Chapter Text
Cursive black lettering had been looped and carved into Beca Mitchell’s skin - a capital B. It’d been there from day one and grown with her from childhood and through adolescence. It stared at her every day she didn’t wear sleeves and stood as the reason she chose sleeves often. With sleeves, she could pretend it didn’t exist. Like she’d never gotten a tattoo at all - as if she didn’t have a soulmate. Since her parent's divorce, she’d decided she’d be better off without one. Soulmates didn’t mean happiness and she wouldn’t be swept into the bullshit two halves of a whole theory that everyone else gushed over. She knew better. In fact, knowing better had been hammered into her head by the sound of her father yelling and the image of her mother with tears slipping down her face. All soulmates did was make having any type of a love life more complicated. There was no guarantee you’d ever meet them or if you’d wait your whole life for just a single year with them. Her parents were a plain example of it. They’d gotten together after they got tired of waiting for their soulmates to appear. Then her dad met Sheila and her parents had no chance after that.
She couldn’t lie and say she never thought about her tattoo and somewhere in the far future soulmate with an identical cursive B tattoo. If she let herself drift off thinking, she’d find herself wondering how a cursive B would somehow be important to them after they met. She wondered how a cursive B would hold any significant value. Growing up, most of her friends had tattoos that were more obvious. Their favorite band or some representation of a holiday. They’d known that their soulmate would like the same band or they’d meet around Christmas. Beca couldn’t think of anything with the letter B that was important to her. Her name, maybe. The day she learned about soulmates, she’d looked through an entire list of B words to see if anything stood out. By the time she got through high school, she’d learned to battle against her drifting thoughts by focusing on her music. She’d put her headphones on and drift into another world of creation. Her soulmate wasn’t there and that was the way she liked it. All four years of her high school career were spent planning her introduction to the music business in Los Angeles. Those plans were only shattered after her father made her go to college instead. It was a summer of constant fighting until he finally made a deal with her. She spent a year at Barden University - where he worked as a professor. His tenure meant it would be free and if she spent a year really trying, he’d pay for her trip to Los Angeles.
Beca tightened her grip on the sleeves she’d pulled into her palm as she thought about it. It was only one year later than she’d planned. She could handle that. Just one year of classes and one stupid club and she’d be home free without a dime of debt. Easy.
“It’s just one club, come on.” Stacie urged and Beca couldn’t help but audibly groan. The DJ club was already a bust - deaf Jews really? She was so uninterested in everything the university had to offer. It seemed like she got lucky that they had Music Business as a major. She couldn’t find a single club that had anything to do with music and she wasn’t exactly looking to make friends.
Stacie pulled her by the wrist and they were walking again. Beca sighed. She was glad she had Stacie. Even though Stacie was Sheila's daughter, the two were nothing alike. Stacie didn’t particularly like her mother for the way she treated her father when they got divorced long before Beca’s dad came into the picture of their family. They bonded over their discontent for Sheila and the pain they both knew came with divorce - though they coped in quite opposite ways. While Beca denounced her future soulmate in any and every way, Stacie clung to the idea of her future match. She thought that since her mom and Beca’s father had been together for years symbiotically and they were soulmates. Stacie believed that her parent's divorce was meant to be so that her parents could find who they were truly meant to be with each other. Beca thought that kind of faith was for lack of a better word, bullshit.
Stacie dragged her from booth to booth, looking for anything that put a spark in Beca’s eye and she was persistent in finding some club they could join together. Even when Beca said no to each and every one of her picks. Of course, Stacie’s choices wouldn’t ever be the same as Beca’s. There was a reason Beca was a Music Business Major and Stacie was in an advanced PA graduate program, which would put her out into the medical field in as little as five years. For free, with Beca’s dad’s tenure. Beca shook her head at another stupid club and they started walking to another when something - someone - caught Beca’s eye from across the quad.
She was a gorgeous redhead with blue eyes that seemed to shine in the fall sunlight. Her dress attenuated her features in every way and matched the color of her eyes. She was standing in front of a booth, but Beca hadn’t the time to look at what club. She was captivated by the redhead and the blond next to her, whom she was giving a sweet peck - some kind of reassurance, Beca thought by the hand the redhead had on the curve of the blondes back. As they pulled apart, Beca found that the blonde was just as captivating as the redhead. Her dress was a little too prim and proper for Beca, but she was beautiful nonetheless. Her eyes weren’t so bright, but they were a deep blue with the depths of oceans. Beca’s throat went dry looking at them and she didn’t notice that she’d stopped walking altogether.
Then the redhead was pointing Beca out to the blonde and Beca fell back to reality - hard. The redhead motioned her over to them and Beca almost pretended that she didn’t know they were talking about her. She almost walked away. But she didn’t have a chance. Stacie noticed her looking and noticed the two girls across the way and before Beca could protest, Stacie was dragging her over to their booth. A booth that Beca still hadn’t looked at or bothered to read.
“Hi, any interest in joining our a cappella group?”
Beca doesn’t pull her gaze away from the two girls until the redhead shoves a flier at her. She slowly looks down at the piece of paper and eyes the words on it. Something feels wrong before she knows why at all. Her face is flush, she feels like she can’t breathe anymore. The flyer has words but she can’t really read them at first - they’re jumbled in her mind. Her gaze lifted above the flier and realization crashed over her like a wave. There, on the perky redhead’s bare forearm - just above the inside of her elbow - is a matching tattoo of Beca’s capital B. She swallows - hard, unable to form the right words. She’s entirely caught off guard and has to force herself not to stare. Her mouth is dry. Pushing herself to read the flier, she sees the capital B again. The Barden Bellas. A Formal heading with a capital blue B in the left-hand corner like the symbol of a sorority. “Oh, right this is a thing now…” The redhead immediately dropped into a full-fledged description of the Barden Bellas and other a cappella groups on campus - definitely not an elevator pitch. Stacie did all of the listening for Beca while Beca pretended to stare at the flier - at the Barden Bellas logo.
“So… Are you interested?”
Beca looked back into the redhead's eyes and every fiber of her being somehow wanted her to say yes… and no. She couldn’t. That voice in the back of her mind screamed that she couldn’t. She’s never wanted this. This girl is not her soulmate; And even if she was, she was obviously dating the blonde. Beca was no Sheila.
“I don’t know. It just… It’s pretty lame.” Beca replied and the disappointed look on the redhead’s face almost made her regret it. The blonde immediately came to the redhead and the Bellas defense. She came at Beca and Beca staggered. Stacie played clean up and eased the stranger's defenses. Stacie was used to doing that. Beca wasn’t exactly a people person. She reasoned with herself that this wasn’t exactly fair though. She was in shock.
Once the dust settled, the redhead rephrased her question. “What she means to say is that we are a close-knit, talented group of ladies whose dream is to return to the national finals at Lincoln Center this year. Help us turn our dreams into a reality?”
“I’m sorry… I don’t even sing so…” Beca handed the flier back to Chloe and she was running before the hills before anyone could say anymore.
Stacie was hot on her heels all the way back to their new dorm room. Beca almost slammed the door in her face, but Stacie grabbed it and forced her way in before she could. “Beca, come on- don’t you dare try to lock me out of-” The door hit the back of the wall. Beca crossed the room and slammed her back against the far wall with just as much force. She grabbed her head with both hands and covered her face with her forearm. She sank down to the floor. She was crumbling. Her hands were shaking. She couldn’t catch her breath.
In an instant, Stacie was with her, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her and hushing her. Soothing her. Beca wanted to hate her for it, but it was working. She was panicking, but with Stacie’s help, her breathing slowed. “Hey… hey,” Stacie told her. “It’s okay, it’ll be okay. I promise.” She rubbed her hands on Beca’s calves - the outside of Beca’s shell. Beca didn’t have the words to say anything. They sat like that for a long time, neither saying anything at all. Eventually, Beca forced herself to still, knowing Stacie wouldn’t stop worrying otherwise. They were sisters. Finally, Stacie asked the question Beca knew she’d been biting her tongue over. “Was it… the redhead?”
Beca could only manage the smallest nod.
Stacie carefully thought through her words before she spoke. Another long silence passed between them. Beca knew what she was going to say. “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, you know.”
Beca huffed in frustration. “Even if I wanted a soulmate, she’s dating the blonde.” It went unsaid that Beca would never come between a couple the way Sheila had come between her parents. She could never be that person. Stacie scooted to Beca’s side and Beca laid her head on Stacie’s shoulder. The night that followed, neither of them slept. Beca couldn’t and if Beca couldn’t, Stacie wouldn’t.
Beca’s mind drifted over the memory of the activities fair like she had to memorize it. She couldn’t get it out. She replayed every moment of it. She felt the embarrassment of every word she said and the fight she started with the blonde. It was like a puzzle. How could she ever even be friends with someone who was so upbeat? Who played peacemaker between her and the blonde fighting? Beca was nothing like her. It was bullshit.
Beca eventually gave up on sleep after working on her mixes until four in the morning. She decided to get a shower and wash off the night before. She took her shower carrier and a towel and slipped into the bathroom down the hall. At least she didn’t have to deal with everyone else getting ready for their classes like she would’ve if she’d slept. She hung up her towel over an adjourning shower rod and stripped down. She’d hardly realized she’d been singing a part of the mix she’d been working on before she left their dorm room. She often half sun half mumbled to herself in the shower.
“You can sing!”
Beca jumped out of her skin at the sound of another voice behind her when she’d thought she’d been alone. She turned around and covered herself - top and bottom with her arms. Luckily she had a loofa in her hand for her bottom half. The voice belonged to the redhead from the activities fair. She had the shower curtain pulled completely open. Beca couldn’t help her wandering her eyes before looking straight at the ceiling- don’t you dare look at her, Mitchell. Keep it together.
“How high does your belt go?” Chloe asked, entirely unphased by the situation.
“My what?” There wasn’t a chance in hell this girl was her soulmate. Still, the tattoo was right out in the open for Beca to see. Not that she was looking. Beca tightened her grip on her own body, being sure to keep her tattoo out of view.
“The tone of your voice is so beautiful. You have to audition for the Bellas.” The redheads' eyes were piercing through her. Beca couldn’t breathe.
Beca grabbed a shampoo bottle from her basket to cover her boobs. “I can’t concentrate on anything until you cover your junk.” Beca couldn’t concentrate on the girl's rant about singing for Prince. “Seriously, I am nude.”
“You were singing ‘Titanium’ right?” She asked and Beca dropped her tense shoulders for a split second.
“You know David Guetta?” Beca asked and looking into this girl’s eyes was like a dream.
“What have I been living under a rock? That song is my jam… my lady jam.” Chloe winked and Beca looked back up to the ceiling. All of the nerves came back.
“That’s.. nice.”
“Yeah, that song really builds.” The redhead wasn’t leaving anytime soon. She crossed her arms and settled into her spot in front of Beca. “Will you sing it for me?”
“Dude, No-”
“Not for that reason!” If Beca was in any other place, she’d have laughed at the octaves the redhead’s voice jumped. “Look. I’m not leaving until you do so…”
Beca swallowed a lump in her throat. “This is ridiculous.”
“Maybe…” Chloe moved her eyes around the shower as if she was just taking in the scenery, patiently waiting. “But I can stand here all day.” She smiled.
Beca rolled her eyes and tested the theory for a few very long seconds. Chloe didn’t move. “I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose. Fire away, fire away.” Chloe chimed in right after the first line Beca sang. The harmony sounds like heaven on earth and Beca lost herself in. They sang for longer than she intended to. When the song ended, Beca got lost in Chloe’s eyes. Beca forgot about the situation almost entirely.
“Yeah, I’m pretty confident about…” Chloe gestured to her naked body. “All this.”
Beca’s eyes flicked over Chloe’s body. “You should be.” She couldn’t help saying the truth.
Then the redhead handed her a towel and Beca took it in a split second to wrap herself up - still careful about her tattoo. “I’m Chloe... by the way.”
“Beca.”
“Chloe? I got the shampoo from the car- oh!” The blonde from the activities fair turned the corner of the shower and intentionally walked in on their interaction. Beca pulled the towel closer to her. The blonde was in a towel too, leaving her shoulders and long legs out. It left a lot to the imagination, but somehow Beca’s mind had no problem imagining. Her eyes wandered and she was unable to stop herself. Her eyes went down to the towel that hugged the blonde’s body. “I’m so sorry.” The blonde averted her eyes from Beca as a sign of respect. “Chloe, what are you doing?” The blonde turned her attention to her girlfriend. Guilt sank into Beca’s stomach at the smallest thought that they were doing anything inappropriate. Beca refused to be Sheila. She would not ruin their relationship. When she looked down - Beca choked on her own breath when she saw it. Clear as day on the blonde’s ankle was a capital B tattoo, just like Chloes… Just like Becas.
“Sorry Bree, this is Beca... from the activities fair? She was singing and I just had to get her to audition for the Bellas so I kind of…”
“Burst in on her shower?” The girl - Bree? - asked. “We should really talk about boundaries…” The blonde at least seemed to have more etiquette.
“I’m sorry…” Chloe kind of laughed it off. “Beca, this is Aubrey.”
Beca looked around anxiously, avoiding them both. “Nice to...meet you.”