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If anyone were to ask Emily what the worst thing about college is, she would tell them it’s dorm food.
Which totally technically isn’t even a lie. It’s just like, a half-truth. A semi-truth? A sub-truth?
You get the picture.
It’s just that the worst thing about college is that she misses her parents, and how lame would that sound to a bunch of kids who are all excited to finally be living on their own?
So for now, she’d just say dorm food because her dad is the best cook ever and that falls under the category of missing him so it’s definitely totally one hundred percent not a lie.
She’s just glad nobody is actually asking her that question.
//
So she misses her parents, big deal!
Her mom is basically her best friend. They hang out all the time, just doing mom and daughter activities like choreographing dance routines and rating guys on assumptions of whether they’d play a better Tony or Roger.
You know, average mother-daughter bonding type things.
Like, sure, her parents can be annoying sometimes, like when her mom won’t stop singing at her while she’s trying to do math homework (she needs silence for math) or when she hears her parents having sex because like, gross.
But she still loves them, and she’s not gonna fault her parents for having a good sex life because she knows that’s typically pretty good news for having a healthy relationship.
(Not that she would know personally, but.)
Anyway, she’s not embarrassed about liking her parents. They’re not regular parents, they’re cool parents, and so what if she misses them?
But she’s trying to have, you know, the college experience and all that great stuff and she’s doing her best, but her roommate is all into rushing Gamma Phi Something so she just doesn’t have too many friends yet.
But she will.
As soon as she auditions for the Barden Bellas. Then she’ll have friends and a sisterhood and she’ll get to sing, and it will be perfect!
She just wishes that day would be here already.
//
So the day came and she got on the stage and she was all ready to sing her song (a rendition of Love on Top that she practiced with her mom for like, ever), but it turns out the Bellas weren’t even at the auditions.
The two Treble captains who she met before, the boy-next-door one and the cute one who wants to saw her in half (for magic or something?), inform her that the Bellas aren’t allowed to audition this year.
The main captain, Jesse she remembers, does casually tell her where the Bella house is and he kind of smiles at her knowingly, so she thinks he’s telling her to go give it a shot, which is just perfect because she’s been waiting her whole life to be a Bella and she’s not going to give up that easily.
Her high school teachers called her eager.
Her mom says she’s always been a girl on a mission.
She just thinks that she wants to be a Bella, so she’s going to be a Bella no matter what.
Simple as that.
//
Her heart’s beating really fast when she rings the doorbell of the Bella house, but it’s more from excitement than nerves.
When a familiar blonde Australian girl opens the door, she almost passes out. Not from nerves, but because Fat Amy is legendary.
She totally watched the Kennedy Center performance on TV with her mom. It was embarrassing, but they both agreed that if someone had to flash their vag at President Obama, at least it was someone with as much confidence as Amy.
Fat Amy almost breaks her heart when she tells her they’re not allowed to take in any new people, but she’s a Bella by blood and she is not taking no for an answer. At least not until she auditions.
The audition itself is totally good and in a burst of confidence she decides to sing Flashlight because she’s been working on it a lot and let’s be honest, nobody can really do Beyoncé justice. Chloe, who she knows of because she’s been a Bella forever and was in that video from a couple of years ago where Aubrey Posen threw up on screen, seems pretty into it, but she’s also super intimidating.
She kind of smiles with crazy eyes, but like the good kind? Like not scary crazy. Just… intense crazy.
They huddle up to decide and it’s kind of awkward and she doesn’t know where to look and she can sort of hear what they’re saying but not really…
And then she hears Beca’s name and it’s the first time she realizes that the captain of the Bellas isn’t actually there.
Emily doesn’t want to say that she worships Beca Mitchell, but she like, kind of worships Beca Mitchell. In a totally cool and not creepy way.
It’s just that she grew up watching countless Bellas performances, and while they all seemed great, they also were all the same. Her mom made being a Bella sound so awesome, but after seeing the same YouTube video sung by different Bellas year after year… it also sounded sort of, well… boring.
Don’t tell her mom she said that.
And then all of a sudden, Beca Mitchell joins the Bellas. And they sound aca-hella-great.
(Her mom said she shouldn’t say that phrase, but her mom’s totally not in her head so she can think whatever she wants.)
Emily immediately became obsessed. She follows Beca on SoundClound and her mashups are insanely good. She just wishes she could do that because even though she writes her own stuff, sometimes she thinks she sounds kind of boring.
Emily’s biggest fear is being boring. She doesn’t need a spotlight or to stand out or all the solos. She just doesn’t want to be boring.
Beca Mitchell is the furthest thing from boring. She’s cool and talented and mysterious.
Emily hasn’t even met her yet, but she looks up to her so much. She knows she’s young and, yeah, she totally has some raw talent, she’s not afraid to admit that, but she also has so much to learn. And she knows that Beca can teach her.
Like she said, her teachers did always call her eager.
Beca or no Beca, though, eventually the existing Bellas all turn around and they move in front of her and Chloe is totally staring at her with those intense crazy eyes…
But then she smiles an intense crazy smile to match.
“Welcome to the Bellas!”
See. She was meant to be a Bella.
Simple as that.
//
She maybe embarrasses herself a little with her victory dance, but she totally doesn’t even care.
//
Her first college party is more than she ever expected right from the beginning. There’s drinks and music and dancing and boys. Lots of boys.
And Benji! He asks her out, but it’s her first social event and she now has a sisterhood and her mom told her the rules about dating Trebles.
Nobody actually mentioned those rules, but she just wants to be on the safe side.
So she says no, at least for now, and she’s dancing with Stacie and everything is totally awesome. Except for the fact that she still hasn’t met Beca and Chloe seems to be on edge because of this fact.
“Hey,” Emily yells at Stacie over the music. “Do you know where Beca is?”
Stacie wiggles her eyebrows. “No idea.”
Emily doesn’t know what that means, but okay.
Anyway it doesn’t matter because at that moment, she sees Beca across the yard at the tiki bar.
She doesn’t run, but she does walk quickly, just in case Beca disappears. She’s so excited she almost can’t speak and Beca’s staring at her like, who the hell are you, but Emily just rolls with it.
“Hi!” Okay maybe that was a little enthusiastic, but Beca says hi back so maybe it’s going okay. “I am so excited to meet the woman who singlehandedly created the Bellas’ sound!” Beca’s still kind of staring so Emily goes on, you know, because she talks when she’s nervous and oh boy, is she nervous. “We’re sisters!”
Beca seems to realize who she is, which like, duh, why didn’t she introduce herself first?
“Oh right. Chloe texted me that we added a Legacy,” Beca says. “I didn’t even know that’s a thing, but yeah, awesome, congratulations!”
Emily’s too excited and she’s not really aware of boundaries sometimes, so she hugs Beca, which is cool. Beca is way tinier than she imagined.
“I’m Emily,” she says as she pulls away and Beca seems slightly alarmed that they hugged, but she moves past it quickly enough.
“Beca.” She points to herself, then she glances around a little, biting her lip. “Hey, have you seen Chloe?”
Emily grins. “Yeah! She’s dancing with Stacie!” She points across the pool at them and this seems to satisfy Beca. She smiles slightly.
“Cool.” She jerks her head as if Emily should follow her and starts to walk toward the dancing Bellas. Emily is quick to hurry after her.
Chloe gasps and smiles the biggest grin when she sees Beca, which Emily totally understands. Beca is the coolest. “Becs! Where’ve you been?”
Beca kinda shrugs and steals Chloe’s drink. “Busy with stuff. I’m here now!” She sips at the drink, grimacing at the taste. “What the hell, Chlo, this is nasty. Drink some juice with your vodka.”
Chloe giggles and steals it back. “Get your own!”
Beca and Chloe have some sort of silent conversation, as far as Emily can tell. She’s not sure what they’re saying, but she suddenly feels kind of third-wheely. She decides to turn around and dance with Jessica.
By the end of the night, she’s danced so much her feet hurt, but she had the best time. She follows Beca, Chloe, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose back to the Bella house. Fat Amy disappeared at some point, but Beca says that’s normal.
They’re all pretty drunk, but not as drunk as Chloe, who’s heavily leaning on Beca the whole walk back. Stacie and Cynthia Rose exchange knowing grins, but it all goes over Emily’s head.
Chloe and Beca quickly disappear upstairs, but Stacie decides they need to have another shot, so they head into the kitchen. Cynthia Rose goes to plug her phone in while Stacie pulls out some shot glasses and some Smirnoff.
“You owe me ten big ones, Stace,” Cynthia Rose says when she gets back. “Ma’s up there crying.”
Emily scrunches her face in confusion.
“Damn,” Stacie sighs. “Dad all snuggled up to her?”
Cynthia Rose rolls her eyes. “Obviously. What else?”
“Are you guys sisters?” Emily asks, which seems weird because they don’t exactly… look alike? But hey, anything could happen.
Stacie just stares at her. “Legacy, we’re all sisters.”
Emily’s mouth falls open. “All of you?”
“Girl, chill.” Cynthia Rose shoots Stacie a look. “She means all the Bellas are sisters. But we’re not sister sisters.”
“Oh my God, I loved that show,” Stacie butts in.
Cynthia Rose rolls her eyes. Stacie finally hands them their shots. “Okay, let’s do this!”
Emily still doesn’t get what’s happening, but Stacie is clinking their glasses together and Emily forgets about the whole thing.
She’s officially a Bella now, and she’ll drink to that!
//
Chloe calls an emergency Bellas meeting the next day.
They all sit in the living room at the Bella house, watching Chloe pace back and forth as they wait for Beca to get there. Emily’s squished on the couch between Lilly and Flo. Across the room, Stacie files her fingernails, apparently bored, while Cynthia Rose plays some Texas Hold ‘Em game on her phone. Fat Amy’s texting someone. Jessica and Ashley are cuddled up on the loveseat scrolling through Jessica’s Instagram feed.
“Where is Beca?” Chloe hisses for the fifth time after Beca is ten minutes late.
Nobody responds and Emily feels the silence press in on her like a jacket that’s too small. She doesn’t want to admit it, but Chloe kind of scares her. Not like in a horror movie way, but in a like, please-don’t-notice-me-because-you’ll-yell-at-me way.
On second thought, she thinks as Chloe glares at the front door as if that will make Beca get there faster, maybe in a horror movie way, too.
Beca finally arrives, slamming the door behind her as she rushes into the living room. Emily thinks she seems frazzled and she’s almost worried for Beca with the way Chloe’s crossing her arms and giving her that crazy-eyed look.
“Sorry I’m late. Traffic. Or whatever.” Beca sets her bag down and glances around, finally meeting Chloe’s eyes. “What? What’s wrong?”
Chloe huffs. “DSM! That’s what’s wrong, Beca!”
Beca kind of looks around at them all questioningly, as if they have some idea what Chloe is talking about. “Right,” she says. “What’s that again?”
Chloe’s eyes grow three times crazier, and Emily sinks further into the couch and tries not to fear for Beca’s life. She’s just so tiny…
“Das Sound Machine! The German aca-thieves!”
Recognition blooms on Beca’s face. “Oh right. I knew that.”
Chloe looks like she might start hyperventilating. “I went on Let’s Talk-apella and read the forum about DSM. Everyone is obsessed with them!” Chloe fans herself a little with her hand.
“Okayyyy,” Beca drawls. “Chloe. Let’s try to just breathe, here.”
“We have to beat them or the Bellas are over!” Chloe groans and leans her head on Beca’s shoulder. Beca rubs at her back a little, which seems to calm her down slightly.
Emily suddenly realizes that they might be dating.
Aca-whoa.
“We’ll figure it out,” Beca says, looking down at Chloe with slightly worried but soft eyes. Emily feels like she’s intruding and looks away. She meets the eyes of Stacie, who wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. Emily doesn’t know what she’s suggesting exactly, but okay. She smiles a little.
“We should steal their set list,” Fat Amy flippantly proposes, fingers still tapping away at her phone.
Chloe looks up, her eyes shining brighter like this is completely valid input. Beca points at Fat Amy. “Amy. That’s cheating. We’re not doing that.”
But Fat Amy’s suggestion opens a whole new can of worms.
“I could call my bookie and we could fix the competition in our favor,” Cynthia Rose says.
“I’ll do their captain,” Stacie grins.
“I know how to kill a person using only uncooked spaghetti,” Lilly whispers, but Emily’s pretty sure she’s the only one who hears.
Beca face palms. “Guys! Come on.”
“We could just go scout the competition,” Jessica says. “They’re performing at the car show tomorrow on the victory tour, remember?”
There’s a moment of silence where they all just stare at Jessica.
“That’s…” Beca pauses. “That’s not a bad idea…”
“Yes,” Chloe agrees, suddenly returning to her pacing with new vigor. “And we can tell them exactly which level of hell the aca-gods have decided to send them to.”
(Chloe is definitely horror movie scary, Emily thinks.)
Beca rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “Or we could just casually see what we’re up against and then leave.”
“Mhmm.” Chloe smiles closed-mouthed in a way that says she has no intention of doing that.
“Chloe…” Beca warns.
“Okay!” Chloe claps her hands enthusiastically, completely ignoring Beca. “It’s settled then. Tomorrow, we’re doing aca-reconnaissance!”
That seems to be the end of the meeting and they all begin to disperse. Emily hopes she can get a chance to talk to Beca, but when Chloe skips off to the kitchen, Beca slouches after her, the two of them speaking in low tones.
Emily feels slightly discouraged, but it’s okay. She’ll have plenty of opportunities to talk to Beca in the future, right?
She has physics homework to do anyway.
//
They decide to just meet at the convention center instead of taking the Bella bus because Jessica and Ashley are both working and Stacie said something about afternoon delight making her late.
Whatever that means.
Emily rides in Chloe’s car, stuck in the backseat with Cynthia Rose and Lilly. At least she’s not in the middle, because being in the middle is super uncomfortable when your legs are as long as hers are.
Beca drives, despite it being Chloe’s tiny Mazda. Cynthia Rose tells her that Beca is terrified of Chloe’s driving and refuses to get in the car if Chloe’s behind the wheel. For some reason, this makes sense in Emily’s head.
“Becs, I need coffee,” Chloe says halfway into their thirty minute drive.
Beca glances at her briefly. “Why didn’t you say that before we left?”
“Because I just decided I wanted it.” Chloe fiddles with the radio, grinning a little when Blank Space comes on.
Beca sighs. “But we’re almost there. And they have a Starbucks at the convention center.”
“Pleeeeease, Beca,” Chloe whines, her finger reaching out to poke Beca in the cheek. Beca leans away.
“Do not distract the driver!”
Chloe doesn’t really listen and pokes her again. “I’ll pay for you.”
“Stop it,” Beca grumbles, but she’s smiling a little.
On the other side of Lilly, Emily hears Cynthia Rose sigh. “For the love of Missy Elliott, get your girl the damn coffee, Mitchell.”
“See, Beca, Cynthia Rose wants coffee, too.” Chloe grins at Beca across the middle console.
“I don’t think that’s what she said,” Beca says with a quirked eyebrow, but she turns her blinker on to turn into the next shopping plaza, which has a drive-thru coffee place.
Beca taps the steering wheel impatiently as they wait in the line, her elbow resting on the door, head leaning on her fist. Chloe starts singing along to the song on the radio and Emily watches Beca watch Chloe. The corners of Beca’s lips twitch in a small smile and she shakes her head and pulls the car up to order.
“Kay, what do you want?”
“White chocolate mocha, please.” Emily thinks Chloe somehow manages to smile both triumphantly and innocently at the same time. She’s starting to think Chloe isn’t human, but is instead some kind of demigod who is simultaneously easy-going and demanding, eternally happy and a nervous wreck. She clearly has Beca wrapped around her finger.
Beca looks back at them in the rearview mirror. “What do you guys want?”
“Black coffee for me,” Cynthia Rose says.
“Coffee beans make a good campfire log,” Lilly murmurs, but Emily is pretty sure nobody else hears because Beca just stares for a second before shrugging and turning to look at Emily.
“Umm,” Emily manages to say. “Can I have a vanilla latte?”
Beca relates all this information to the person working the drive-thru. As she pulls up to the window, Emily grabs her wallet and gets out a few dollars.
She tries to pass them up to Chloe who paid, but Chloe just waves her hand. “No way, my treat. Everyone say thank you to Beca for stopping!” She winks back at them. Emily murmurs a thank you.
Beca just rolls her eyes and hands Chloe her coffee. “There, happy now?”
“Duh.” Chloe beams at Beca. “Thank you, Beca.”
“Whatever.” Beca scowls, but Emily’s pretty sure it’s fake. She’s starting to realize that despite Beca wanting the Bellas to think she’s always grumpy, she rarely actually is.
Beca pulls back onto the road and Chloe turns the music up. It’s not long before they’re all singing along, even Beca and Lilly.
Emily’s pretty sure she finally has friends.
She can’t wait to tell her mom.
//
So DSM is aca-unreal.
They’re powerful, talented, and tall. Taller even than Emily.
When Beca goes head to head (or head to midriff?) with the main woman, Emily briefly thinks that if the woman decided to step on Beca, she’d crush her in a hot sec. For her part, Beca seems both intimidated by and attracted to this.
Emily doesn’t blame her. That woman’s voice is the tits.
Chloe doesn’t seem to agree as far as Emily can tell. She keeps shooting Beca these offended, crinkly-nosed glares the whole way home, which is spent in almost complete silence, broken only by the frantic tapping of Beca’s fingers on the steering wheel.
As soon as they get back to the house, Emily collapses on the couch in the living room, suddenly exhausted. She’s not the only one. Cynthia Rose sits on the other couch, quickly followed by Stacie who puts her feet in CR’s lap. Fat Amy plops down on the love seat.
The four of them sit in silence, listening to the low arguing of Beca and Chloe from the kitchen.
“Beca, what the hell?”
“What?”
“’You are physically flawless?’” Chloe practically shrieks.
Emily can imagine she probably has those crazy-eyes right about now.
“Well she was,” Beca defends. “Sorry, I’ve got eyes!”
Cynthia Rose snorts. “That woman did a number on, Beca. I remember my first sexual awakening, man…” She trails off, eyes growing glossy at the thought.
“I’d do her,” Stacie agrees.
Cynthia Rose nods, mouth turning up in a smirk. “Ma don’t sound too happy.”
“Yeah, well, Mom’s a broken nail away from a mental breakdown these days,” Stacie says and pulls out her nail file.
“Are you…” Emily crinkles her eyebrows in confusion as she tries to follow this conversation. “Are you talking about Chloe?”
Fat Amy snorts. “You’re not the sharpest note on the scale, are ya Legacy?”
Emily ignores that and turns to Stacie. “Why do you call her Mom?”
Cynthia Rose snorts and Stacie just smiles at Emily knowingly. “Because she’s Mom,” Stacie says with a shrug. “Just like Beca is Dad.”
“They think we’re their children,” Cynthia Rose says.
“Not me,” Fat Amy interrupts. “I’m the hot Aunt.”
Emily’s not following. “Are they dating?”
“Yes,” Stacie grins as Cynthia Rose snorts, “No.”
They have a momentary stare-down. Finally Stacie sighs. “Fine. No. Not yet anyway.”
“Beca’s with Jesse,” CR declares, causing Stacie to frown.
Emily’s mouth falls open. “From the Trebles?”
“Yeah, girl,” Stacie says, her attention returning to her nails. “But like I said. It’s only temporary.” She points her nail file at Emily. “Mom and Dad are in love. They just don’t know it yet.”
Emily looks at Cynthia Rose for confirmation. Cynthia Rose just shrugs.
“So…” Emily’s trying to wrap her mind around this, but it’s a lot of new information. “You call them Mom and Dad?”
(Is she the only one who finds that kind of weird?)
“Not to their face,” Fat Amy answers. “Talk about aca-awkward.”
“Just wait,” Stacie nods, holding her nails up to inspect them. “You’ll see.”
Emily’s not so sure. Beca and Chloe remind her nothing of her parents. Especially Chloe. Her mom is her best friend. Chloe is crazy.
Well, she thinks, as Beca and Chloe both stomp upstairs to their separate rooms. Maybe Stacie is crazy, too.
//
Emily’s sitting at the table at the Bella house trying to do her physics homework, but Chloe won’t stop singing and she really sucks at physics, so yeah, it’s not going too well.
She came to the Bella house to do homework because her roommate and one of her sorority sisters were getting ready to go out, Thirsty Thursday and all that. Thankfully the Bella house is usually empty on Thursdays. It’s Emily’s prime study time.
Except that it’s apparently not empty tonight. Well, it almost is. Only Stacie and Chloe are around, and Stacie’s upstairs so that’s fine, but…
Chloe’s sitting next to her at the kitchen table and she won’t stop singing.
Emily’s kind of confused because Chloe has a textbook open like she’s studying, but she has her headphones in and is singing quietly while scrolling through her Facebook.
And clearly not studying.
It maybe wouldn’t be a problem, but Emily does not get vectors, like at all, and the noise is distracting her.
She sighs as she messes up the problem again, grabbing her giant eraser and rubbing it across the page. Stupid physics.
She’s about ready to give up, and at that point Stacie struts down the stairs and into the kitchen, so Emily welcomes the distraction.
Stacie looks like she’s getting ready to go out for the night, too, in her red dress and heels to match. She dances by the table, shaking her butt in Chloe’s face. Chloe taps it and Stacie moves away, her bubbly laugh vibrating through the room.
“Well, I’m off!” Stacie waggles her fingers. “Legacy, don’t get too rowdy with that homework.”
Emily purses her lips. “With physics? Yeah, not gonna happen.”
“Hmmm.” Stacie leans over her textbook. “Oh, that’s easy. Your angle there is 66.5 degrees, right? So you have 3.85 meters per second!”
Emily blinks in surprise. “Uh.” She scrunches her nose and does the calculation again. “Yeah. Yeah I guess that’s right.”
Stacie beams. “Nice. Alright, see you guys later!”
“Stacie!” Chloe takes out her headphones. “Where are you going?”
Stacie stares at her, straight-faced. “Hunting. Why?”
Emily’s eyes widen in confusion. Stacie doesn’t look like she’s going hunting. And Stacie likes hunting?
Chloe raises an eyebrow. “Do you have protection?”
Stacie pauses. Then she opens her clutch, digging inside it. Chloe shakes her head knowingly and stands up from the table. She goes to the cookie jar on the kitchen counter, opening it and pulling something out.
“We don’t need a repeat of last year, do we?” She holds the item out to Stacie, who reaches for it, but Chloe pulls it out of reach. “Stacie.”
“The Hunter did not like his rash, no.” Stacie frowns guiltily. “It was one time.”
Chloe finally hands the item to Stacie. Emily realizes it’s a condom.
They have a cookie jar of condoms? Aca-what.
“Once is one time too many,” Chloe says, pointing her finger at Stacie. “Safety first, Stace.”
“I know, I know.” Stacie rolls her eyes good-naturedly and stashes the condom in her purse. “It won’t happen again, sorry.”
“Good.” Chloe taps her lightly on the butt again. “Have a good time.”
Stacie grins. “I always do!” She winks at Chloe, shoots a knowing glance at Emily, waggles her fingers one more time, and then she’s gone.
Chloe sits back down at the table and picks up her pen. She looks up briefly and meets Emily’s eyes, which Emily imagines are pretty wide.
“What?”
Emily doesn’t know where to begin. “We have a cookie jar of condoms?”
Chloe looks at her seriously. “Of course we do, Emily. You can never be too safe, even if you’re on the pill! Those don’t prevent STIs.” She tilts her head to the side. “You always use a condom, right?”
Emily’s mouth falls open. “No? I mean. Yes. I mean… I would.”
“It’s okay, Emily.” Chloe wraps her fingers around Emily’s wrist gently. “This is a safe place to talk about these things. It is always prudent to be educated about sexual intercourse.”
Emily is educated. Boy, is she educated. Her mom has had way too many sex-talks with her and given her more information than she’s ever cared to know.
“That’s not really relevant at this time,” Emily manages to say. Which like, sex doesn’t embarrass her but this is Chloe and for some reason it’s making her blush.
Chloe smiles warmly at her and Emily notices a definite lack of crazy-eyes. That’s nice. “You don’t have to be uncomfortable, Em. Sex is a perfectly natural thing to want. Or to not want. However you feel is just fine.”
Emily nods. “Yeah, no, I know.” She shrugs. “I’m just currently not, and have never been, having sex. And my mom already taught me about STIs.”
“Did she teach you about herpes?”
“Yes.”
“Gonorrhea?”
Emily wrinkles her nose. “Yes.”
“AIDS?”
“Yes.”
Chloe pats her arm. “Okay, good.” She nods seriously. “Well if you ever have questions…” She winks again.
Emily smiles because Chloe may be a little scary sometimes, but she clearly cares about them all. A lot. “Yep, I will come to you. No worries. All good here.”
Chloe smiles again, her nose crinkling a bit, and puts her headphones back in.
Emily goes back to her physics homework, but she can’t stop thinking about Stacie’s knowing smirk.
Sex talk or not, Chloe is not her mom.
//
Emily’s a pretty positive person when you get right down to do it. All she wants from life is to sing and to have a good time and to not be boring.
It’s a pretty good way to live, if you ask her.
Still, she’s having trouble putting a positive spin on things today.
She got her physics test grade back and totally bombed it. Not really. But she didn’t get the grade she could have, and she knows she can do better.
And then she went to Bellas rehearsals and they were just… not that great.
Sure, they were kind of fun. She got to learn how to use lots of cool props and Amy breathed fire, which was simultaneously cool and absolutely terrifying.
But they didn’t get to sing and everything’s kind of a mess and she’s not really sure that any of that stuff is actually going to help them win.
Oh. And Amy called her the dumbest person alive. Which totally wouldn’t have shaken her at all if it was any other day, but she’s still recovering from her physics let-down from earlier. So just like, not cool, Amy.
And then there’s Beca.
Emily’s trying so hard. She wants to be a helpful member of the Bellas, but she needs to learn. She knows she does. She just needs someone to teach her. And she’s pretty certain that person is Beca, but Beca is busy.
Like, all the time.
And Emily doesn’t really want to bother her, because she thinks Beca seems stressed, but there’s no harm in trying.
And yeah, Beca did tell her she did great, but despite Amy’s beliefs, Emily’s not the dumbest person on the planet. She knows Beca is trying to be a supportive captain, but she also knows that Beca is just humoring her.
Her mind is clearly somewhere else, and Emily’s not going to fault her for that, she just wishes that Beca could give her something to work with besides a small smile as she leaves Emily in the rehearsal space alone.
She sighs and picks up her backpack, ready to go back to her dorm.
It’s okay, she thinks. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is always better.
She pushes through the doors, only to see Chloe standing on the other side against a wall, staring at her phone. She seems as sad on the outside as Emily feels on the inside, which honestly just looks wrong.
Chloe sad is worse than Chloe with crazy-eyes, and they’re a sisterhood and sisters make sure that sisters aren’t sad.
“Hey,” she says gently.
Chloe looks up from her phone. “Hey. Is Beca still in there?”
Emily shakes her head. “No, she went out the other way. She had somewhere to go.”
“Right.” Chloe smiles slightly, but leans her head against the wall like she’s trying to hide that she’s upset.
“You okay?” Emily asks. She’s not sure if she can help, but sometimes talking about things is enough to make her feel at least a little better. Maybe Chloe is the same.
“Yeah,” Chloe says, but her eyes don’t have that Chloe-shine. “Totes.”
Emily’s awkward and she’s also outgoing and she’s not afraid to talk to people. And sure, sometimes she’s a little slow to piece things together, but she’s not dumb. She knows Chloe is sad. Which is why the awkward, outgoing part of her takes over.
“Do you like musicals?” She blurts out, and it sounds random, but it’s totally not.
“Musicals?” Chloe quirks an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, of course.”
“Cool, yeah, me too, they’re the best.” Emily clears her throat. “Do you want to get coffee and rate guys on their potential to play the male lead in popular musicals with me? I know it seems weird, but it’s actually really fun and it always, you know, helps me take my mind off things when I’m feeling weird and stuff while simultaneously not really objectifying anybody which is also good.”
She stops talking because she knows she gets carried away and she also hopes she didn’t offend Chloe by assuming she was in a weird mood or something.
She prays the crazy-eyes don’t make an appearance.
Chloe crinkles her nose in this really cute way that makes Emily feel like she’s not too mad. She sighs in relief.
“Umm.” Chloe tilts her head to the side, eyeing Emily like she hasn’t really seen her before. “Actually, yeah, that sounds fun.”
Emily beams. “Grawesome!” She cringes. “I was trying to say great and awesome at the same time.”
Chloe laughs, like actually laughs, and it makes Emily feel all sorts of happy tingles inside. She loves making people laugh. “Yeah. Grool.” Chloe winks.
“Mean Girls,” Emily says, because they’re like, bonding. “Nice.”
So they get coffee and talk a little bit about their classes, but mostly they just point out guys who’d make good Elder Prices and Moritzes and Cliff Bradshaws.
When they say goodbye, Emily feels a lot better about her day.
And as she smiles and tosses a wave over her shoulder on her way back to the Bella house, Emily thinks that Chloe probably does, too.
//
“Legacy, that’s enough with the homework!”
Emily looks up from her physics, crinkling her nose at Stacie. “But I have a test next week.”
Stacie glances over her shoulder at the sound problem worksheet she’s doing. “Oh, duh. You’re solving for vibration speed, so that’s the square root of the ratio of tension to linear density. So you plug those numbers in and get like, what… 130 meters per second, right?”
Emily blinks in shock, typing it into her calculator. “130.08, yeah…”
“Perfect!” Stacie grins. “Now, it’s Friday, so come on, everyone’s in their pjs and we’re watching 50 First Dates.”
Emily looks at Stacie in her frilly baby blue tank top and shorts. She didn’t know people actually wore that stuff to bed, but it’s Stacie so she guesses it makes sense. She looks down at her own outfit. “I’m not in my pajamas.”
“You can sleep in anything or nothing, babe. You’re technically always in pajamas.” Stacie tugs on her overall strap. “Now, no more homework allowed. Mom said so.”
“Mom did?” Emily grins teasingly and closes her textbook. “What about Dad?”
Stacie raises one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows at her and pulls her up from her seat. “Dad isn’t here and you better not remind Mom of that because she’s in a good mood right now.”
Emily nods because, yeah, she gets that. “She with Jesse?”
Stacie frowns. “I don’t know, but probably not.” She shrugs. “I think they’re like, barely dating anymore.”
“You always say that,” Emily grins.
“Well this time I’m pretty sure it’s true.” Stacie grabs her arm and starts pulling her toward the living room. “Now don’t talk about the homewrecker in my presence.”
Emily snorts. “He’s not a homewrecker if they’re already – ” Stacie shoots her a displeased look and she snaps her mouth shut. “Never mind.”
Stacie beams. “That’s what I thought.” She winks playfully and gives Emily a small shove toward the couches. Emily sees that everyone has set up pillows and blankets to watch the movie. Flo pulls her down next to her as Chloe puts the disc in the DVD player.
“This movie confuses me,” Jessica says as Chloe hits play. “Like, who could fall in love with Adam Sandler that many times?”
“I’d do him,” Stacie replies from the other side of Flo.
Emily grabs the popcorn from Lilly on her other side. “What if you were like Drew Barrymore in the movie and you were planning to watch this movie the next day but you got in an accident, so every day for the rest of your life you just kept watching it.”
Amy snorts. “No offense, Legacy, but this is supposed to be a fun night. Don’t be depressing.”
“Amy!” Chloe points at her before settling on the couch behind Emily. “No talking during the movie.”
Emily sees Cynthia Rose and Stacie exchange a look. Emily shakes her head.
“I’ve already lived this day and tomorrow over because of my time machine,” Lilly murmurs. Emily jolts her head back in surprise and it hits Chloe’s knee.
“Ow.” She grabs hold of her head.
“Emily.” Chloe’s hands clamp down on her shoulders. “Be careful, we don’t need you getting a concussion.”
Emily crinkles her nose. “My bad.”
Chloe taps her shoulder affectionately before leaning back into the couch.
“Yo,” Cynthia Rose says after they’ve been watching for a little over an hour. “Where the hell is Beca?”
Emily feels Chloe stiffen behind her and she looks over to see Stacie glaring at Cynthia Rose. Stacie shakes her head and meets Emily’s eyes. She quirks her eyebrows as if to say follow my lead.
Emily watches as Stacie grabs her pillow and leans toward Chloe. She looks behind her just in time to see Chloe’s crestfallen expression change to shock as Stacie yells, “PILLOW FIGHT!” and hits her in the chest with her pillow.
There’s a collective pause in the room as everyone stares at Stacie. Then Amy stands up and shakes her fist in the air, a battle cry erupting from her throat.
“PILLOW FIGHT!” She swings at Emily’s face and Emily ducks with wide eyes. Next to her, Flo grabs her pillow and throws it at Cynthia Rose.
Emily quickly rolls over and grabs the pillow she was sitting on. She smacks Lilly with it and Lilly’s eyes grow so wide they take over half her face. Emily thinks she might’ve picked the wrong enemy. She quickly crawls away, only to be hit on the butt by Ashley.
“Get the Legacy!” Amy screams.
“Crap.” Emily stands up, using her long legs to vault over Lilly and onto the couch so she has the high ground. “Come at me, aca-losers!”
She swings her pillow as the ranks close in, effectively knocking Flo over. Chloe hops on the couch too and starts jumping up and down, laughter pushing its way of her throat. Amy shrieks as Cynthia Rose starts chasing her and Emily grins triumphantly as she realizes she has a perfect shot at hitting Stacie.
“What am I looking at?”
Emily looks up to see that Beca has finally come back just as Lilly hits her from behind. She’s staring at them all like the dad who came home early to find his kids having an unsupervised party.
Emily pauses, allowing Ashley to hit her again.
“We’re just getting rid of some stress,” Chloe beams and Beca quirks an eyebrow.
She brandishes a folded piece of paper in the air. “This was on the porch.”
“Ooh. What is it?” Chloe grabs it and unfolds it, only to immediately close it again in shock when a deep voice sings from it. Beca shoots Chloe a small smile and Chloe reopens it, the voice singing out again.
Emily briefly wonders if it’s a Howler.
“We’ve been invited to sing at some kind of party.” Chloe says and Emily feels a rush of excitement flow through her.
“We’re going to sing? FINALLY!” It’s about time. Her hands jitter with enthusiasm.
Lilly says something about her teeth that Emily doesn’t catch, but Jessica and Ashley look at her in shock. Lilly shrugs then starts hitting people with her pillow again. They all laugh and continue their pillow fight, but Emily watches as Chloe leans closer to Beca, whispering something in ear.
Beca leans back, her nose crinkled in a small laugh. “Nerd.”
Chloe winks and gives Beca a brief kiss on the cheek before shooting off upstairs.
“Okay, aca-dorks, go get ready,” Beca calls. “We have a party to sing at.” She makes eye contact with Emily, who can’t help the giant grin that breaks across her face. Beca smirks lightly and follows Chloe up the staircase.
“Come on, Legacy,” Stacie says, grabbing onto her arm. “You can change into something of mine.”
Emily can’t stop smiling.
They’re finally going to sing!
//
Stacie is sending her on a mission.
A mission for hairspray.
“Chloe has it,” she says, leaning close to the mirror as she applies her eyeliner. “They’re in Beca and Amy’s room.”
Emily hops off the bed, pulling down at the dress Stacie lent her. It’s a good thing she’s not any taller. She slides down the hallway and pokes her head into the room.
“Ugh, I can’t decide,” Chloe is saying, fluffing out her hair as she stares into the mirror. Beca’s lying on her back on the bed, legs dangling over the edge. “Should I straighten it or leave it like this?”
“Does it really matter?” Beca asks. “You look great either way.”
“Beca,” Chloe chastises.
Beca sighs, her eye roll apparent even though Emily can’t see her face. “Leave it, then.”
“I’m gonna straighten it.” Chloe spins around, suddenly noticing Emily in the doorway. “Oh. Hey.”
“Uh. Hey.” She clears her throat. “Stacie wants her hairspray back.”
“Oh!” Chloe grabs it off the vanity and tosses it to her. She fumbles it and it falls to the floor with a thunk. Beca lifts her head up and Emily feels heat rush to her cheeks. Oops. She grabs the can off the floor and turns to go.
“Emily!” Chloe calls and she spins back around to see Chloe smiling at her. “Can you ask Stacie if I can borrow her heat protector?”
Emily nods. “Yeah, one sec.” She skips back down the hall and into Stacie’s room.
“Did you get the hairspray,” Stacie asks, now having moved on to doing her mascara.
“Yep.” She sets the can on Stacie’s dresser. “Chloe wants to use – ”
“Heat protection cream?”
Emily nods. “Uh. Yeah.”
Stacie points to the bottle on the dresser. “Tell her she better not finish the bottle or she’s buying me a new one.”
“Okay,” Emily says. She might not say that. She grabs the bottle and shoots back down the hall to Beca’s room.
“He just was like, ‘we never hang out’,” Beca’s saying when she goes through the doorway. Emily thinks that if she’s imitating Jesse, it’s a pretty good impersonation. “’With you doing Bellas stuff and hanging with Chloe and your new – ‘” She breaks off mid-sentence and clears her throat. “Anyway. It’s whatever, I don’t know.”
Chloe hums. “I’m sorry, Becs. He’s being dumb. He should know you make time for the people you love.” Chloe shoots Beca a soft smile. Beca clearly finds this embarrassing because she blushes for whatever reason. Emily just takes it all in with interest.
“Umm,” she says, and they both look up. She feels mildly guilty for breaking whatever moment they might’ve been having. “Here’s the thing.” She hands it to Chloe.
“Ooh, perfect!” Chloe beams at her. “Thank you! Oh, and can you tell Stace we’re gonna leave in thirty minutes so she better start her ritual soon?”
Emily doesn’t know what that means, and she’s not really sure she wants to. “Sure.”
She goes to leave again.
“Legacy!” Beca calls. Emily turns around again.
“Yeah?”
Beca gives her a tiny smile. “You look nice.”
Emily beams. “Thanks!”
“But pull that dress down. Or wear a jacket.”
Emily pulls on the dress again. “Yeah, totally. You got it.” She smiles at Beca and leaves again.
“Chloe says we’re leaving in thirty and you need to start your ritual,” she informs Stacie when she gets back to her room. “Also can I borrow a jacket?”
“Uh huh.” Stacie pops her lips, examining her newly applied gloss. She heads to her closet and tosses Emily a pea coat.
“Thanks.” Emily quirks an eyebrow because Stacie’s just standing there, her face screwed up in concentration. “You okay?”
Stacie nods. “Doin’ the ritual.” Emily must look confused because Stacie sighs. “Kegels, Legacy. You should do thirty a day.”
Emily crinkles her nose. “Thirty?”
Stacie glances at her, her face still scrunched in concentration. “The Hunter does fifty. He needs to be strong. Kegels are like milk, but for your lady friend.”
“Oh.”
Stacie glances at her. “Are you doing them?”
“Right now?” Emily feels her eyes go wide.
“Yeah.”
“Uh.” She shakes her head. “Do I have to?”
Stacie purses her lips, but shrugs. “Of course not, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She disappears into her closet for a moment and Emily sits back on the bed again.
“So, I think you were right about Chloe and Beca,” Emily says.
“Of course I was,” Stacie replies, voice coming from inside her closet. Emily watches as a heel flies through the doorway and lands near the vanity. “About what, though?”
Emily shrugs just as the second shoe lands next to the first. “They’re totally in love.”
Stacie pokes her head back out. “Oh my God, I know.” She smirks. “About time you caught on.”
Emily grins. “Also I think Beca and Jesse are kind of fighting.”
“What!” Stacie’s by her side in an instant. “Explain.”
“Well when I was getting the hairspray or whatever,” Emily begins, eyebrows raising as Stacie grabs her hands. “Beca was talking about how Jesse was mad at her for never hanging out with him, but she makes time to hang out with Chloe.”
Stacie squeezes her fingers. “What else?”
Emily thinks back. “I dunno. That was all I heard.”
“Hmmm.” Stacie frowns. “So if she hasn’t been hanging out with Jesse this whole time, what is she always up to?”
“Yeah, I don’t know.” Emily shrugs one shoulder.
Stacie grins at her. “That’s okay. Good spy work, Legacy.”
Emily purses her lips. “Well, I wasn’t spying on purpose, but okay.”
“We have to make sure they get together by the end of this year.” Stacie nods at her. “If Dad would stop being so obtuse and Mom would just say something. Ugh they are soooo frustrating sometimes.”
Emily laughs at that. “You shouldn’t meddle, Stace.”
“Oh, yeah, I won’t.” Stacie says, but it doesn’t really assure Emily. There’s a glint in her eye that Emily’s not so sure about.
At that point, there’s a knock on the doorframe. “Knock, knock.” Chloe bounces into the room, grinning. A second later, Beca slouches in after her. “Ready to go?”
Stacie winks at Emily before turning to Chloe. “Yeah, girl. Let’s do this.”
“This better not be some weird cult shit,” Beca mutters as Stacie and Chloe compliment each other’s outfits. “What kind of party has fart noise as the password?”
Emily’s not sure if Beca is really talking to anyone so she just shrugs in agreement and puts on Stacie’s coat.
“Oh, good, you found a jacket.” Beca reaches up and smooths it out over Emily’s shoulders.
“Yup.”
“Okay!” Chloe beams, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Let’s go!” She grabs Beca’s hand and pulls her into the hallway, shouting at everyone that they’re leaving.
Stacie raises a knowing eyebrow at Emily, causing a laugh to bubble up her throat.
“Chloe,” she hears Beca call. “No. Give me those. I’m driving. And picking the music.”
“Come on, Legacy.” Stacie links arms with her and pulls her after Beca and Chloe. “The night is young and so are we!”
They climb into the car with Chloe and Beca, and while Beca does drive, Chloe manages to pick the music.
They listen to Taylor Swift the whole way there, Stacie belting in the back and Chloe poking at Beca’s cheek the whole time. Beca grumbles. Stacie laughs.
Emily’s never felt more alive.
//
Emily’s dead. Dead.
Not really, but she wishes the world would open up and swallow her whole.
Maybe she should rewind…
So they get to the party, which turns out to be some weird underground a cappella competition thing. And the Green Bay Packers are there, which is probably the coolest thing to ever happen to her.
DSM is there, too, which makes Chloe frown harder than Stacie did when she saw that Jesse and the Trebles were also in attendance. Emily doesn’t mind, really. Benji waved to her, which was nice.
He’s like, so cute.
Things seem to be going well until Chloe has to pull Beca away from another embarrassing confrontation with Kommissar of DSM and the competition starts.
Benji starts singing Baby Got Back in this really adorable way, but he changes the lyrics mid-way through the song, which confuses Emily and apparently pisses off the weird host guy. Fat Amy keeps looking at Emily like she had something to do with it and Stacie pats her on the back and whispers, “nice one, Legacy” so she nods like she knows what’s going on.
Except that Emily sort of has no idea what’s happening and she’s trying to follow along, but is super confused. Beca and Chloe seem to have it covered, anyway.
That is, until they’re going to head-to-head with DSM in 90s hip hop jamz.
Emily gulps. She has a vast range of musical interests.
90s Hip Hop Jamz is not one of them.
Insane in the Membrane? What does that even mean?
Then the host dude is pointing at her and she’s shaking her head and he’s still pointing and ohmygod what is happening??
All she wants is to sing. But then it’s her turn and she just… freezes.
In a panic, she opens her mouth, hoping something good will come out and then…
Flashlight? What was she thinking?
So yeah, if the world could swallow her up at this moment, that’d be just swell.
When the host guy says he hates her and everyone boos, she feels like she let not only the Bellas down, but also the whole a cappella world and probably the aca-gods.
Oh god. Her mom is going to hate her.
Her real mom. Not her aca-mom.
Although Chloe seems to be going down that path, too.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Emily! Now DSM thinks they have the drop on us!”
Emily might cry, but she’s trying really hard not to.
“I panicked,” she tells Chloe. But she knows it’s an excuse. Yeah, she’ still waiting for the world to swallow her up. Any second now… “I understand if you want me to crawl under a rock and die.”
“Hey!” Beca steps between them. “We don’t want that.” Chloe quirks an eyebrow like she disagrees and Beca points at her. Emily now feels responsible for her aca-mom and aca-dad fighting. Oh god.
What if she causes an aca-divorce?
Stacie would kill her.
She thinks her heart might stop when Jesse pulls Beca away and leaves her alone with Chloe. Fortunately, Benji picks that time to come up her.
“Emily!” He yells over the loud sound of DSM screaming.
“Benji!” She still feels like crap, but the sight of him fills her with relief. Chloe steps away, saying something about finding Stacie.
“You were…” He gestures awkwardly and some weird sounds come out of his mouth that she doesn’t quite catch. It’s kind of cute.
She blushes. “Thanks, so were you.”
He beams back at her and his smile makes her have the weird sensation that she’s upside down. She’s kind of dizzy.
“I guess we both kind of messed up, huh?” He shrugs bashfully. Okay. Maybe he’s really cute.
“That was the most embarrassing moment of my life,” she says, but she’s laughing and it doesn’t feel so horrible anymore.
“Mine, too!” Benji gestures to his drink. “Do you want something to drink?”
She shakes her head. “Not tonight. Thanks, though!”
They talk for a little bit, eventually moving to a couch and sitting down. He tells her about his major, computer science, and how he’s got a job all lined up after graduation. She suddenly realizes that every friend she’s made so far is graduating after this year.
The thought makes her really sad for a second, and she looks around the room at her friends and her sisters. Her family, really. Stacie, Jessica, and Ashley are dancing with members from the other groups, and Beca and Jesse are talking to one of the Green Bay Packers.
Chloe’s standing off by herself, staring at DSM with a mixture of sadness and hatred.
It kind of makes Emily’s heart ping helplessly.
“Hey, Benji,” she says, turning to him. “Do you think we can talk later? I have to do something.”
“Yeah, of course.” He smiles at her and she gives him a hug before getting up and moving through the crowd.
She approaches Chloe cautiously because she’s seen the crazy-eyes enough tonight and they’ll probably haunt her forever.
“Umm. Hey,” she says, leaning up against the wall next to Chloe. She follows the girl’s gaze to see the two DSM captains jumping around obnoxiously.
“They’re so cocky,” Chloe spits out. “They think they can just come in here and steal everything that the Bellas have worked years for. I hate them.”
Emily’s eyes widen because who knew Chloe had a dark side. Well. Those crazy-eyes had to come from somewhere, she guesses.
“And that stupid woman is making Beca all crazy!”
Ah. Emily gets it now.
She nods in agreement. “Yeah, Beca seems a little frazzled.”
Chloe huffs. “I just. And Beca. For four years, you know? Like what is that?”
Is she supposed to respond to that? What would Stacie do?
(WWSD. She should get that on a wristband.)
“Yeah,” is what Emily manages to come up with because she’s totally helpful and not awkwardly clueless. Like at all.
Chloe sighs, turning to look at Emily. She seems to compose herself and her eyes soften. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
Emily shrugs because it’s in the past now and she doesn’t let haters get her down. Not that Chloe is a hater. But.
Yeah. You get it.
“No, it’s cool,” Emily says. “I messed up.”
Chloe shakes her head. “No, you were just unprepared, and that’s not your fault. It’s ours.” She uncrosses her arms and pulls Emily in for a hug.
“Aw.” Emily smiles against the top of Chloe’s head. “I’m sorry, too, though. I’m trying my best to learn.”
Chloe pulls back and gives her a small smile. “You’ll get there.” At that point, Stacie dances past them, winking suggestively. Chloe grins and grabs Emily’s arm. “Come on, let’s dance.”
They join Stacie, Jessica, and Ashley on the dancefloor and despite her previous sadness, Emily’s laughing within minutes.
So okay, she thinks, as Stacie and Chloe begin a booty shake-off. The world doesn’t have to open up and swallow her whole.
At least not tonight.
//
Emily’s Christmas break is really uneventful.
She mopes around the house a little because she got a C in physics, which sort of sucks and makes her feel really unprepared for when she has to take physics 2 next semester.
Her mom makes it better though. They hang out and watch bad movies when her mom isn’t working. It makes her realize that even though it got a lot better as the semester went on, she still really missed her parents while she was at school.
It’s just that as her break extends, she starts to think that she misses her aca-family just as much, too. She misses Bellas rehearsals and their movie nights. She misses Stacie and her insane plans to get Beca and Chloe together. She misses Fat Amy and her wry comebacks. She even misses Chloe’s crazy-eyes.
Who would’ve thought.
Needless to say, by the time her break is over, she can’t wait to get back to school.
Even the thought of physics 2 can’t crush her excitement.
//
Emily’s never really been one to hate exercise that much. She’s pretty fit and running makes her feel alive.
Still, she thinks Chloe is trying to kill her.
“Faster, Legacy, you won’t get that choreography down if you can’t even make it around the block in under a minute!”
Emily groans, trying to make her legs not feel like jelly. She sees Fat Amy slip away through the bushes by the Treble house.
That aca-cheater.
By the time Chloe finally lets them stop running, Emily thinks she might pass out on the spot. In fact, she thinks Jessica almost does, watching as she and Ashley flop back onto the lawn of the Bella house with loud groans.
Emily totally feels that, but she needs water first.
She pushes through the front door and heads to the kitchen, grabbing a cup from the cabinet and filling it with water. She’s barely turned off the faucet before she’s chugging the whole thing down.
She sighs in relief after, turning to head back outside, but she sees that Beca is sitting at the kitchen table staring at her with a raised eyebrow, her laptop open in front of her.
“I’m… thirsty…” Emily manages to pant out.
“Hey thirsty,” Beca quips. “I’m Beca.”
Emily just stares, her chest heaving. Did Beca just –
Was that a –
?
Emily smiles because Beca’s been in kind of a mood the past few weeks. Not that she’s taken it out on anybody or anything. It’s just that Emily is the kind of person who notices that sort of thing and Beca’s seem extra frazzled to the point where only Chloe can get her to chill for like five seconds.
But then Chloe will bring up Worlds and Beca gets all jittery again.
Emily wants to make it better, but she’s not sure how.
“What are you working on?” She asks, and Beca’s mouth turns down, the pupils of her eyes rolling away from Emily’s like loose marbles.
“Umm. You know.” Beca waves her hand in the air noncommittally.
“Worlds stuff?” Emily’s just wondering because even though they have a gig coming up, it’s just for practice. Beca hasn’t finished their Worlds set yet.
Beca sighs. “Uh, yeah. Not really.” She taps on her laptop and it makes a dinging sound. Emily leans over to see that she’s pulled up a mini keyboard on the screen.
“That app sucks,” Emily says. “You should try a different one. That one doesn’t let you pull up any other apps at the same so if you’re trying to write, you’ll have to keep stopping to manually do it. Some of the others will let you press record and it will transcribe it into mock sheet music for you. It’s pretty cool.”
Beca tilts her head to the side, her eyes meeting Emily’s. “You write your own stuff, right?”
Emily nods. “Well, I try to.”
“Do…” Beca trails off, her fingers tapping on the table in a quick pitter-patter. “Do you maybe want to – ”
“Becs?” Beca snaps her mouth shut as Chloe glides into the kitchen. “Oh. There you are.” She smiles at Emily before turning her attention back to Beca. “Hey. Can you send me what you have so far for our Worlds set? I think I have a few choreography ideas.”
Emily watches Beca physically slouch further into her seat. “Sure thing, Chlo.”
“Great!” Chloe beams and leans down to kiss Beca on the cheek. Beca freezes. “Kay, well I’m gonna shower so no need to rush.”
She winks at them, squeezes Emily’s arm, and heads up the stairs.
“Yeah,” Beca mutters. “No rush.”
Emily frowns sympathetically. “What were you saying?”
“Uh.” Beca blinks, shaking back into the moment. “You know, umm, just never mind. I have to convert that set and send it to Chloe.” She stands up and grabs her laptop. “I’ll talk to you later, Em.”
“Okay,” Emily says, her heart sinking in disappointment.
Beca shoots her a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, then she’s thumping up the stairs. Emily hears a door slam and sighs.
Her Bella family is so dysfunctional sometimes.
//
The BU Harmonics have a party on the Thursday before they have their gig at the old folks home. Chloe says it’s cool to go to it as long as they don’t party the next night.
Or talk to any of the High Notes.
Emily doesn’t think those are related. Chloe just has some weird thing against the High Notes.
It’s in this house off-campus where a few of the Harmonics live. There are a few Trebles there, but no Benji or Jesse. This pleases Stacie who links arms with Emily as they walk through the door.
But then she groans.
“Ugh, no.” Stacie says, stopping them in their tracks.
“What?” Emily tries to look for the source of the Stacie’s displeasure, but doesn’t see anyone she recognizes.
“It’s Tom,” Stacie hisses.
Emily crinkles her nose in confusion. “Who’s Tom?”
“Chloe’s on again, off again boyfriend.”
Emily feels her jaw drop. “Chloe has a boyfriend?”
Stacie spins her around so they’re face to face. “No. Listen. Chloe doesn’t even like Tom. They just fuck sometimes. He doesn’t even sing.”
“Okay…” Emily looks into Stacie’s eyes, trying to follow. “So…?”
“So that means he’s only here because Chloe asked him to come. Because she needs a distraction.” Stacie shrugs. “And because she likes sex. But that’s not the point.”
Emily glances behind her, but there are like 8 different guys in the vicinity who she doesn’t know so she’s not sure which is Tom.
“Okay, well, what do we do?”
Stacie taps her cheek thoughtfully. Then she scoffs in frustration. “I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something by the time Chloe gets here. So just follow my lead.”
Emily never really does anything else except for follow Stacie’s meddling lead so… she thinks she’s got it. “Okay.”
They’ve been at the party for twenty minutes when Chloe finally walks in the door. She’s pulling Beca by the hand, which Emily makes note of because she’s never seen Beca hold hands with anyone except Chloe, not even Jesse, but Chloe has that effect on people, she guesses.
Emily taps Stacie on the shoulder and juts her chin toward the pair. Stacie grins.
“Oh my God, they’re so cute.”
Emily snorts, pinching her nose as she laughs.
“Hey!” Chloe slides up to them. “What’s so funny?”
Stacie’s arm falls around Emily’s shoulder as Emily tries to think of a response. “Umm.”
“Legacy here was just telling me about the time she fell out of a tree, but her shirt got caught on a branch so she was stuck hanging upside down for an hour until her parents got home.” Stacie nudges her with her hip and Emily nods.
“Oh. Yeah. True story. Very embarrassing.” It is a true story and very embarrassing, but Stacie didn’t have to bring it up now. Not in front of Beca! Emily’s still trying to appear somewhat cool.
Not really. But hey. A girl can dream.
“Oh,” Chloe says. Beca just looks around the party, apparently bored already. Emily glances down and sees her fingers are tapping wildly on the back of Chloe’s hand. “Hey look, there’s Tom.”
A tall dude with brown hair walks up to them. Emily thinks he’s pretty good lucking and has a nice smile, but if Stacie says Chloe doesn’t like him then…
She’s not going to take Stacie’s word at one hundred percent. Stacie’s half crazy.
“Hey ladies,” Tom says with a grin. Emily notices Beca drop Chloe’s hand and step away, muttering about how she’s going to get a drink.
Chloe goes off to dance with Tom for a little bit, Stacie’s narrowed eyes following the pair like a hawk.
Emily shrugs and goes back to dancing. At some point, Fat Amy shows up, and she’s acting weirder than normal. Stacie is distractedly staring at Chloe and Tom, so Emily tries to entertain Amy, which mostly just means taking tequila shots.
Well. Amy takes the shots. Emily just watches because she’s not really into tequila.
“Woo! Party!” Fat Amy yells after her third shot.
“WOO!” Emily giggles and drags Amy back to where Stacie is.
Stacie leans close to her. “Look, Chloe doesn’t even look like she’s having fun.”
Emily follows her gaze to where Chloe is talking with Tom. She’s nodding at whatever he’s saying and Emily’s raises an eyebrow. “Why doesn’t she like Tom?”
Stacie snorts. “He’s way too nice for Chloe.”
“Too nice?” Emily glances back and forth between Stacie and Chloe.
“He’s wobbly,” Fat Amy interrupts. “Can’t make a decision.”
Stacie nods in defiant agreement. “Exactly. Chloe likes when people are certain about things, even if she disagrees with them.”
Stacie says this with such authority that Emily is immediately suspicious. How does Stacie know that?
She thinks about asking, but on second thought, she’s not sure she wants to know.
“Here, Legacy, watch and learn.” She grabs Emily by the arm and drags her over to Chloe and Tom. “Hey, guys!”
Chloe grins at them. “Hi Stace. Em.”
“Okay, so Legacy and I were talking and we just cannot decide. Tom could you help us?”
Emily has no idea where Stacie is going with this, but she nods like she does. Confidence is key.
“Sure thing. What’s up?” He smiles helpfully.
“Okay, so. Fuck, marry, kill. Nicki, Lady GaGa or Iggy?”
Emily’s eyes widen and Tom tilts his head to the side. “What?”
Stacie just stares at him, waiting patiently.
“Come on, pretty boy, pick!” Fat Amy nudges him.
“I…” Tom looks at Chloe, who’s watching him expectantly. “I don’t know guys, I like them all.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Chloe says, eyes widening incredulously. “It’s so obvious!”
Stacie smirks at Emily, a silent I told you so. Emily shakes her head in amusement. Stacie’s eyes flash and suddenly, she’s reaching out.
“Beca!”
Stacie grabs the girl by her jacket as she’s walking by and pulls her into their circle.
“Oh, ‘sup?” Beca glances around at all of them, but Emily thinks she avoids looking at Tom.
“Fuck, marry, kill,” Stacie says. “Nicki, Lady GaGa, or Iggy.”
Beca squints her eyes, clearly a little bit drunk. “Fuck GaGa, marry Nicki, kill Iggy.”
“Thank you!” Chloe pushes at Tom’s arm. “See. Obvious!”
Emily thinks she’d get with Nicki and marry GaGa, but she’s glad Stacie made her point.
“Sorry,” Tom laughs, making his dimples appear. Chloe rolls her eyes, which is a new one as far as Emily can tell. That’s more Beca’s deal.
“Whatever,” Chloe says. “Come on, Becs. Let’s dance.”
Beca downs her drink and hands her empty cup to Emily. “Here, Legacy. Gotta go bust a move.”
They all stare at Beca in amazement, but she doesn’t notice. Chloe links their hands and drags her to the dance floor area.
“Holy Hugh Jackman,” Amy grins at them. “Aca-bitch is drunk.”
They all exchange a look before bursting out laughing. Stacie squeezes Emily’s shoulder as Tom walks away. “See! Did you see?”
“I saw,” Emily says.
Amy snorts. “Chloe is so turned on by the fact that Beca would marry Nicki.” She jerks her head toward the dance floor where Beca and Chloe are dancing hip to hip.
“Oh my God,” Stacie whines. “Beca is so embarrassing, but look how cute they are together.”
Emily agrees. Beca can do choreography just fine, but she clearly is awkward when it comes to freestyle. Chloe just rolls with it, which Emily does think is cute. She watches as Chloe touches their foreheads together and whispers something, causing Beca to laugh. Beca twirls Chloe around playfully.
“That’s my aca-ship!” Stacie fist pumps.
Emily crinkles her nose. “What’s a ship?”
Stacie sighs. “You have so much to learn, Legacy.” She loops her arm around Emily’s neck. “You’re lucky you have us to teach you.”
Emily grins because, yeah, she knows this.
That’s what she’s been saying all along.
//
Emily’s super excited. They’re going to her first performance!
When she announces this, Chloe’s eyes bulge at her enthusiasm and she tells Emily to calm down.
Emily cannot calm down.
She’s just so ready.
Even if she thinks their set is kind of weird and maybe partially offensive, she gets what Beca and Chloe are doing. They’re trying to beat DSM at their own game.
Emily’s just not sure it’s working.
But yeah. She’s still excited.
Benji texted her good luck this morning, which was super cute. They’ve been texting a lot, and she thinks if he asks her out again, she’ll probably say yes. Things are settling down, even with Worlds coming up, and Emily finally feels like she found her niche.
Being a Bella is amazing.
Hence the excitement!
She’s so nervous, but mostly pumped, and she goes to check the crowd, which is, like Chloe said, a bunch of old people.
Everything seems to be going smoothly, except for Chloe’s crazy-eyed stressing and inevitable breakdown.
(Beca was quick to comfort her, but Emily thinks that her aca-mom is starting to lose her feeble grip on reality, a loaded gun ready to fire at any given second.)
But yeah, she feels on top of the world.
Today, nothing is going to bring her down!
//
So their performance was kind of a let-down.
Kind of being a relative term here.
Cynthia Rose and her burnt head might disagree.
But Emily is nothing if not positive. Still, the bus ride home is horribly awkward, and she almost can’t take it, so she tries to disappear into a song for a little bit.
CR is watching a movie on her iPad, Chloe is silently fuming, and Beca is staring at her.
“Is that for a class?” Beca asks, eyes peering at the words she’s writing.
Emily shakes her head, and she tries to explain how the words just come to her when she’s stressed, but Chloe chooses that time to start yelling.
Emily shrinks back into the seat.
Or she tries to… until Amy says it’s her fault. Which like, aca-scuse you, Amy. For once it is totally not her fault!
Nobody really defends her, but Beca shoots her a sympathetic look like she’s been in her position before. It makes her feel a tiny bit better.
Her relief is quickly shattered when Chloe says the five words that could either mean something amazing or her worst nightmare.
“We’re going on a retreat!”
Next to her, Beca groans.
Emily frowns. Probably her worst nightmare.
//
Chloe sets up the retreat for during Spring Break. After that, there’s only three more weeks until Worlds.
Emily hopes they’ll be ready.
Her mom comes to visit, and she missed her so much that she doesn’t even care that her mom picks her up and spins around in a hug right there in the Student Center, making her seem like the dorkiest freshman on campus.
Missing your mom is cool, okay?
She tries to tell her mom that she’s not too hopeful about their chances at Worlds and how fights keep breaking out at the Bella house.
(Yesterday, Jessica and Ashley got in a screaming match about which Bring it On is better. And the day before that Beca was yelling at Fat Amy for like twenty minutes about “privacy” and to “give her back all of the money she owes her” or something. Not to mention the fact that Chloe’s been close to tears every night for the past week.)
“I know you’re not feeling it,” her mom says. “But you will. This won’t be the end of the Bellas.”
Emily just hopes she’s right.
//
Chloe doesn’t tell them what to pack. She’s being really secretive about the whole thing.
Emily’s not sure what to expect.
The bus ride there is long and tense, and everyone is kind of into their own thing. Jessica and Ashley fall asleep on each other while Cynthia Rose and Stacie watch a movie on CR’s iPad.
Chloe meditates on the other side of the bus, her eyes closed, headphones in. Emily’s definitely not about to disturb her, but sometimes her leg jiggles frantically and Beca will press her own leg to Chloe’s until she breathes like a normal person again.
Beca sits across from her, plugged into her laptop, frustrated fingers tapping on the keyboard. She’s wearing her bulky sound-trapping headphones, so Emily can’t hear what she’s doing at all.
Every so often, they make eye contact, and Beca will give her a tiny, soft smile that makes Emily’s heart ache in the best of ways.
Her mom was right. They may not win Worlds, but these girls are her family. Her aca-family.
She loves them all so much and she’ll support them forever.
She just wishes they’d remember how much they all love each other, too.
Hopefully this retreat will make that happen.
//
Aubrey Posen is without a doubt the most intense person Emily has ever met in her whole life.
More intense than Chloe, which she didn’t think was possible, but those two are best friends, so she guesses it makes sense.
She doesn’t know what she was expecting when she stepped off that bus, but it was not for former Bella captain Aubrey Posen to greet them with a rifle over her shoulder.
Like, just.
But hey. She can roll with it.
She can roll with anything.
//
(Except sleeping next to Fat Amy after she’s eaten a burrito.)
//
Are you there aca-gods? It’s her, Emily.
Please make this night go faster.
Aca-amen.
//
(Beca and Chloe won’t stop whispering to each other.
Emily thinks she hears something about a back rub and experimentation.
She raises her head briefly, only to make eye contact with a triumphant Stacie.
She lowers her head back down with a grin.
Stacie should probably mind her own business, but Emily can’t help but feel the same.)
//
Chloe starts singing Torn.
Emily can dig that.
Anything to mute the sounds Fat Amy is making outside.
//
The next day, Aubrey makes them do all kinds of weird bonding exercises. There’s this one with a log, and you have to move across it and get in a certain order while trying not to knock anyone over.
It’s Emily’s worst nightmare.
Especially when Stacie keeps tickling her.
“Hey,” she says, when Stacie pokes her side for the third time. “Knock it off.”
Stacie winks. “I’ll knock you off, Legacy.”
“You’re dumb,” Emily grumbles, trying to concentrate on not falling.
“Nuh uh,” Stacie says, popping her gum in Emily’s face and making balance seem like a no brainer. “I’m an Aerospace Engineering major.”
Emily pauses, her mouth falling open in shock. “You are?”
“Yeah, girl.”
Emily grins excitedly. “Oh my God can you help me with physics?”
Stacie stares at her like she’s dumb. “Babe, I’ve been helping you all year.”
“You have?” Emily thinks back to all the time’s that Stacie’s helped her with her homework. “Oh. I guess you have.”
Stacie nods, eyebrows raised.
Maybe they are learning about each at this retreat.
Just then, Stacie tickles her side again and she shrieks, effectively losing her balance and falling off of the log.
“Bella down!” Aubrey yells. “Begin again!”
The group collectively groans.
“Way to go, Legacy!”
“Thanks a lot, Legacy!”
Stacie reaches down to help her up with an innocent smile. Emily grabs her hand, smirks triumphantly, and yanks Stacie down with her.
Take that Stacie!
They both end up on the ground laughing uncontrollably.
Aubrey is not amused.
//
The best part of the retreat is the lake. There’s a really fun slide and an inflatable launcher bomb thing.
She got to jump off the tower and launch Stacie into the water.
It was so fun.
Beca doesn’t seem to agree, though.
Emily’s sitting out on the pod, staring up at the tower, hand cupped on her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun. Beca’s peering down at her, and Emily’s not completely sure from this distance, but she thinks Beca looks really apprehensive.
“Beca, you’re supposed to jump,” Aubrey yells from the dock.
“Yeah, I figured that out, thanks!”
Emily giggles. “Beca it’s really fun and it doesn’t hurt I swear!” She calls up to the girl.
Beca shakes her head minutely.
“Beca hates heights,” Chloe yells down to her.
“Chloe! Oh my God.” Beca covers her face. Emily thinks she hears her say I fucking hate you people but she could be wrong.
“Beca,” Aubrey says, adopting what Emily think is her attempt at a soothing voice. She’s not sure Beca’s buying it. “Trust is an important facet of this exercise. You have to trust yourself just as much as you trust the people around you.”
Beca crosses her arms. “Yeah, I trust myself to miss that thing and faceplant into the lake.”
Emily grins. What a drama queen. This thing is huge and it’d be basically impossible to miss it. And even if she did, well, it’s just water.
“Hey Aubrey.” Fat Amy sticks her head over the side of the tower. “Can we take a lunch break while we wait for Beca to work out her trust issues?”
“No, Amy!” Aubrey cocks her hand on her hip. “Beca. You need to take calming breaths. Experience the air around you, let the wind bring you into a calm and secure environment…”
Beca’s eye roll is apparent even from far away. “Easy for you to say.”
“Aubrey,” Chloe calls, rubbing a hand over Beca’s back. “Can we jump together?”
“No, Chloe!” Aubrey purses her lips. “Beca needs to trust herself.”
Emily totally hopes Beca trusts herself soon. She thinks she’s getting sunburnt.
“You can do it, Beca!” She yells. “I love you!”
Beca peers over the tower again. “You’re a fucking cheese ball, Legacy.”
Emily just beams and gives her a thumbs-up. Chloe rubs her back again. Amy groans.
Beca scowls, then she disappears from Emily’s view again. Emily tilts her head to the side curiously. Maybe Beca is making a run for it…
Then she sees her, flying through the air.
“Oh. Crap.” Emily braces herself as Beca lands on the inflatable bomb, and then she’s being launched into open space. “Woooooo!!”
Her body uncurls halfway between the launcher and lake and she plugs her nose just before she plunges beneath the water. She shoots back to the surface, uncontrollable laughter bubbling up her throat. She coughs on some water, but can’t stop giggling.
Everyone on the tower is cheering for Beca, who seems half-paralyzed as she crawls toward the end of the launcher. Emily starts to swim to the side, but Chloe doesn’t allow much to time pass for Beca to freak out as she immediately lets out a scream and leaps from the tower.
“No no no no no!” Beca yells, but gravity does its thing and Beca flies through the air again. Emily turns her head away as Beca hits the water with a giant splash. She resurfaces with a sputter and pushes her hair from her face.
Emily leisurely swims toward her. “Hey! You okay?”
“Yeah,” Beca says, but she reaches for Emily’s arm with shaky hands. “Obviously.”
Emily grins knowingly. “Not too bad, right?”
“What?” Beca blinks at her, and her fingers clench around Emily’s bicep. “Yeah. No. It was good. Really… fun.”
“Come on,” Emily laughs and uses her long legs to kick toward the dock, dragging Beca along with her. It’s a good thing she’s a strong swimmer.
They reach the wooden structure and Aubrey reaches a hand down to help them up. Emily gives Beca a push then crawls up after her. Aubrey hands them each a towel, which Beca immediately wraps herself up in. Emily thinks she looks like a cute little caterpillar wrapped up in a towel cocoon. It doesn’t really help that the towel has tiny purple fishies on it.
Emily plops down next to Beca on the deck, her own towel held loosely around her shoulders.
Beca glances at her gratefully, then her eyes narrow.
“Aubrey,” she says sharply. “The Legacy is getting sunburnt. What kind of camp are you running here?”
“Well,” Aubrey quips, and Emily glances up to see her digging in her fanny pack. “You know what my father always says. Only the brave will walk through fire, and only the adept will emerge with tougher skin.”
Emily pinches her eyebrows together trying to make sense of that, but she doesn’t really get it. Next to her, Beca sighs. Aubrey tosses some sun screen in her lap and Emily starts to rub it on her cheeks.
Out on the lake, Flo jumps off the tower and launches Chloe into the water. Beca watches them fondly.
“Now, Beca,” Aubrey says from behind them. “What did we learn from this exercise? Were you able to trust yourself? And what were the consequences?”
Beca scowls. “I fucking hate you people,” she mutters.
Sunburnt cheeks or not, Emily can’t stop smiling.
//
Aubrey also makes them go through this mud obstacle course thing. It’s kind of fun, once you get past the mud part and how hard the course is.
By the end, they’re all exhausted.
They hose off and Amy makes several comments about dinner, but Aubrey’s apparently not done with them yet.
“Okay, Bellas!” She claps her hands enthusiastically. And Emily thought she had an endless supply of push-through optimism. “Time for a breakdown.”
“None of us can breakdance, Aubrey,” CR says, rolling her eyes. She’s kind of grumpy, but she’s not the only one. Beca looks ready to fight. Fight for what, Emily’s not sure, but next to her, Beca’s tiny frame jitters like she’s been struck with a high-voltage shock.
“Speak for yourself,” Amy shoots at Cynthia Rose.
Lilly blinks quickly. “I can bend all of my joints into a triple helix,” she murmurs. Emily side-eyes her, but nobody says anything about it.
Aubrey gives them a few songs and they have to attempt to mix them all together. Emily thinks it’s kind of fun, but nobody else seems to agree.
Well, nobody except Chloe, who seems to have the energy of a puppy on caffeine pills.
After about an hour, Aubrey seems to finally be wearing them down. Cynthia Rose and Amy appear to be twelve steps past over it and Beca keeps grinding her teeth.
Emily has a bad feeling about it all.
Especially when Beca and Chloe start fighting.
She’s heard them argue before, but mostly about dumb things, and it’s not like, even real fighting. It’s like Chloe will say something and Beca will disagree and then Chloe pouts and Beca gives in.
Stacie calls it married.
Emily calls it a bedtime routine.
“I’ve got more important things to do!” Beca ends up yelling. Emily freezes, mouth turning down in a frown.
They all kind of shift awkwardly except for Chloe, who seems to be the only one willing to test Beca at any given time.
“What could be more important than this?” Chloe fires back, her voice going shaky like she’s really mad and doesn’t want to cry.
Emily gets that. She kind of wants to cry when she gets mad, too. And it’s totally the worst.
Beca shakes her head as if she suddenly realizes what’s happening and where they are. “No, it’s nothing. Never mind.”
But Chloe doesn’t seem to want to back down.
When they start yelling, Emily feels really uncomfortable, but she thinks that maybe it’s for the best.
Aren’t they here to be working out their differences?
She just hopes it doesn’t backfire.
Beca tells them about her internship and how a music producer is maybe looking into her stuff. Emily thinks that’s totally awesome, but she does kind of agree with Chloe. Why wouldn’t Beca tell them about that?
When Beca accuses Chloe of being obsessed, Emily feels lost. She kind of gets where Beca’s coming from (Chloe’s been nearing a breakdown all year and her one track mind has been weighing down on all of them), but that doesn’t mean Beca should yell at them.
She takes an awkward step forward, but Stacie puts her arm around her shoulders and shakes her head at Emily.
“Mom and Dad gotta work this one out,” she whispers.
Emily bites her lip. She hates this. They shouldn’t fight.
“Oh my God!” Beca ends up yelling. “Enough about the Worlds. I can’t. I’m outta here.”
She goes to walk away and Emily wonders if this is the end. The end of the Bellas and their little aca-family.
She feels sad. She just became part of it and now it’s all going to go away.
When Beca storms away, Emily thinks she’s the only one who realizes what’s about to happen.
Which is that Beca is about to be caught in a bear trap.
“Beca!”
The net comes out of nowhere, scooping Beca into the air with a bunch of leaves and dirt.
“What the hell?” Emily hears her scream, and they all take off running toward her. Well. Everyone except Chloe, who now seems to be on a power trip.
“We have to get her down,” Emily says to Stacie, urgently looking for something that would help them do that.
“Well, look who needs our help now,” Chloe gloats. Emily thinks the crazy-eyes are back. She was totally right about the horror movie thing.
The net swings and Emily remembers Beca’s fear of heights. Oh no. Poor Beca.
“Really?” Beca screams. “That’s what you’re gonna say to me right now? Help me! I’m dying!”
Next to her, Stacie nudges Cynthia Rose with a small grin. “Dad’s dying.”
“Girl,” Cynthia Rose shakes her head incredulously. “You’re cruel.”
At that moment, the net falls a little, catching after it drops a few feet. Beca screams.
Emily’s done with this. They have to get Beca down. Chloe finally seems to agree.
“We have to get her down,” Emily yells. “We need a ladder!”
Aubrey says they don’t have ladders because it’s counterproductive to being a crazy person. Not really. But that’s what Emily hears.
This seems to set Amy off and she starts ranting about boobs. Emily rolls her eyes.
These people are aca-nuts.
“If I’m about to die, then okay! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean any of that stuff I said!” Beca seems pretty close to tears.
Emily wonders if she really is about to die.
“I love all of you,” Beca cries. “I love all of you awesome nerds. I’m sorry I’ve just been so stressed out!”
At this point, the net drops another few feet. Emily’s starting to panic. What if Beca actually dies?!
Everyone steps back as the net swings again. Well, everyone except for Chloe who stands there frantically looking around for some way to get Beca down. “Don’t worry!” She calls up to Beca, trying to calm her down. Emily doesn’t think it works.
Chloe tries to get them into a formation to help Beca, but everyone except Emily seems too frazzled to listen. Even Stacie has stepped back a few feet, her head pushed into Cynthia Rose’s shoulder. She keeps peeking up at Beca through one eye.
Just as they start to actually move, the net falls through the air. Beca screams again and Emily braces herself as it looks like Beca will hit the ground forcefully, but she ends up just landing on Fat Amy.
“What the fuck!” Beca screams.
Emily glances up to see Lilly hanging upside down with a knife in her hand. Her eyes go wide. How did Lilly get up there?
Beca groans, and Emily looks back at her. Her eyes are so wide, staring up at Lilly, and her chest heaves quickly.
“Oh my God,” Chloe says, leaning over her. “Becs. Beca.” She waves her hand in front of Beca’s face.
Beca just groans again. “Ow.”
“Are you okay?” Chloe moves a piece of hair away from Beca’s face.
Emily steps forward to help, but Stacie grabs her arm and pulls her back. She shakes her head at Emily. No.
Emily bites her lip nervously.
“Yeah,” Beca wheezes. “I’m totally fine. Just been… hanging around.”
Chloe snorts and softly smiles down at Beca. Next to Emily, Stacie sighs happily. Emily rolls her eyes, but grins.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Chloe says quietly.
Beca’s eyelids flutter and she exhales heavily. “Can we talk about this in a bit? I’m kind of traumatized here.”
Chloe nods and grabs Beca’s hand. Emily and Stacie step forward to pull the net off of Beca while Chloe helps her up.
Beca grabs her head, clearly overwhelmed.
They all rush to hug her, but Aubrey starts to pull them away. “Okay guys, let’s give her some space.” They all frown, but back up. Well, except Chloe, who pulls Beca in for a tighter hug.
“Let’s go get ready for dinner,” Aubrey says, and she shoots Stacie the most obvious wink that Emily has ever seen.
Wait.
Are those two in cahoots?
“Come on, Legacy,” Stacie drawls. “Let’s go start that campfire.”
“I packed my flamethrower,” Lilly murmurs, having casually flipped herself upright and slid down the rope and onto the ground. Emily makes note not to sleep next to Lilly tonight.
They start to make their way back to camp and Emily looks over her shoulder as they turn back on the path.
Chloe has Beca in a tight hug. She rubs Beca’s back gently and Beca presses her face into Chloe’s shoulder, breathing deeply.
Emily grins.
Yeah. They’re gonna be okay.
//
Beca seems to struggle with it, but eventually at the campfire, she manages to apologize. Emily thinks it mainly just opens a dialogue between her and Chloe, but she appreciates the sentiment.
“I wish I could do what you do,” Beca says to her, and Emily’s so taken aback that she almost doesn’t realize Beca is talking to her.
Beca wants to learn from her?
She’s supposed to learn from Beca.
Maybe they can learn from each other?
She shrugs because like, all she’s ever wanted was to be a Bella, and she tells them all this, and it feels so good when they support her. She feels like one of them, not like the cute freshman who follows them all around hoping for a chance to sing.
It’s just. She feels so great.
Beca gives her the nicest smile and Emily grins back, because Beca is finally noticing her and it feels awesome.
“You wanna collaborate on something?” Beca asks her.
Emily thinks she might pass out. “You being serious?”
Beca stares at her, eyebrows quirked. “Yeah?”
Oh my God. Oh my God.
“Yes! Wow. Oh man.” She bounces up and down in her seat. This is the best moment of her short life. “Who else feels like a winner tonight?” She can’t stop smiling. Stacie laughs at her and they all cheer.
Chloe decides that she’s finally going to graduate, which Emily thinks is awesome. She’ll miss them all, but she’s glad they’re getting over their fears. It also turns out that Cynthia Rose is getting married, Lilly’s going to travel through time (is Emily the only one who heard that?), Stacie’s going for her combination Masters/PhD, and Amy is in love with Bumper.
Which, everyone knew that last one, but good for Amy.
They sing around the campfire (which has always been a secret dream of Emily’s), and she’s not sure what went down between Chloe and Beca after they all left them to go start dinner, but the two won’t stop making googly eyes at each other.
Emily looks over at Stacie, who keeps grinning at them in an off-hand love-struck way, like she’s finally watching her caterpillars turn to butterflies.
Emily realizes it’s like that moment in The Parent Trap where Hallie and Annie spy on their parents when they try to set them up on that yacht.
She laughs happily.
And even when Amy gets stuck in a bear trap, Emily can’t stop smiling.
She totally meant it.
This is the best moment of her life.
//
Beca stays up all night putting together a mock set. On the bus ride home, she sits next to Emily and holds her headphones out to her.
“You wanna listen?”
Emily grins because duh. She’s been waiting all year for this!
It’s so cool and Emily doesn’t know much about sets or how this will translate in the aca-world, but it sounds awesome.
“You know what’d be cool,” she says as she hands Beca back her headphones. She’s just thinking about last week when her mom was telling her how great of an experience going to Europe will be and how she misses singing with her sometimes. “Like, if you had all these Bellas from the past like Aubrey and everyone come on and sing, too. So you could have like the real Bellas’ sound, passed down from generation to generation, all coming together in like, a perfect harmony or something.”
All of the Bellas on the bus stare at her and she thinks she said something dumb again.
“Uh,” she says. “Or you know. Not…”
“Oh my God.” Fat Amy’s mouth falls open. “Legacy. You’re a genius.”
Suddenly, Beca starts jittering next to her excitedly. “Emily, that’s amazing.” She turns to Chloe. “Do you think we could do that?”
Chloe holds up her phone, grinning. “I already texted Aubrey!” Chloe’s phone beeps. “She says yes!”
All of the Bellas cheer and Beca nudges her. “Look at you. Future captain material right here.”
“Uh.” Emily blushes. “I’ll like, call my mom or whatever.”
Did she mention this is the best weekend of her life?
//
They’re watching Fat Amy serenade Bumper from across the street when her mom finally calls her back.
She tells her about the awesome things they’ve dreamt up for Worlds and her mom seems pretty on board.
“You thought of this?” Her mom asks.
Emily shrugs. “Yeah and Beca.”
She can practically hear her mom smiling knowingly on the other end. “So you finally get to work with Beca, huh?”
Emily vibrates excitedly. “Mom. We’re gonna collaborate on something and it’s gonna be amazing.”
“I believe it,” her mom says. “Can I talk to Beca?”
“Yeah,” Emily grins.
“Wait!” Emily presses the phone back to her ear. “Have you been eating healthy? What about using your shower shoes?”
Emily decides to avoid the first part because they totally just had ice cream. “Yes, I am using my shower shoes.”
“Okay. Now put Beca on. I love you!”
“Okay. Here she is. Love you, too!”
She hands the phone to Beca and runs back into the house because Stacie promised her she’d help her with her physics homework.
Finals are coming up and she wants a good grade!
“Okay,” she says, sitting down next to Stacie at the table. Her textbook is already open. “Sorry. My mom wanted to talk to…” She squints her eyes and nudges Stacie. “Dad.”
Stacie grins, tongue poking out from between her lips. “They out there supervising Amy?”
Emily snorts. “I don’t think they’re supervising. More like trying to figure out how Amy is so Amy.”
“So… supervising.” Stacie winks and Emily shakes her head.
They only get to one problem before Beca and Chloe hurry back through the door and into the kitchen.
“Don’t go out there,” Beca says, pointing behind her. “Amy and Bumper are doing it right there on the lawn.”
Chloe frowns, her eyes flickering over to the cookie jar on the counter. “Do you think I should bring them a condom?” She goes to peek out of the window.
Beca rolls her eyes. “You’re not Mrs. George. I think Amy’s got it.”
Stacie and Emily exchange secret smiles.
“Emily,” Beca calls and Emily looks up. “You want to come with me to the studio?”
Emily drops her pencil. “To like, the recording studio? Where you work?”
Beca quirks an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Yes!” Emily shoots up from her chair. “That would be aca-hella-great!”
Beca blinks in surprise, but Emily can’t be brought down.
(Even if her mom did tell her stop saying that. Whatever, Mom.)
“Okay,” Beca drawls, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Chlo? Can I borrow your car?”
“Hmmm?” Chloe turns away from where she’s still peering out of the window. “Uh. It’s almost out of gas.”
Beca rolls her eyes. “I’ll fill it up.” She grins at Chloe. “Please?”
“Okay.” Chloe agrees, smiling easily.
“Cool.” Beca jerks her head at Emily. “Let’s go, then.”
“Oh, now?” Emily looks at her physics homework.
Stacie gives her a push. “Legacy, this will still be here tomorrow. Live a little.”
Emily nods. “Yeah. Totally. Okay, let’s do this!” She fist pumps the air.
Beca grins and grabs the keys from Chloe, gives her a kiss on the cheek, and struts out of the door.
Emily and Stacie freeze in shock. Chloe’s eyes widen slightly and her hand comes up to press at the spot Beca’s lips touched.
Oh-em-aca-no-fucking-way.
“I…” Chloe says. “Oh.”
Stacie gasps quietly.
“Legacy, let’s go!” Beca calls from outside.
She looks at Stacie who suddenly smiles like it’s her time to shine, like she was made for this moment. “I’ll text you,” Stacie whispers and Emily just nods helplessly before shooting a last glance at the pair and heading out the door.
She gets in the car, still in shock because, like, did that just happen?
“Put your seatbelt on,” Beca mutters as she turns on the radio and begins humming happily in a way that Emily never thought would come from Beca.
Yeah, Emily thinks as she clicks her seatbelt into place.
That totally just happened.
//
The recording studio is all decked out with technology and equipment that Emily’s never seen before.
Beca seems to know what she’s doing, though.
They talk about the song for a little bit and decide how they want it to sound. Then Beca’s giving her a push and suddenly, she’s in the booth.
“Whoa!” She grins. “Can you hear me out there?”
Beca smirks. “Yeah, dude.”
“Sweet!” Emily puts on the headphones that are hanging inside and steps up to the mic. “This is the real deal, huh?”
Beca rolls her eyes. “Don’t touch anything, Legacy. You’re very pretty, but you seem clumsy.”
Emily nods because, yeah, Beca has a point. At least she thinks Emily is pretty. Like, duh, she is. But still.
She messes up a few times, but Beca isn’t mad and they both laugh. Emily thinks they might spend more time laughing than singing.
They’re almost finished when she sees a dude come in behind Beca.
Oh. Oh no.
Emily’s heart stops and her eyes must widen because Beca whips around. Emily takes off the headphones and exits the booth, coming up next to Beca.
She’s hyper-aware that they’re totally not supposed to be in here and she really doesn’t want Beca to get in trouble and be like, fired.
Oh God.
The guy, Emily totally assumes it’s Beca’s boss because he looks like a music producer with his sunglasses and nice shoes, crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows.
“What’s going on here?”
Beca kind of stammers awkwardly for a few words before she manages to get it together. “Producing.”
“Producing?” He nods, pursing his lips. Emily’s hands feel really clammy.
“Yeah,” Beca nods. “Umm, here listen.”
She presses playback on the equipment, and suddenly, Emily’s voice streams into the room accompanied by some really cool beats. Emily’s eyes widen and she nudges Beca, grinning.
It sounds… amazing.
Beca’s boss sits down, face turning thoughtful. Emily knows it sounds amazing, but like, what if he hates it?
The song ends and they’re kind of just standing there awkwardly. Finally Beca’s boss hums thoughtfully.
“You produced this?”
Beca nods. “Uh. Yes. Emily wrote it.”
“Who’s Emily?” He looks between them.
Emily lifts her hand in a wave. “I am.”
“Yes,” Beca says, gesturing at her. “This tall drink of water right here.”
Emily nods in agreement. She’s definitely the tall drink of water. Beca’s like… a tiny cup of coffee. Bitter at first, but will eventually warm you all the way down to your core. Emily loves coffee.
Beca’s boss seems to struggle with words, and then he turns to them. “I don’t like it.”
Emily thinks her heart drops into her stomach. How could he not like it? It’s great!
“I don’t like it,” he continues. “When people can do what I can do.”
Say what?
Emily feels hope flutter in chest. Next to her, Beca exhales sharply.
“I have a few notes that I assume that you’re open to,” he says and Emily nods. Yes. They are definitely open to notes. “But that is a solid demo with real potential. Yeah, I look forward to working together.”
Emily thinks her face is broken. Her smile is ripping her cheeks apart.
Be cool, Emily. Be cool.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Beca’s boss says and shakes her hand. “Elizabeth, was it?”
“Emily.”
“Elizabeth?”
“Emily.”
He nods. “Emily. Right.” He does this weird handshake thing with her. It’s pretty cool. “Good job, Reggie!”
Then he’s walking away.
Emily glances at Beca in confusion.
Beca points to herself. “I’m Reggie.”
There’s a pause and they hear the door slam shut. Then she can’t keep it in anymore.
“Oh my God. I was so nervous. I didn’t know what to say! My hands are shaking. Oh my God!”
She gives Beca the biggest hug because this is the moment she’s always dreamed of and it was better than she could have ever imagined.
“Ugh,” Beca groans, but she hugs Emily back. “You’re all sweaty.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Emily squeezes her as tight as possible. Beca is totally the best.
“Okay, that’s enough hugging,” Beca grumbles and Emily steps away with a smirk.
Stacie’s not the only one who can play at this game.
“Why?” She asks, trying to seem innocent. “You hug Chloe all the time!”
Beca narrows her eyes at her. “Well, that’s because Chloe is…” She trails off, eyebrows pinching together. Then she points a finger at Emily. “Don’t test me, Legacy.”
And for one second, Beca reminds Emily so much of her dad that she thinks she’s making it all up in her head.
“Now, let’s get out of here before you have an aca-seizure.”
Nope. Still Beca.
She skips to the car ahead of Beca, feeling like she’s on top of the world. Beca shakes her head at her, but she’s smiling and Emily knows she totally thinks Emily is the cutest.
Like. Duh.
“So,” Beca says when they’re driving back toward the Bella house. “What’s the deal with you and Benji?”
“Benji?” Emily grins. “Benji is awesome. He’s so cute. And smart? Did you know he’s a computer science major? He already has a job lined up after he graduates. And he really likes Star Wars, which is so awesome. I love Star Wars. Everybody thinks the prequels suck, but I don’t mind them. Benji says they’re a necessary evil. We have a lot in common.”
Emily snaps her mouth shut when she realizes she’s kind of… gushing.
Whatever. She really likes, Benji, okay?
“Uh huh.” Beca shoots her a half-smile. “So, are you guys, like, together or something?”
“Together?” Emily shakes her head. “No. I mean. We text like, all the time. And we’ve hung out a few times. We haven’t kissed or anything, although I really want to. I think he wants to, too. I mean probably. Does anyone actually really know if their crush wants you to kiss them, though?”
Beca blinks. “I… Uh.” She clears her throat, which Emily thinks is suspicious. “No,” Beca says eventually. “I don’t know.”
Emily decides to push it a little. (WWSD?) “Yeah, I mean. Chloe told me she likes people who just go for it, so I guess I’ll just do that!”
(It’s totally not a lie. Chloe just happened to be talking about soloists, but Beca doesn’t need to know that.)
Beca glances over at her. “Oh she did, did she?”
“Yup.” Emily nods. “Anyway, how are you and Jesse? Benji says he’s being so weird lately. And that he’s going to L.A. at the beginning of the summer.”
“Oh.” Beca shifts in her seat, hands tapping the steering wheel. “We’re… fine.”
Emily crinkles her nose. “Just fine?”
“Umm.” Beca sighs, scratching at her forehead awkwardly. “I mean. It’s just stuff.”
Yeah. That made sense.
“Right,” Emily says. “Are you going to L.A. too?”
Beca bites her lip and glances at Emily. “I dunno, Em.”
“Oh.” Emily senses this is a sensitive topic, so she decides not to push it. “Well, whatever you choose to do is cool! I mean, you’re great, so I’m sure you’ll succeed anywhere.”
Beca smiles slightly. “Thanks.”
“Totally.”
There’s a small silence where Emily jiggles a little to the song on the radio. It’s Taylor Swift. Emily loves Taylor Swift.
“I just,” Beca says after a few minutes. “I think I’m staying with Chloe over the summer. I still have my internship, and after today, I don’t know. Things look promising.” She shrugs. “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll probably go to L.A. at the end of the summer.”
“That’s cool,” Emily says, because Beca clearly needs to work this out on her own and Emily is nothing if not supportive.
“And if Jesse and I break up, then…” Beca trails off, smiling sadly. “Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I dunno. It’s… it’s whatever.” Beca’s tapping on the steering wheel quickens.
Emily smiles softly at her. “Yeah, for sure. You gotta just do you!”
Beca glances over at her again, her smile stretching across her face. “You’re kind of a nerd, you know that?” Emily nods. Obviously, Beca.
“Yeah, but a cute nerd.” Emily grins and Beca laughs.
“At least you know.”
“Mhmmm,” Emily hums, returning Beca’s smile.
They pull up to the Bella house and get out of the car. Emily grabs Beca’s hand, pulling her into another hug.
“Thanks again,” she says, smiling when Beca hugs her back. “And like, if you’re worried about something, my mom says that you should always be yourself, trust your gut, and don’t look back.”
Beca chuckles into her shoulder. “Mrs. Junk says that, does she?”
“Yep,” Emily nods, letting go of Beca. “She also says to never drink orange juice before bed and to rub salt water on your skin to keep away mosquitos, but I don’t think either of those are relevant in this situation. I’m also not sure if either of those are good advice because I always get like, a million mosquito bites in the summer.”
Beca stares at Emily fondly for a second, before shaking her head in a laugh. “You really are something, Legacy.”
“I know!”
Beca pats her shoulder and heads into the Bella house. “See you tomorrow,” she calls.
Emily turns to go back to her dorm, whipping out her phone with a grin.
She has to text Stacie.
//
Emily’s sitting at the kitchen table of the Bella house, doing some last minute problem sets for physics. She has her exam in a few hours, but she thinks she’s ready. She and Stacie spent the last four days going over every type of problem from both semesters and she’s ready to crush it.
She’s on a roll, concentration on point, nothing can distract her now….
“IT HAPPENED!”
Emily jumps, her pencil skidding across her paper and over her beautiful equations. She looks up as Stacie slides into the seat next to her.
“What happened?”
Stacie looks over her shoulder before leaning in close to Emily. “Beca broke up with Jesse.”
“SHUT UP!” Emily’s mouth falls open and she grabs Stacie’s arm. “Wait, are you sure?”
Stacie looks affronted that she would even question her. “Yes, Em. Fat Amy just texted me.”
She holds up the phone so Emily can see.
Fat Amy (2:12pm): Spielsy and Papa B kicked the can in the gutter. No rain and Bloe is game.
Emily has no idea what that means. She crinkles her eyebrows. “Stace, are you sure?”
Stacie sighs. “Yes, see. Jesse and Beca broke up, Beca isn’t upset, and now she and Chloe can get together!”
“Oh,” Emily says. “Well, in that case, do – ”
“LOOK OUT ACA-KIDS!” Chloe skips through the door, a giant smile on her face. “I PASSED RUSSIAN LIT!”
Emily and Stacie exchange a glance before Emily stands up, matching Chloe’s smile. “ACA-CONGRATULATIONS!”
She gives a Chloe a big hug, picking her up and spinning her around. Chloe giggles when Emily sets her back on her feet.
“I’m gonna graduate!” Chloe screams, hands coming down on Emily’s shoulders and shaking her a bit. Emily laughs.
“Yeah you are!”
Stacie moves over to them, wrapping her arm around Chloe’s shoulders. “Congrats, Red! This is just a big day for everyone, isn’t it?”
Chloe tilts her head to the side, smile still on her face. “Who else had a big day?”
Emily and Stacie make eye contact that can only mean one thing. She doesn’t know.
“Well,” Stacie drawls. “Legacy has her physics final!”
Emily nods enthusiastically. “Yep. I do. In two hours. Gonna crush it.”
“Oh!” Chloe grins at her. “Well, good luck!” She squeezes Emily’s shoulders again and lets go.
“Thanks!” Emily smiles, giving Chloe a thumbs-up.
Chloe moves to leave. “Oh, hey,” she says, turning back around. “Have you guys seen Beca?”
“Uh.” Emily looks to Stacie, who’s adjusting her bra and not paying attention. “Stace, have you seen Beca?”
“I think she’s upstairs,” Stacie says casually, hands pushing her boobs up farther. She glances up, a twinkle in her eye. “Actually, yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s having a chat with Fat Amy. Definitely nothing important. Feel free to bother her!”
Emily wants to face-palm, but Chloe just nods, still smiling. “Okay, then. See you guys later!”
She skips out of the kitchen and Emily shakes her head, sitting back down in front of her problem set. Stacie sighs dreamily.
“This could be the day, Legacy. This could be the day.”
Emily rolls her eyes fondly. “I’m totally excited, but this could also be the day I fail physics, so I’m gonna finish this.”
Stacie grabs her chin gently, forcing Emily to look at her. “You’re not going to fail, I won’t allow it. Remember everything we went over. And when it doubt, kegel until you remember.” Stacie releases her and pushes up from the table. “You got this, Legacy. And I’ll keep you updated about Mom and Dad.”
“Okay,” Emily says, picking up her pencil with a small smile. “Try not to interfere. I think they got it.”
“Oh, yeah.” Stacie says, shaking her head in a way that makes Emily think she’s totally going to interfere. “No worries!” She winks at Emily, then struts out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Emily just grins and shakes her head before turning back to her equations.
Stacie may be crazy, but at least she’s always unapologetically Stacie.
Thank the aca-gods for that, Emily thinks.
Because of Stacie, she’s totally gonna pass physics.
//
She not only passes, but she gets an A.
Stacie gives her a huge grin and a kiss on the cheek.
Fat Amy tells her she always knew she was too smart for her own good.
Chloe takes her out for ice cream.
But Beca’s present is the best of all.
“I finished the set for the Worlds,” Beca says as she comes into the living room just after finals have ended. “I know we’ve been practicing, but I added just one more thing to it.”
Emily glances up from her spot on the floor. Chloe’s sitting behind her on the couch and braiding her hair.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” Chloe grins, twisting a hair tie around the end of Emily’s braid.
Beca slumps down on the couch next to Chloe and presses play. The set sounds almost the same until it gets closer to the end, where Emily recognizes the version of Flashlight that they’d recorded at Beca’s work.
She whips around to look at Beca. “No way!”
Beca grins. “Way.”
“Aca-seriously?”
“Yeah, dude.”
Beca nudges Chloe, who grins widely at Emily. “We also were thinking that you should take us home. Have the last note and all.”
Emily’s mouth drops open. “Me?”
“It’s your song,” Beca says. “And it’s a rite of passage. You are going to be captain next year, after all.”
Emily crinkles her nose, feeling her heart drop sadly. “You mean if we win.”
“Oh, we’re going to win.” Chloe nods with certainty. “Just as surely as I’m graduating in two days.”
Emily beams at her. “Okay.”
“We’re…” Beca taps her fingers on her lap, struggling to get out what she’s trying to say. “We’re like, you know...”
“We’re proud of you, Em.” Chloe smiles softly at her, tangling her fingers with Beca’s jittering ones.
Beca nods. “Yeah. You’re like, the best legacy around.”
Emily feels heat rush to her cheeks. “I’m the only legacy.”
“And you’re going to carry on our legacy as the best Bella captains ever.” Chloe winks at her. “At least until someone carries on yours.”
Emily thinks she might cry. She suddenly has never understood Stacie’s insane need to call them Mom and Dad more than she does in this second because earning their approval makes pride swell in her chest like a balloon.
And they’re right. She’s not just a legacy, she’s a Bella, and that means they all have to carry on generations of legacies, passing them down and adopting their own.
She stands up from the floor, leaning down to hug both of them at once. “Thank you thank you thank you!”
When she pulls back, Chloe is smiling so wide and Beca’s twisting her lips like she’s trying not to. They exchange a soft glance that makes Emily vibrate with happiness.
“Also,” she says, noting their still clasped hands. “I just want to say that I am so happy for you guys!”
Beca shrugs. “I mean, it’s just graduation.”
Emily shakes her head. “No, not for that!”
They look at each other. Chloe shrugs. Beca quirks an eyebrow at her. “Legacy, what are you talking about?”
“Uh.” Emily glances back and forth between them. Maybe they’re not together.
Oh crap.
Aca-awkward.
“Um, you know…” Emily clears her throat. “Anyway, gotta go find Stacie. See you in rehearsals, bye!”
She runs, literally runs, out of living room and up the stairs. She crashes through Stacie’s door, not bothering to knock.
Which is probably a bad idea because Stacie’s standing in front of her mirror in just her bra and underwear, hands cupped over her boobs.
“Ah!” Emily stops. “Crap. Sorry!”
Stacie shrugs, clearly unaffected. “Hey, what’s up?”
Emily decides she doesn’t really care that Stacie’s in her underwear. She goes and sits on Stacie’s bed.
“Did Beca and Chloe… you know?”
Stacie purses her lips, looking into her mirror. “No, I don’t think so.”
Emily groans. “Great. I totally just told them I was happy for them.”
“Ooh, awkward,” Stacie hums. “Hey, do you think my boobs look good in this bra or should I go with the blue one?”
“Stacie,” Emily whines.
“You’re right, what am I saying? They always look good.” Stacie grins and grabs her shirt off the floor, pulling it over her head. “Well what did they say?”
Emily flops back Stacie’s pillow. “Nothing! They just stared at me until I ran away!”
Stacie sits next to her on the bed and pats her leg lightly. “It’s fine. They’re so clueless anyway they probably had no idea what you meant.”
Emily sighs and twists her body so she’s hanging upside down off the side of Stacie’s bed, her feet pressed against the wall. “What if they never realize it?”
“Legacy!” Stacie gasps. “Never say that in my presence again.” She pushes at Emily’s foot. “You’re going to mess up the mojo.”
Emily grins, feeling the blood rush to her head. “Okay, okay. My bad. Don’t wanna mess up your love voodoo.”
“Damn straight.” Stacie pushes up off the bed and starts putting on her pants. “Now, if you want to, you can stay here, but I’m leaving. The Hunter has a date.”
“Ooh,” Emily flips over so she’s sitting right-side up. “Make sure to do your kegels.”
Stacie winks at her. “I already did them.” She points at Emily. “Have you been doing yours?”
Emily nods in a way that she hopes is believable. “Uh. Yeah. Totally.”
“That’s my girl.” Stacie pats her on the cheek and grabs her clutch. “I’ll text you later.”
“Bye,” Emily says, watching as Stacie struts out of her room. “Don’t do anything Mom wouldn’t do!”
Stacie’s laugh echoes back down the hallway and Emily grins. She flops back down on Stacie’s pillow.
If there’s one way to avoid another awkward encounter with Chloe and Beca, it’s by taking a nap.
//
“AMY!”
Emily cringes as Beca’s voice booms in her ear. She hears Amy reply from somewhere within the house, but can’t make out the words. Beca scowls.
“Cheer up, Becs!” Chloe grins and points her camera at Beca, who very intentionally does not smile. “We’re graduating!”
“I’m… cheery.” Beca says, folding her arms across her chest. “This gown is just ugly, like who the fuck chose this color? And I’m getting sunburnt.”
Chloe smiles knowingly. “Well, if you would’ve put on sunscreen like I told you to…”
“Whatever,” Beca grumbles and Chloe shakes her head in amusement.
“Hey, Em,” Chloe says. “Can you take our picture?” She holds out her camera as Emily nods.
Chloe drapes her arm across Beca’s shoulders and smiles at the camera. Beca stares at the camera with disinterest.
“Smile!” Emily says, tongue poking between her teeth as she tries to get the best angle.
“Please, Beca,” Chloe pleads.
Beca grits her teeth in a grimace. “Look, I’m smiling.”
Stacie comes up behind Emily. “That’s a smile? Looks like you have period cramps. Or are doing some particularly intense kegels.”
Emily snorts as Beca frowns.
Chloe glances at Beca, lips set in a pout. Emily takes the opportunity to snap a candid picture. Her playback reveals that the picture is a very accurate depiction of their relationship. Emily grins.
“Smile for just one second, please,” Chloe begs again.
Beca quirks an eyebrow. “Or what? You’re going to sing at me? Ambush me in the shower? Capture me in a bear trap? Oh wait…” Beca smirks.
Chloe bites her lip, leaning close to whisper in Beca’s ear. Beca’s eyes go wide and Stacie nudges Emily. Emily rolls her eyes playfully.
“Okay, fine,” Beca says as Chloe pulls away, grinning innocently. “Just take the picture, Legacy.”
She smiles exaggeratedly for the camera. Emily focuses on the pair, Chloe’s arm around Beca’s shoulders, beaming toothily in Emily’s direction. Beca manages to shoot this half-smile at the camera, her arm slung around Chloe’s waist.
Emily snaps the picture.
“Great,” Beca sighs as Chloe takes the camera back. “Okay, let’s get this over with.” She turns back toward the front door as they all get in formation for a formal picture. “AMY!”
“Coming!”
“Legacy, take the picture in twenty seconds, Amy or no Amy.” Beca scowls again.
Emily shakes her head fondly. “Okay, if you say so.”
“AMY! We are taking the picture now. With or without you!”
Emily focuses the picture in on the group, her heart beating happily at the sight of all of her friends and sisters in their gowns. They all looks so happy, even Beca, whose constant scowl doesn’t diminish the excited glint in her eyes.
Amy slides out of the house and into the picture at the last second and Emily clicks the capture button.
“Okay!” Beca says, grabbing Chloe by the arm. “Let’s go.”
Chloe tangles their fingers together and starts to walk off toward campus. “Emily! Send me that picture!”
Emily nods, already working on uploading it to Facebook. She hears Beca yell down the block and snaps her eyes up.
“Chloe no! I’m not doing this!”
Emily laughs as Chloe starts to skip down the sidewalk, dragging Beca behind her. Beca digs her heels into the ground in an attempt to slow Chloe down.
Chloe stops and Beca crosses her arms. Emily watches as they debate something quickly, Beca shaking her head and Chloe dragging her fingers up Beca’s arm. Finally, Beca drops her head back in defeat.
Emily’s not surprised.
As she watches, Beca turns around and hunches over. Chloe gracefully hops on her back, and Beca hoists her up, arms clasping Chloe’s legs. Chloe wraps herself around Beca’s back, arms coming down over her neck.
Beca starts walking toward campus again, Chloe pointing her forward. Emily giggles as Chloe’s laugh echoes back down the block.
“Fly my little butterflies,” Stacie says softly next to her. Emily shakes her head.
“Aren’t you also a butterfly?” She jerks her head toward Lilly, Flo, Jessica, and Ashley, who’ve started walking after Beca and Chloe.
Cynthia Rose and Amy pass by them on the lawn. “Stacie, let’s go!” CR calls back and Stacie pats Emily on the head.
“Yep,” Stacie says and follows them, walking backwards so she’s still facing Emily. Emily’s impressed that she doesn’t trip in her heels, but it’s Stacie so… never mind. “See you after!” She turns and hurries to catch up to everyone, linking arms with Cynthia Rose as she does so.
Emily watches them all move down the street, their green robes becoming smaller dots as they get further away.
“Fly little butterflies,” she says.
Then she shakes her head and rolls her eyes.
She is so not Stacie.
//
“Last call for flight 619 to Copenhagen!”
Emily hands her ticket to the airline worker at the desk, grinning as he scans it and waves her through. She follows Stacie onto the plane, body vibrating with excitement.
She’s never been out of the country before.
This is so exciting!
“What’s your seat number?” Stacie asks, turning to look over her shoulder at Emily.
“Uh.” She glances down at her ticket. “23A.”
Stacie looks at her own ticket, humming. “Hey, Chloe,” she calls to the girl ahead of her. “Where are you sitting?”
“23B.”
Stacie smirks triumphantly and Emily watches her suspiciously.
“Would you mind switching with me?” Stacie asks Chloe. “I like, have to sit in the middle seat.”
Emily blinks.
Because that’s believable.
Chloe, completely unaware and too nice as always, just grins. “Sure thing, Stace.”
They swap tickets and Stacie lets Emily slide across their row to the window. Stacie plops down in the seat next to her.
“What are you doing?” Emily whispers, storing her carry-on under the seat.
Stacie jerks her head across the aisle where Chloe is buckling her seatbelt in the window seat across from them. Beca follows her, sliding into the middle seat. Emily watches as Beca begins to breathe deeply, tightening her seatbelt securely around her waist and clenching her fingers in and out. Emily remembers Beca’s fear of heights.
“I wasn’t about to sit next to that hot mess for 11 hours,” Stacie grins.
Emily shakes her head as Chloe pats Beca’s knee comfortingly. “Good thing Chloe was willing to switch with you,” she says knowingly and Stacie winks.
“That was just a lucky coincidence, Legacy. I don’t meddle.”
Emily snorts. “Uh huh.”
At that point, CR slides into their aisle seat. “Hey,” Cynthia Rose grins. “Thought I was sitting next to Ma.”
Stacie shrugs, popping her gum nonchalantly. “We swapped.” She nods her head across the aisle and Cynthia Rose glances at where Stacie’s looking.
“Huh.” Cynthia Rose nods, a smirk pulling at her lips. “Girl, please.”
Stacie shrugs casually and Emily raises a playful eyebrow at Cynthia Rose. “She wasn’t meddling.”
“Sure,” CR says. “And I’m Rihanna.”
“Hey, Rihanna,” Fat Amy says, leaning over the seats from the row in front of them. “Hope you brought your umbrella. Forecast says rain.”
Stacie tsks and pops her gum again. “Fat Amy, don’t mess with the aca-mojo.” She pulls her sleep mask out of her bag and slides it onto her forehead. “I’m going to sleep and I don’t need this negative energy in my life.”
At that point, the flight attendant walks by and tells Amy to sit back in her seat because they’re taking off soon.
Amy slumps back down and Stacie pulls her mask over her eyes. The cabin lights dim so Emily gets comfortable, putting her headphones in and opening her window shade.
She doesn’t think she can sleep.
She’s too excited.
Stacie’s breathing evens out next to her and she glances across the aisle. Beca and Chloe are sharing a set of earbuds. As they start to roll down the runway, the wheels of the plane whirring loudly below them, she watches Beca’s hand clamp down on Chloe’s on their shared armrest. Chloe tangles their fingers together easily and starts talking about something in a hushed whisper.
Beca watches Chloe intensely, her nose crinkling like Chloe is saying something that Beca can’t quite follow. Chloe gestures with her free hand as they take off and Beca shakes her head.
The captain tells them they’ve reached cruising altitude and the seatbelt sign dings off overhead. Chloe points out of the window and Beca leans over her so she can see. She immediately pulls back and Chloe laughs.
Emily smiles softly and looks out of her own window. Next to her, Stacie starts snoring softly. She turns the volume on her iPod up, her feet tapping together restlessly.
This is going to be a long eleven hours.
She’s just so excited!
//
Halfway through the night, Emily still can’t sleep.
The flight attendant comes down the aisle and Emily asks for some water.
They’re deep across the ocean, the darkness pressing in her window like an infinite blanket. The only audible sound around her is the white noise from the plane. Emily glances across the aisle interestedly, noticing that the only other person around her that’s awake is Beca.
The girl has her bulky headphones on, some music program open on her laptop in front of her. Chloe is fast asleep on Beca’s shoulder and Emily watches Beca carefully tap away at her laptop with her left hand, her right one still intertwined with Chloe’s.
Beca must feel her staring because she glances up, her head turning to the left to look at Emily. Emily smiles a soft smile that Beca returns before glancing back out of the window.
She’s going to be so tired tomorrow.
//
“Emily! Get up!”
Emily groans, her face pushing into her pillow. “Not now, Mom.”
There’s a loud tsk and someone forcefully yanks her pillow out of from under her. Her eyelids flutter open to see she’s inches away from a pair of bright blue eyes.
“Emily. It’s time to get up.” Chloe moves away from her, and she hears a thunk, the sound of another pillow being forcefully stolen from a sleeping body. “Beca! Get up!”
Emily rubs at her eyes and suddenly remembers she’s in Copenhagen.
She shoots up and swings her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet landing on the carpet. In the next bed, Chloe’s poking at Beca’s cheek while Beca swats at her and tries to pull the covers over her head.
Stacie walks out of the bathroom in her bra and a pair of jeans. She smiles perkily at Emily, fingers waggling in a wave. “Look who’s awake!”
Emily crinkles her nose as Beca lets out a loud groan. “Barely,” Emily murmurs as Stacie slides a shirt over her head. She’s totally excited, but she could use some coffee. She’s not really a morning person.
Neither is Beca apparently.
“If you don’t get up, we won’t have time to do anything fun!” Chloe pokes at Beca again.
“Sleeping is fun,” Beca says, voice muffled by the comforter.
Chloe rolls her eyes. With a sigh, she crawls onto the bed and stands up, her feet bracketing Beca’s body. She jumps up and down a few times, causing the bed to jiggle.
“Hey,” Beca grumbles. “Knock it off.”
“Get up,” Chloe says again, adding more force to her jumps.
“You’re going to fall,” Beca mutters, rolling on her back so she’s facing Chloe. “Stop.”
Chloe crosses her arms, her feet leaving the mattress and getting about an inch of air before they come back down.
“Stop, Chlo.” Beca grabs at Chloe’s legs so she can’t jump anymore. “The last thing we need is for you to fall and hurt yourself the day before Worlds.”
Chloe carefully sits down, her knees bracketing Beca’s. “Please get up,” she pouts. “I want to see everything.”
“Chloe,” Stacie calls from the entrance to their hotel room. “CR, Jessica, Ashley, and I are going now. You wanna come?”
Chloe glances over her shoulder. “What about everyone else?”
Stacie shrugs. “We’re splitting up. Flo, Lilly, and Fat Amy are having breakfast right now.”
Chloe bites her lip. “No, that’s okay. Thanks, though.”
“Legacy, how about you?”
Emily shakes her head. “I need to shower first. And like, coffee.”
“Alright,” Stacie waves at them. “Meet up later?”
Emily nods and then Stacie’s gone.
Beca huffs at Chloe. “You should’ve gone. Em and I are tired.”
“Well, maybe if you and Em would’ve slept on the plane like normal people…” Chloe says lightly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Whatever,” Beca scoffs.
“Beca!” Chloe shakes Beca’s shoulders. “I’m not letting you sleep away our Copenhagen trip.” She turns and points at Emily. “You either!”
Emily raises her hands in the air innocently. “I’m up!”
Chloe just purses her lips and turns back to Beca. “Please,” she whines. “I wanna see things with you. When will we ever be back here together? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Becs!”
Beca twists her lips like she’s trying not to smile. “Well how am I supposed to get up if you’re straddling me?”
“Beca!” Chloe’s bubbly laugh bursts into the room as she grabs her pillow and starts smacking Beca with it.
Emily pushes out of the bed and grabs her clothes for the day.
That’s her cue to shower.
//
They spend most of the day walking around and seeing the sites. Unfortunately, Fat Amy was right and it rains the whole day. They all buy umbrellas from a street vendor to stay dry, so it’s not so bad.
Well, except for Beca, who claims she’s too cool for umbrellas, but spends the rest of the time alternating between walking under Emily’s and Chloe’s and trying to play it off like she’s not.
They finally find a café that serves cheeseburgers so they jump on the opportunity to get lunch. Emily’s iPhone connects to the free WiFi and Chloe tells her to ask Stacie where they are and if they want to meet up after lunch.
Her phone vibrates with a message a few minutes later.
“Stacie says they’re at The Fault in Our Stars bench,” Emily tells Chloe. They exchange a bewildered look, Chloe’s mouth parting in confusion.
“The fuck is that?” Beca asks, her mouth stuffed with cheeseburger.
Chloe shakes her head dismissively. “Stacie knows that’s not in this country right?”
Emily shoots back a message to Stacie, that’s in Amsterdam, Stace?, only to receive two more messages in quick succession.
Stacie (3:12pm): Coulda fooled me.
Stacie (3:12pm): [Attachment]
Emily clicks on the picture, almost dropping her phone in surprise at the image of Jessica and Ashley making out on a bench.
“Let me see,” Fat Amy demands, grabbing Emily’s phone from her hands. “Holy gays.”
Chloe snatches the phone from Fat Amy. “Oh duh,” she says, a giant grin taking over her face. “That’s nice. They’re so cute. Becs aren’t they cute?”
“Huh?” Beca glances at the screen. “Yeah, whatever. Gross.”
Chloe nudges her and passes the phone to Lilly, who just shrugs and passes it to Flo. Flo hands her phone back to Emily without looking at the picture.
“You know,” she says. “In my country – ”
But the waiter interrupts her, asking if they need anything else. Chloe requests the check, which spurs on a debate of how they’re going to pay. Chloe offers to pay for everyone, which Beca says is outrageous and totally not happening and demands that Fat Amy pay for her because she owes her. Lilly says something that literally nobody hears and Flo says she doesn’t have any paper money, only a card.
Emily just hands over the cash for her own meal, but somewhere along the way it’s pressed back into her hands.
“Wait, I didn’t pay,” she says as they’re walking back onto the street, but nobody hears her except Chloe, who winks at her.
“Get yourself a cool souvenir,” Chloe says, voice bubbly as she taps Emily lightly on the butt and skips to catch up to Flo.
Beca appears under Emily’s umbrella in the next second, counting out the change that the waiter brought them. “Wait,” she says, flicking through the bills again. “Dammit, Chloe!”
Emily grins. “Did she pay for you, too?”
Beca sighs. “I’m starting to think I haven’t actually paid for anything in four years.”
“She’s our sugar mama,” Emily teases and Beca rolls her eyes.
“Don’t even go there, Legacy. Don’t even go there.”
“Hey,” Chloe yells from ahead. “Hurry up, guys! We’re meeting Cynthia Rose and them at Christiansborg Palace in thirty.”
Emily hums and picks up the pace. “What’s that?”
Beca grunts as she struggles to keep up with Emily’s long legs, so Emily slows down again. “Some fancy palace thing. Seems cool. They have these creepy ruins underneath.”
Emily grins. “You would like creepy ruins.”
“Don’t test me, kid.” Beca nudges her just as Chloe yells at them to hurry again.
They both laugh and quicken their pace, kicking up splashes of water as they run to catch up.
//
Emily’s nervous.
Holy cow, is she nervous.
Her hands are shaking and her face is all sweaty. Beca won’t stop awkwardly patting her shoulder.
Chloe told her to meditate. Stacie told her to do kegels.
Emily’s just trying to breathe properly.
She tried to text Benji to distract herself, but he hasn’t responded to her texts in like two days. Her mom’s with the other older Bellas, catching up with the ones from her college days, so Emily can’t even use her as a distraction.
She’s just never been this nervous before.
The first group is about to start performing, so the amount of time before they go on is quickly disappearing. She’s jittering like the energizer bunny, trying not to think of all the things that could go wrong.
What if she trips? What if she forgets the words? What if Aubrey vomits?
Oh God.
“Emily,” Chloe calls, her soft hands grabbing Emily’s arm. “Where’s your scarf?”
Emily looks down at her outfit. She facepalms. “Crap. I left it in the tent with our stuff.” She sighs. “Be right back.”
“Hey,” Beca says, sliding up next to her. “I’ll come with you. I have to pee.”
They rush down the stairs behind the stage and Beca heads to the bathroom. Emily finds her bag in the pile of the Bellas’ stuff, pulling it out. She starts digging through it, pursing her lips when she sees the telltale yellow material under her jacket.
She feels a tap on her shoulder, and she thinks it’s Beca coming back, but when she spins around, she comes face to face with –
Benji?
“Hey,” he says softly, his face turning as red as his shirt.
Emily glances around. What is happening?
“What are you doing here?” Her mouth falls open and she feels her heart accelerate in her chest, faster than it was when she was thinking about Aubrey vomiting.
He shakes his head, stuttering slightly. “You know,” he says, smiling a little. “Anything to support the Bellas!”
“Wow,” she manages to say, but it’s all kind of a mess after that. She can’t believe he’s here.
In Europe.
Oh my God.
Now she might throw up.
“Sorry,” she gets out. “I’m just so nervous.” Her face feels like it’s on fire, but Benji smiles cheerily at her.
Ugh, he’s so cute.
“Oh, don’t be. You’ll be great.” He shakes his head reassuringly and she feels her nerves stop rattling around her stomach so much. “I mean, we heard you guys rehearsing like, 24/7.”
He grins and starts to say some more stuff, but she’s suddenly filled with this enormous fondness for him, building inside her, magnetic and all-encompassing.
She grabs his face, pressing her lip to his…
Only to have him pull back.
“Uh.” He laughs awkwardly and starts pulling a line of handkerchiefs out of his mouth. She stares at him. “I’m so sorry, I thought that was going in a different direction.” His face turns bright red and she thinks that that was probably the most awkward, adorable, wonderful first kiss she’s ever had.
“My bad,” he says sheepishly, but she shakes her head.
“No,” she starts to assure him, but she hears Beca call her.
She looks back and forth between them, feeling fire spread through her whole body.
“You coming?” Beca asks, lips twisting like she wants to smile.
“Uh. Yeah…” Emily shakes her head, never having felt so simultaneously flustered, happy, and embarrassed all at once. “Be right there.”
Beca smirks knowingly and nods her head at Benji. “Benji.”
Emily feels her stomach drop as Beca moves up the stairs. This is so embarrassing.
Benji doesn’t really care it seems. He grins at her excitedly. “Well, break a leg!”
She crinkles her nose happily and kisses him again and this time nothing weird happens.
It’s totally… aca-hella-great.
She runs up the stairs after Beca, only to stop when she sees the girl waiting for her at the top with her eyebrows quirked.
“Uh,” Emily starts.
“What was that?” Beca says, crossing her arms.
Emily waves her hands in the air, trying to come up with words, but she’s blanking. She can still feel Benji’s lips on hers and her heart patters happily against her ribcage.
“Em.” Beca grabs her shoulders. “Breathe.”
Emily exhales, a high-pitched sigh bursting through her lips.
Beca steps back. “Oh my God.” She closes her eyes briefly. “Dude. I’m like, seriously happy for you, but never make that sound again.”
“Uh huh. Er.” Emily nods enthusiastically. “Kay.”
Beca snorts, a smile breaking through her forced scowl. “Alright, Legacy, focus. We have a competition to win.”
Emily keeps nodding, grabbing her own cheeks to try to cool them down. “I’m good. Yeah. Totally.” She sees her mom walking towards them and her eyes widen. “Please don’t mention this in front of my mom. That would be… so horrifying.”
Beca smirks, arms crossing over her chest. “Okay. But I’m totally telling Chloe right now.” She grins wickedly, and struts away. “Hey Chloe!”
Emily drops her face into her hands.
She should’ve said not to tell her aca-mom, too.
This is so embarrassing.
//
As usual, DSM is amazing.
Their set ends powerfully and the audience roars their approval.
Emily’s palms won’t stop sweating.
Beca, Chloe, and Amy try to psych them up and it mostly works, but Emily’s throat is thick and she’s half afraid that when she opens it to sing, nothing will come out.
“Hey,” Stacie whispers to her as they walk out on the stage. “If you forget the words, just kegel until you remember.”
Emily snorts, laughter bubbling up her throat. “Shut up.”
Stacie winks and leaves her to walk to other side of the stage.
Emily takes a deep breath.
She can do this.
//
She feels on top of the world, her singular voice echoing out over the crowd as the other Bellas’ voices fade away.
There’s a pause in time, where there seems to be infinite silence everywhere and a rush of adrenaline in her veins.
Then the crowd erupts, blowing up in a cacophony of cheering and chanting.
Emily grins, ecstatic laughter pumping through her chest. She wraps her around Beca and Chloe’s shoulders, all of them beaming at each other.
Down the line, Stacie blows her a kiss and Emily crinkles her nose, thinking that this is without a doubt, the best moment of her entire life.
She laughs again and swings Beca around in a hug.
“You did it!” Beca grins, fully and without abandon.
“We did it,” Emily shouts back.
Beca squeezes her again and turns around to scream at Amy. Chloe wraps Emily in a hug, jumping around excitedly. Chloe pulls back, her face red with happiness and energy. She grabs Emily’s cheeks in her hands.
“I’m so proud of you!”
Emily thinks she’s going to cry. She can’t stop smiling.
She pulls Chloe in for another hug, squishing the girl tight to her chest, full of love and happiness.
As they all scream loudly in excitement, even Lilly, and the crowd chants their name, Emily can’t stop the rush of emotions that erupts throughout her body.
No matter what happens, win or lose, she’s going to remember this moment forever.
//
They totally win.
Beca hoists their trophy high in the air (well, not that high, let’s be real) and grins loudly. She points at Kommissar across the stage smugly.
“Eat this, sexy lady!”
Chloe groans, her hand coming up to cover her face in embarrassment, but Beca doesn’t seem to care.
She whoops loudly, her happiness unrestrained and contagious. Emily and Stacie exchange a grin before coming up on either side of her and hoisting her tiny body up on their respective shoulders.
“Bellas! Bellas!”
Emily’s never smiled so much in her life.
//
There’s an after-party and all of the other country’s groups are there, too.
There’s lots of singing and dancing and general laughter.
Emily makes out with Benji for like twenty minutes.
It’s acamazing.
Beca’s over in the corner talking to Jesse, who they all were surprised to see. Chloe watches them, and Emily sees the conflicting emotions pass over her eyes, from worry, to jealousy, to sadness.
Emily puts her arm around Chloe’s shoulders supportively.
Stacie glares.
Emily watches as Beca hugs Jesse tightly before slouching back to their little group. Jesse goes to find Benji.
“What the aca-hell is he doing here,” Stacie hisses.
Beca quirks an eyebrow, clearly confused and a little taken aback. “Oh. He’s just here to support Benji on his romantic quest.”
Stacie eyes her suspiciously. Emily feels Chloe exhale.
“Guys,” Beca says, a small smile breaking across her face. “Not that it’s your business, but we didn’t get back together. Chill out.”
Stacie visibly brightens, shoulders bouncing perkily. “Aca-awesome. Come on, Legacy,” she says, pulling at Emily’s arm. “I know you’re taken now, but let’s find the Hunter a victory conquest.”
Emily crinkles her nose in laughter, letting Stacie drag her away.
She glances over her shoulder briefly and sees Chloe and Beca exchanging soft smiles.
Just before Stacie pulls her into the crowd, she watches as Chloe moves a piece of hair away from Beca’s face, the two of them apparently caught up in their own little bubble of happy togetherness.
Emily beams.
She loves her aca-parents so much.
Even if they’re clueless.
//
The flight home is extremely uneventful.
Emily sleeps like a rock the whole way, her excitement from the previous days finally catching up with her and knocking her out for a good 11 hours.
When she wakes up, Stacie’s drooling on her shoulder and the Atlanta sun is shining in through her window.
It’s good to be home.
//
Chloe and Beca finally initiate her when they get back.
It’s not as creepy and involved as her mom made it sound.
Emily suspects that’s probably Beca’s doing, because for brief second there, Emily swears Chloe’s cray-eyes make an appearance before Beca cuts her off.
She slides down the stairs, which kind of hurts, but also is really fun.
They all cheer and pat her on the back, but it’s short-lived as they all have to finish packing.
Emily thinks it’ll be weird once the house is empty.
She hopes she finds some new Bellas to fill up the spaces that the current ones will leave behind.
Watching them all laugh and reminisce as they pack up their things, she knows that’ll be impossible.
But like she said, being a Bella isn’t just about carrying on old legacies.
It’s about making new ones, too.
//
The house is practically empty, save for a few of Stacie’s boxes that Emily’s getting ready to lug out to Stacie’s car.
She grabs one, hefting it in her arms easily. She walks down the stairs, trying not to fall, and passes the kitchen, where Amy, Stacie, and Cynthia Rose are having one last shot together for old-times sake.
She grins at them and walks through the front hall, shifting the box in her arms to open the front door, her head turning to glance absentmindedly into the family room.
Aca-what-the-fuck!
She does a double take at what she sees.
Chloe and Beca stand in the middle of the living room, bodies pressed together, heavily making out. Chloe’s hands grab Beca’s cheeks and Beca has her arms wrapped around Chloe’s waist.
Emily squeaks and almost drops the box.
“Legacy, do you need help with the do – ”
Stacie comes up next to her, following Emily’s gaze into the living room, the sight of Beca and Chloe kissing rendering her speechless. Her hands clutch at her chest, a loud gasp punctuating the air.
Fat Amy comes up behind them, peering around Emily. She snorts loudly. “About fucking time,” she calls tactlessly. Stacie hits her lightly on the shoulder.
Emily watches as Beca grins against Chloe’s lips, her hand coming up to flip them her middle finger. “Fuck off, aca-nerds!”
Chloe’s forehead falls to Beca’s shoulder, a happy giggle bubbling out of her mouth. She peeks up at them cutely and Emily shoots her a smile and a thumbs-up.
“Come on,” Emily says to Stacie. “This box is heavy.”
It’s totally not, but she thinks that Beca and Chloe have waited long enough to be together. Stacie doesn’t move, just stands there staring at them happily.
She uses her hip to push Stacie out of the door. “Come on, Stace, let Mom and Dad have their moment.”
Stacie shoots the pair one last watery smile and practically skips outside, Emily following close behind.
As Emily shuts the door behind her, getting one last glance of Beca and Chloe smiling at each other like a pair of aca-dopes, she can’t help the huge smile that breaks across her face.
If anyone were to ask Emily what the worst part of college is, she’d tell them that she misses her parents.
But the best part of college, she thinks as she reflects on the past year while Stacie loads the last of the boxes into the car, is that she gained a new family.
A family that’s mostly dorky, partially dysfunctional, and one hundred percent all her own.