Chapter Text
You were my beliefs all rusting over
And I was the support within your spine
We noticed that the stars were all exploding
So we stared into the sky until we were blind
Page France, "Spine"
---
Chloe Beale has one rule.
Or rather one rule that she actually follows, because the rest are like New Year’s resolutions or Lenten promises—observed only at their conception, when it’s convenient, or when she’s feeling especially motivated.
So, Chloe Beale really only has one rule and it is this: do not fall in love.
That’s the important thing to remember. That is at the heart of understanding it all.
[‘It’ being Chloe Beale herself; ‘it’ being what happens when you combine Chloe Beale, Beca Mitchell, sixty-plus hours of driving, and a small, old convertible; ‘it’ being the series of events entitled ‘How Beca Mitchell Broke Chloe Beale Into A Thousand Million Billion Pieces (More Numerous Than the Stars in the Sky) With Five Words, Five Syllables, and a Confused Smile’.]
The point is Chloe Beale does not fall in love.
She won’t.
She can’t.
Until she could. Until she would. Until she did.
---
Her first word is ‘twinkle’
(or something that sounds a lot like it)
and it’s followed shortly but another ‘twinkle’
and then a ‘little’
(that sounds more like ‘wittle’,
but her parents count it anyway)
Because her first words are the beginning of a song.
(She doesn’t remember it herself,
but she remembers her mom and dad telling the story
about a thousand times before she reaches eight.)
It’s really not much of a surprise;
her parents sing to her almost more than they speak,
and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is their favorite.
Her father starts
and her mother joins in
and they perform the most beautiful duet,
over and over,
voices harmonizing in a way that awes
those who are fortunate enough to listen.
When Chloe is three,
she is able to join in.
Her parents’ eyes are bright when they finish
and maybe that’s how it starts.
Maybe that’s the beginning of it all.
---
Or maybe it starts like this:
“God, Chloe! You need to get your life together.”
It’s funny how often things do start with that; the friendly but forceful ultimatum that propels the heroine into a soul-searching journey that ends in her discovering herself (and usually some sort of rugged man to go on the side, but maybe Chloe’s basing things a bit too much on the cowboy ‘literature’ her grandmother is fond of).
Life, Chloe has always thought, is not much like a movie, but more like a book written by an amateur author—an author that doesn’t quite know where they are going with their story, but hits some of the main archetypal plot points and storylines along the way, simply out of dumb luck. It makes for a sometimes underwhelming tale, but at least it’s not too often clichéd in the long run.
It just ends up lacking.
But Aubrey is effective in her role; the scowling and beautiful blonde with her proper posture and upturned nose, all of which combined tell Chloe that she should feel bad about sneaking into their apartment at 6:00 AM, wearing her clothing from the night before and reeking of liquor in a way that only comes from spending the night in a frat boy’s bed.
“Oh, give me a break, Bree,” she says before her roommate can get out another word.
“You’re not a freshman anymore, Chloe. Don’t you think you should have grown out of this shit by now?”
“We won Nationals. My exams are over. And I’m all set for grad school next year. What’s wrong with me having a little fun? Lighten up!”
“Seriously, Chloe, you’ve done this more than once over the past few weeks. Don’t you think it’s a little excessive? I’m just… looking out for you. You know that.”
She does know—because Aubrey, despite her faults and occasional moments of insanity (see: Captaining the Bellas) is the best and most solid friend Chloe’s ever had—practically family at this point—and like any good big sister would, Aubrey looks out for her in a way that is at once sweet and frustrating.
“I just think it’s time you got away from this sort of thing. That’s all. You deserve better, Chlo. You really do.”
Chloe doesn’t think it has anything to do with ‘deserving’, because it isn’t as though she’s being treated badly, or being unsafe, and she doesn’t want anything more serious right now (or ever). But she can see Aubrey’s point, as she usually can when the blonde delivers her concern in the calm, reasonable tone that had been Audrey Posen’s forte before the disastrous events of their junior year.
A change might be nice; a chance to focus on herself.
“Maybe you’re right, Aubrey.” Chloe gives the girl a hug (quick but earnest) before heading to her room to sleep on it. “A change could be good.”
---
This probably isn’t what Aubrey had had in mind, Chloe thinks as she sits in the chair at her favorite salon, but she grins at her reflection anyways and gives her stylist a wink. The woman flushes a bit, and Chloe thinks about breaking her new vow right then and there, but stays strong and leaves without a phone number.
And when she goes to the used car lot and drops a chunk of her savings on an old Firebird Trans Am with fading paint and a top that doesn’t quite close all the way, she knows it’s not what Aubrey had been talking about either. But Chloe thinks the gold convertible is the greatest thing in the world and falls in love with it at first sight (inanimate objects, thankfully, do not break rule number one).
Change is change, right?
Of course, Aubrey’s eyes nearly pop out of her skull when she comes down to the parking lot of their apartment (after several obnoxious honks and three text messages), but Chloe thinks that’s all part of the fun—keeping Aubrey on her toes.
“Chloe! What the—you bought a—you cut off all—you dyed your hair!”
The newly-blonde girl beams, stepping out of her new (old) car and sliding her hand along its side. “Yup! Change, right?”
“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind!” Aubrey almost hisses, but not maliciously—Chloe can see the small smile threatening to break out on her friend’s face. “I only meant you should stop sleeping with douchebag frat boys!”
Chloe laughs, because she’s always enjoyed surprising people, but surprising Aubrey—who is typically unflappable— is something that’s especially amusing.
“Well, I’m doing that too!”
“But a car, Chloe? I mean, really? Honestly, I don’t even know what’s going on in your head right now.”
“I’m a woman of mystery!” Chloe says with a wink. “But really, Bree, I just wanted to get away!”
“And go where?”
She replies with a shrug, and Aubrey shakes her head, completely bemused. “You don’t know?”
“Nope! Somewhere far though! Somewhere exciting! Somewhere that—” She pauses. “—Shines.”
“Somewhere without frat boys,” Aubrey adds (because she’s always had something of a one-track mind).
“Sure, Bree. Sure. I’d invite you to come and make sure, but…”
“But I can’t exactly turn down my internship to cross the country with you on a whim. You aren’t going to go alone, though, are you?”
Chloe grins, because this part she knows—this part she already has all planned out. And she’s pretty sure Aubrey’s not going to like it too much, but that’s just part of the fun. “Of course not. I know exactly who to ask.”
It’s a sign that they’ve been best friends for a while when Aubrey immediately looks wary.
---
Chloe’s already half-packed (with the help of Aubrey, who’s been throwing ‘essentials’ into her room at random intervals throughout the day) by the time she realizes she still needs to actually call her intended road trip buddy and let her know that they’ll be leaving the day after graduation. Because, no, there will not be any asking involved. Chloe doesn’t really do the whole ‘asking’ thing.
She finds her phone underneath a pile of shirts and quickly unlocks it, clicking to her favorites and tapping the second name there. Her call is answered before the end of the first ring, and it makes her smile, because it’s so seemingly uncharacteristic, the way this ‘alt’ girl always answers her calls with unabashed speed.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” It’s the first time she pauses since the idea popped into her head, but it’s not hesitation. “Wanna do something crazy with me, Bec?”
And Beca—Beca who took months to become comfortable enough to return her hugs, who still rolls her eyes when Chloe plants a smacking kiss on her cheek, who has this weird rule about never returning calls (that aren’t from Chloe) unless an hour has passed— doesn’t hesitate either.
“Sure.”
---
“You’re—you cut off – you dyed your hair!”
Chloe imagines Beca would probably be mortified to learn how similar her reaction is to Aubrey’s earlier one, so she doesn’t mention it. But it does make her smile.
“What? No, ‘congratulations on your graduation, Chloe’? No ‘I’m so proud of you, Chloe’ or ‘it doesn’t even surprise me a little bit that you’re graduating with honors today, Chloe’?”
Beca smirks, and the look of shock disappears under the more typical expression. “You haven’t graduated yet. Don’t get your hopes up, dude. I still think they’re going to find out you’re not worthy and pull you out of line right before you get your diploma.”
“You have no idea how a college graduation works, do you?”
“Nope.” Beca’s smirk turns into an overly cheesy grin and she actually bounces on the balls of her feet. Chloe has a feeling she’s being (gently) mocked. “You know what I also have no idea about?”
“Hmm?”
It’s then that Beca drops both the smile and her shoulders, relaxing into her more typical blasé stance and expression. The dramatic change makes Chloe giggle over Beca’s next words, spoken as dryly as possible.
“What this ‘something crazy’ I’m supposedly doing with you actually involves.”
The whole thing is super cute; she manages to resist reaching out to pinch Beca’s cheek, but only barely. As it is, she merely rocks forward slightly, smile stretching her face.
“Great segue, Beca,” Chloe replies, laughter still creeping into her tone. “And I told you to pack enough clothes for a couple weeks!”
“Um, yeah. That’s not a lot of information, Chloe.”
“I know! Isn’t it fun? The mystery? The excitement? The…”
“…complete lack of planning and high potential for disaster?”
With a grin, Chloe leans forward to give Beca a quick peck on the cheek. “That’s right! I think I’m supposed to be lining up. See you after?”
“Yeah, but…” Chloe flits away, waving over her shoulder. “But seriously! What the hell are we doing?”
She shouts her reply back before losing sight of a gaping Beca in a sea of black robes.
“Road trip!”
---
They go on their first real vacation when Chloe is four.
It’s to Disney World
and Chloe spends the entire three and a half hour drive
bouncing in her car seat.
Once there, she falls in love with Mickey Mouse;
a photo is taken of the adoring redheaded child
wrapped completely around an agreeable Mickey’s leg.
What the picture does not show is
the twenty minutes it takes to separate Chloe
from said leg.
On the way home she sings ‘It’s A Small World’
until she passes out,
clutching her new Mickey doll.
---
“Wham! Bam! Thank you, man! Get inside my fuckin' gold Trans Am!”
Chloe pops out from around the open trunk to find Beca grinning like a fool as she takes in Chloe’s new wheels, and she feels the wave of warmth flush over her that she has come to associate with Beca letting down her walls to let one of those unrestrained grins loose.
“Really, Beca? We’re starting this road trip with that particular musical selection?”
“Um, excuse you. Ke$ha is a treasure!”
“‘Don’t be a little bitch with your chit chat, just show me where your dick’s at’?” Chloe quotes, an eyebrow rising.
She receives a widening grin in response. “A treasure.”
The feeling of contentment grows in Chloe as she watches Beca—defending Ke$ha with a crooked grin (that may or may not be ironic—sometimes it’s hard to tell), a duffle bag slung over her shoulder—and she simply can’t help but skip around the back of the car to bring herself closer to the brunette. And once she’s there, it’s really impossible not to give the girl an enthusiastic hug.
“Oomph! Chloe!” Beca laughs in that awkward way of hers, but she drops her bag to the ground to return the hug (carefully).
“I’m just so glad you’re coming with me.” Chloe pulls back, keeping her hands on the younger girl’s shoulders, and feels her chest expand with the joy of it all. “This is going to be amazing.”
Beca opens her mouth to… agree, maybe, and there’s something in her eyes—a spark—the nature of which Chloe cannot quite define. But then the brunette smirks and it’s gone.
“‘Come on climb into my golden cockpit. Love you ‘till you’re seeing stars and stripes,’” she sings instead, leaning back slightly, and Chloe giggles in delight.
She’s not sure why, but she feels oddly relieved by obvious redirection.
“Look at you, getting in the mood. Well, come on then! We’ve got places to go!”
Beca’s eyes roll as she grabs her bag, but her lips curl as Chloe bumps their hips together in the next moment. “Places of an undisclosed nature.”
“Not anymore! I know where we’re going today!”
“Do share. I’m assuming I’m going to be doing some of the driving after all.”
“Stop one is…. Drum roll please!”
“Yeah. I’m not doing that, dude.”
Chloe sticks out her tongue and drops Beca’s bag, freeing her hands to perform her own drum roll on the side of the car. Beca tries to hide it, but her disapproving look shifts pretty quickly into a grin.
“Pensacola!”
Beca’s face scrunches. It’s kind of really adorable. “…Where?”
“Florida! The Florida panhandle, to be exact.”
“…Why?”
“Well,” Chloe says drawing out the ‘L’ with a grin and popping out a hip. “Aubrey’s cousin owns a gorgeous condo on the beach there and she said we could crash there for a day or two or three with her and her BF.”
“That sounds awesome, actually. I hope you’re not expecting me to sun tan though, because I swear I turn into a lobster after about five seconds with anything other than SPF 5000.”
“We can do whatever you want, Bec! Only—”
“Oh no.”
Chloe forges ahead (even takes a step closer for emphasis) despite Beca’s cagey expression.
“—only there’s this one tiny detail that you should probably be clued in because, yes, it does involve you slightly and…”
“Chloe!”
“You’re gonna have to pretend to be my girlfriend.”
“What?” Beca’s eyes go wide and Chloe feels her bottom lip jut out in response.
“Woah. Calm down there. Jeez, I feel like I should be offended.”
“Oh, no. No. Don’t you dare turn this into some kind of guilt trip after—”
“—You basically screamed in horror after finding out you were going to have to pretend for like, a day, tops, that you were madly in love with me? Yeah, how I could possibly turn that into a guilt trip of any kind?”
Beca groans, but there’s a smile behind it, and a giggle slips out from Chloe’s lips. “Oh my god, Chloe.”
“There’s a perfectly good reason.”
There’s a pause as Beca waits expectantly, with an eyebrow raised. Eventually though, she gives in and asks with a sigh. “And that reason is…?”
“Okay, so Aubrey’s cousin’s boyfriend’s best friend Kaidan lives with them at their condo, which you would think would be weird but it actually works out really well for them, Ted Mosby style, and so he’ll obviously be there, and, see, whenever Aubrey and I visit—which we’ve done every summer, B.T. Dubbs, because seriously, Beca, this place is amazing and…”
Beca sighs. Again. (It might be the third or fourth time. Chloe likes to think of them as ‘fond’ sighs. She doesn’t think that’s too much of a stretch.)
“Chloe! The point!”
“Right! So Kaidan is basically Adonis in mortal form—he has, like, an eight pack and that chiseled jaw line that you know I can’t say ‘no’ to, and he’s kind of, sort of really into me, and we kind of, sort of hook up every time I’m there for the summer, but this trip is about the opposite of that, right? So, since Kaidan’s actually this really great guy, he totally wouldn’t go for me if I was there with my totally awesome girlfriend who I was crazy into, and thus the problem would be solved and I would be super, super grateful to you, and even Aubrey thinks it’s basically a good idea and I swear to you, Bec, if you don’t help me I will do that boy like a crossword puzzle and that will be 100% on your conscious and I don’t think…”
She receives more than a sigh this time. It’s a full-fledged gesture of exasperation—hands flying in the air and head falling back.
“Oh my god. Yes, fine. Whatever. Please stop. My head.”
With a grin, Chloe gives Beca a quick peck on the cheek, swooping down to once again grab her bag and skipping off towards the back of her car. “Thanks, babe!”
Beca rolls her eyes. “Don’t think I don’t realize what you did there.”
“Hmm?”
“The whole distracting-me-with-all-that-rambling thing. You’re not as subtle as you think, Beale.”
Chloe’s glad the open trunk obscures her face; her expression shifts into something that is close to surprise, and it’s not something she wants to put on display.
Not because Beca is wrong, but rather the opposite.
And she wonders how it’s possible that this self-declared ‘emotionally stunted’ girl is the first one to call her out it.
---
“If you wanna go and take a ride with me, we three-wheelin in the fo' with the gold D's. Oh why do I live this way?”
Beca isn’t singly loudly. In fact, it’s barely audible over the roar of the wind (Chloe has a feeling the novelty of road tripping in a convertible is going to wear off long before they make it to… wherever their final destination will be, but she’ll never admit it). But barely audible is still audible and she can’t hide her grin as she turns to watch the brunette as she bobs her head to the beat with her ‘gangsta’ face in place (the one that Chloe is pretty sure Beca doesn’t even realize she’s making).
“Heyy! Must be the—” Beca’s eyes come up and her neck twists and her expression closes as she catches sight of the look Chloe is giving her. Chloe mourns the change (and the end of her unintentional serenading). “…. What?”
“I didn’t take you for the type of girl that sings on a road trip. Is this the kind of musical fantastic-ness I can expect to be treated to during our entire time together? Because if so, I have to warn you, I might end up falling deeply, madly, and irrevocably in love with you.” With a wide grin, she flutters her eyelashes exaggeratedly. “Just throwing that out there.”
Beca flushes bright red, and for a second Chloe wonders what might be behind it, other than standard embarrassment.
“Shut up,” she mumbles. “Are you going to sing it with me or what?”
“Is that a request from the Beca Mitchell for more cheesy singing? Are you feeling well? Do you have a temperature? Is the fever making you delirious?” Chloe reaches over to feel Beca’s forehead, but the brunette squawks (a hilarious noise in itself) and pulls away, flailing about more than Chloe would have thought possible in the confined space of a car seat.
“Gah! Watch the road, dude!”
“Oh, calm down. I am an excellent driver. I’ve never gotten a ticket.”
“…I’ve seen you talk your way out two tickets,” Beca returns immediately, rolling her eyes in what Chloe thinks is an overly dramatic manner.
“Which means that I haven’t gotten any.”
“But it means that—you know what, let’s just sing.”
Beca cranks up the volume and starts to sing (the car handles a heavy bass surprisingly well, speakers only rattling slightly with the noise) and when Chloe joins in (‘if you wanna go and get high with me; smoke an L in the back of the Benzie’) the brunette seemingly can’t hold back her grin or her head bob.
And Chloe can’t quite stop the way her heart gives an extra little thud (sporadic and unfamiliar and unwanted—like a hiccup) in that moment.
---
Her parents make each other mixtapes.
It’s the late 90s and actual mixtapes are being phased out,
but her parents still make them,
like lovesick teenagers.
Chloe is five,
sitting in her car seat when ‘Endless Love’ comes on
and her mom groans and
tries
to eject the tape.
But Chloe’s dad is too quick
and his crooning is
too effective.
Because Chloe’s mom grins,
despite herself,
when he starts with:
“My love,
there’s only one of you in my life.”
And Chloe doesn’t know the words,
but she giggles and hums along
until the whole car is
full
of music.
(And so much love.)