This is it. The big one. The one we've all been waiting for.
This is it. The big one. The one we’ve all been waiting for. We know Oliver Wood’s speech by heart echoes in Beca’s head as she stares in the mirror, meeting her own dark-blue-almost-eyes, ringed as they were with eye liner, and each topped with a carefully painted on eye brow. Sighing at her reflection she takes a step back, tilting her head to contemplate what she sees before her.
She was wearing a mostly navy blue dress, with flowers and patterns towards the bottom of the skirt, and a cut out back (and no bra, she was very conscious of). Her face was done up to the nines (care of Stacie, who had pointed out how much easier it was to apply eyeliner when there were no eyelashes getting in the way). She had been carefully applying lipbalm for days in anticipation of wearing lipstick, and although her lips were still that bit too chapped for real lipstick, the tinted Burts Bees Aubrey had bought for her meant her lips weren’t disappearing into the background of her face, as they were want to do. Beca felt a pang in her stomach as her eyes drifted up to her hair. Or rather, not her hair. Beca and wigs had never really got on. She had been offered one, (thank God for the NHS she silently reminded herself, as she did several times a week these days) and at first she had tried to wear it when she went out, but even with the cap on underneath, Beca’s sensitive skin did not appreciate being covered with the slightly scratchy wig. Beca was also very aware that it was a wig and it looked like one, and that she did not appreciate. But she was wearing it now, and with Aubrey and Stacie’s careful styling (and Beca knew that Stacie had spent time looking up how to style wigs, but Stacie hadn’t said that, and so neither had Beca, but she may have hugged her just that little bit harder and longer when she had finished), it fell in soft, loose curls around her shoulders, and if Beca didn’t focus too hard in the mirror she could almost pretend she had hair again.
She was interrupted from her contemplation but a soft knocking at the door, and at that sound her stomach really jumped. It had been three weeks since her last chemo, her surgery was in 3 days time, but right now it was time for her first date with Chloe.
“Come in,” she called, too softly at first as her throat croaked and then too loudly as she hurried to clear it.
And then Chloe walked in a, just for a second, Beca was frozen, mouth hanging open and eyes wide as Chloe shyly through the door.
Beca knew that Chloe Beale was beautiful. It was no secret to Beca that Chloe’s eyes sparkled and her smile lit up a room, that her skin was soft and her body curved and her legs long and toned. And yet somehow, the sight of Chloe all dressed her, in a dress that was almost-see-through mesh across the sleeves and shoulders, a beautiful royal blue and fitted perfectly at her waist, her hair swooped up and her eyes bluer than ever, momentarily rendered her unable to breathe.
“You look beautiful,” Beca was eventually able to stutter out, the croak almost back in her throat faced with this expected but utterly unanticipated beauty.
“You do, too,” Chloe replied, cheeks blushing and eyes downcast for a second, and then meeting Beca’s as she reached to cup Beca’s face with her hand, just for an instant. And then it was Beca’s turn to blush, to turn her gaze downwards, to shiver slightly at Chloe’s touch. They had kissed, and spent the night in the same bed, and ended countless movie nights tangled under a blanket, napping on the sofa, but somehow this, Chloe’s warm hand on her cheek, suddenly felt more intimate than anything that had happened before.
Chloe cleared her throat, running her hand down Beca’s arm instead, clasping her hand, pulling her slightly as she said “Let’s go!” the excitement evident in her voice. Beca gripped her hand back, smiled shyly, allowed herself to be pulled along by Chloe’s insistent arm, glancing only momentarily back at her crutches and shaking her head. “Let’s go,” she said quietly to herself, smiling in anticipation of the night to come.
Two hours later, Beca flopped backwards onto her bed, her face grinning so wide her cheeks hurt, her lips burning with the feel of Chloe’s goodnight kiss. It had been perfect.
Aubrey had driven the pair of them (giggling in the back like teenagers and pretending to be in a taxi) to a little Italian restaurant near the student union. Chloe had leapt out the car, rushed round to Beca’s door, opened it for her, holding out a hand for the smaller girl to steady herself on. They had walked the few feet to the restaurant, Beca with her arm around Chloe’s waist, and Chloe’s arm over her shoulder, silently supporting her as she limped slightly without her crutch. At Chloe’s request, they sat at a round table in a corner, candle lit and cozy, away from the potential stares of the other diners. Chloe thought Beca looked beautiful even without a single hair on her head, wig or no, but she knew Beca didn’t feel the same way, and wanted her date to be comfortable.
It had been slightly awkward at first. They had kept catching each other’s eye, blushing, looking away. Beca had never been so conscious before of the fact that cancer dominated her entire life; she had no news, nothing interesting to report, no activities to debrief on, not even any work to complain about, and suddenly she was aware of it as the thought went round and round her head that she would have nothing to say for the rest of the night. But then the waiter came for their drinks orders, interrupting their interruptible silence, and he had looked so like Benji, one of the Trebles, that they both burst into fits of giggles. And the knot in Beca’s stomach relaxed, and she thought maybe it would be ok.
And it was. Beca had ordered a starter for her starter and her main, and the two shared a pudding, and between these two tactics Beca made it through a whole 3 course meal without wanting to throw up. Her and Chloe had talked til their throats were sore; about music and the Bella’s, about LGBT representation in TV (something Beca had only become more passionate about now that she had the time to actually watch all these TV shows) and the damaging tropes often employed, about what their spirit animal was and the difference between what you would be as an animagus and what your patronus would be, and everything in between, except cancer.
Chloe hadn’t even tried to pay the whole bill, but split it without arguing, and Aubrey had picked them and kindly not looked at them as they made out in the back seat of her car. And then Chloe had walked Beca to the door of her bedroom and kissed her chastely on the lips, whispering “goodnight”, softly in Beca’s ear as she pushed her ‘hair’ behind her ear. Beca knew that in a couple of minutes, Chloe would be knocking on her door, dressed in the leggings and too-big-tshirt she wore to bed, face shining slightly and clear of makeup, hair tied up in a messy bun on top of her head, and ask Beca if she wanted to brush her teeth with her. In a couple of hours, she would be trying to sleep, trying to mix, trying not to think, and in a couple of days she would be lying in a hospital bed, consenting for a procedure she barely understood to remove a cancerous bone in her body. But right here, right now, her lips were burning and her heart was racing and her stomach was floating and ok, maybe her eyes were watering a little, but only with happiness, and maybe her head was itching slightly, and maybe her leg ached from not using her crutch that evening, but she was happy.