlo, I'm sorry for this mess."

Chloe quickly squeezes Beca's hand "Don't worry, it will be fine. It happens more often that kids call their teachers mom."

They enter the meeting room where Jake's father is already waiting for them. Beca recognizes him as they guy that was bothering Chloe at the first concert, and she is already annoyed. He introduces himself as Mr Adams. Both women shake his hand and they sit down around the table.

"So," Chloe starts, "you're both here, because there has been an incident involving your sons. According to school policy, we sit down the parents of both kids to talk about the incident, so they can discuss it with them as well. The case is that your kids were in a fight on the school yard this afternoon."

"A fight?! You mean my son was attacked by that brat of hers." Mr Adams yells pointing at Beca.

Beca feels her anger rising, and she is impressed by Chloe who remains calm and professional.

Chloe interrupts him: "We have indications that the incident started after Jake made some remarks that were hurtful to David."

"So, you're saying he asked for it?! That's completely ridiculous, this is a disgrace, I'm going to .." 

"Mr Adams, calm down. We are going to have an adult conversation here, I will not have you yelling. I'm not trying to defend the fact that David reacted violently, that is still unacceptable. Bullying on the other hand, is also not tolerated in this school." Chloe interrupts him.

Mr Adams sinks back in his chair and sighs: "Look, I’m sorry Ms Beale, it is just, it's so stressful being a single parent. And it's hard on Jake too, ever since his mother left us for someone else, he has trouble making sense of it all and he can be a little unpredictable..."

Beca gets what he is trying to do and it makes her blood boil. Until now she had managed to keep her cool surprisingly well, but now she lashes out:

"So if it is all so hard on your kid, having only one parent and all, he should definitely have known better than to bully another child for having only a mom.."

Under the table she feels Chloe's hand on her arm and it has the desired effect. She calms down and mumbles an apology.

Chloe takes control over the conversation again: "Okay, I think it doesn't really matter what exactly was said and done. We can all agree that both boys were wrong in what they did. If you will talk to them about it over the weekend, I will sit them down on Monday to apologize. Agreed?"

Both parents agree and shake hands again as a sign of agreement and that the meeting is over. 

Mr Adams lingers to try to get Chloe alone. Beca notices this and hurries out of the building. Once she is in the parking lot she calls Chloe.

Chloe was still inside, slightly pissed at Beca for leaving her with that creep. Then she hears her phone ring, and she smiles when she sees the caller ID. Quickly she picks up, pretending to be called about an emergency she rushes out leaving Mr Adams behind.

She finds Beca in the parking lot at her car. Not to be seen by anyone around they get into the car and drive off. 

"Thanks for the ride, I had to give my car to Jesse, he had no car here to take David home."

"It's okay, I think no one saw us."

"Hey, I want to apologize for this mess. I couldn't forgive myself if I got you in trouble at work. I mean, I know how much you love that job. I should have seen that this would get messy... confusing..."

"Beca, I don't blame you. I should have seen it coming too... Remember last week, when David fell asleep on the couch and I carried him to his bed? He called me 'mom' then. I didn't see any harm in that, I thought he was just sleepy or something... But it happened again in the beginning of the week. I should have told you."

"It's fine, I probably would have shared your opinion back then. But after today... I need time to think, and I want to talk to you about it, and we definitely need to talk to him about it."

After a moment of silence Beca says: "Chlo, Jesse is taking David until Sunday afternoon. We have the whole weekend to ourselves, what do you want to do?"

"Oh shit, Becs, I forgot about this weekend. Aubrey is back from Europe for a week. I agreed to go shopping with her on Saturday to catch up. But we can do stuff tonight and tomorrow night too if you like?"

"Oh, it's great that Aubrey is back, how long has she been in Europe?"

"Almost a year now, I missed her like crazy."

"Well, I hope you have fun tomorrow. Let's go out tonight and we'll see about tomorrow night, if you want you can make plans with her too, I understand."

"Thanks"

They sit in silence for the rest of the drive, incidentally singing along to the radio. 

When they get home they find Jesse and David waiting for them. Beca greets both with a kiss on the cheek. Jesse awkwardly shakes Chloe's hand and David gives her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

"Look, Beca, it's getting late, and I want to take David out for pizza before heading to my apartment.  We'll talk on Sunday."

“Apartment? I thought you were staying at a hotel?”

“Well, uhm, yeah, I got an offer to stay at a friend’s apartment. Way more convenient. But we really have to go now.”

"Yeah, okay, that's fine. His bag is already in the hallway." she tells Jesse, then she turns to David and says: "Right little man, be nice to Jesse. Behave and don't let him feed you too much candy or popcorn. Have fun!"

When they have said goodbye and the two boys are out the door. Beca says: "Hey, what do you say? How about we order some takeout and get ready for a girls' night out afterwards?"

"Sounds good, what about Chinese?"

"Sounds great, I'll call them."

Beca calls in their usual order and while they wait for the food to arrive, they watch some TV, not really feeling like talking as both process the events of the day.

They had chosen a bar where there was live music and dancing on Friday nights, but that wasn't so loud that they couldn't talk anymore. After a few drinks they had danced a while and now they were sitting in a booth, both sipping from a bottle of beer.

The girls chatted a bit about all sorts of things, until Chloe drops a question:

"Hey Becs, I was watching you and Jesse, and you still seem very comfortable around each other. What made you think that you guys couldn't make it work?"

"Well, for starters, our careers were taking us in different directions, geographically, but what was probably most important, although I didn't realize that part until much later, is that Jesse isn't a girl..." Beca grins, feeling brave on liquid courage.

Chloe was about to take another swig of her beer when the brunette dropped that last sentence. The surprise of what she just heard caused her jaw to drop and she tilts her bottle before it reached her mouth, spilling a large gulf of beer on her pants.

"Woah, Beale, you seem to have missed your mouth there, even though you opened it far enough." Beca teases.

"Well, you can't just drop stuff like that on people, Mitchell, we definitely need to talk about that. But I want to clean myself up first." Chloe returns the teasing.

She gets up to the bathrooms and leaves Beca behind in the booth. In the bathroom she uses paper towels to absorb as much of the beer as possible. When she can't get it any dryer she takes of her (well, Beca's) plaid shirt and ties it around her waist, so that the sleeves cover most of the stain.

 ******************

When Chloe makes her way back through the crowd she suddenly feels a hand on her wrist. She turns around and looks straight into the face of a clearly intoxicated Mr Adams.

"Ms Beale, how lovely to see you here. I want to apologize again. I talked with Jake and explained him it's not okay to fight. It won't happen again."

"Okay, that's good, Mr Adams." Chloe says as she tries to get out of his grip.

"Like I said before, please call me Will. And can I offer you a drink?" He says with that sleazy grin of his on his face.

"No thanks, Mr Adams. Like I said before, I prefer to keep a professional relationship with all parents."

She feels his grip tighten and the grin disappears.

"You think I didn't see you earlier, with the mom of the brat that kicked my son?"

Chloe feels a pain in her chest and she tries to pull away from him, but he only pulls her closer.

"You aren't one of them filthy dykes, are you? I can totally see her being one, but it would be such a waste of a pretty girl like you.." He slurs.

Chloe is torn between crying and punching the guy. Luckily she feels him release his grip as more and more people start looking at them. Quickly she moves away from him making her way back to Beca, she needs to get out of here.

**************

The brunette was just starting to worry as she sees Chloe approaching. She likes the look of her in a tank top showing off her toned arms with her waving red hair. But as she came closer, Beca could see a storm in those blue eyes, and something felt off, causing a knot in her stomach.

"Come on Beca, let's go somewhere else", Chloe says, pulling her up from her seat.

Beca tries to ask what's wrong, but Chloe refuses to answer and pulls her to a club a little down the street. The music here is much louder and talking is nearly impossible. So when they get to the bar and Chloe orders four shots, Beca is still not able to get Chloe to talk to her. Instead Chloe makes her down two of the shots, and pulls her to dance floor. Chloe doesn't dance with Beca, like they did before, but just seems to loose herself completely in the deep bass beats. More shots and more dancing follow until they are almost too drunk to stand. Beca somehow manages to get both of them in a cab and home.

In the morning Beca wakes up with a giant headache and some alcohol induced memory loss. Immediately closing her eyes again, she turns over to her other side and stretches out an arm to pull Chloe close. Instead of the warm body of the redhead, she finds the bed beside her empty and cold. Beca is immediately wide awake as memories of last night start coming back. 'She told Chloe she was into girls.. Chloe had excused herself and when she came back she acted all weird.. .and she had been cuddling with her all the time... and sleeping in the same bed...of course Chloe thought she was a perv and she couldn't blame her...She knew this would happen."