Chapter Text
The afternoon sun beat down relentlessly on the facade of the Silver Lake apartment building. Aubrey Posen had been standing in front of Door 3B for precisely three minutes, adjusting her handbag strap for the fourth time and double-checking her posture. Under her arm, she carried a leather portfolio, her perfectly organized calendar was loaded on her phone, and the iced coffee in her hand was already starting to sweat in the Los Angeles heat.
The headquarters for her new performing arts academy in West Hollywood was opening in less than three weeks. Everything had been calculated to the millimeter, except for the tiny detail that the real estate agency had canceled her temporary apartment lease at the last minute due to a main pipe burst.
Taking a deep breath, she rapped her knuckles firmly twice against the worn wood and waited.
From inside came the muffled clatter of something metal hitting the floor, followed by a low mutter and lazy footsteps. The door creaked open a few inches, revealing Beca Mitchell. Her hair was a messy nest, her oversized tee featured the faded logo of a '90s punk band, and her headphones dangled around her neck.
Beca blinked a few times, adjusting to the hallway light.
"Posen?" she asked, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, one eyebrow arching automatically. "Don't tell me you're here for a surprise Bellas inspection. You know you can't boss me around anymore, right?"
"Hello to you too, Mitchell," Aubrey replied, keeping her voice firm and practiced as she stepped forward. "I'm not here for an inspection. I'm here... as a colleague. And perhaps to bring you this."
She extended the iced coffee. Beca eyed it suspiciously before taking it and taking a sip.
"Vanilla with almond milk. No sugar," Beca muttered, frowning. "You know exactly how I like it. Okay, you're scaring me. Who did you kill, or what do you want?"
Aubrey let out a barely perceptible sigh, clutching the portfolio tighter against her side. Her flawless professional facade was beginning to crack at the edges.
"I have a logistical setback. My apartment in West Hollywood suffered a structural flood and won't be ready for another month. The academy opens in twenty days, the contractors aren't offering any solutions, and the only person I know who lives less than fifteen minutes from the venue... is you."
Beca went quiet, leaning her back against the open door. Her gaze swept over Aubrey: the immaculate tailored suit, the pristine hair without a single strand out of place, and the obvious tension coiled in her shoulders. She could see the icy panic Aubrey was trying to hide behind her rigid posture.
"I was going to look for a hotel, but the moving costs and the opening expenses have pushed my budget to the limit, and honestly—"
"Aubrey," Beca interrupted.
"—I know your place is small, and we have our differences when it comes to living styles, but I promise not to intrude on your routine. I'll keep everything in perfect order, and—"
"Posen, shut up." Beca reached into the pocket of her flannel pants, pulled out a ring of keys, and tossed them in the air. Aubrey caught them on pure instinct. "The couch pulls out into a bed. Touch my vinyl records, and I'll kill you. Get inside before the AC escapes."
Aubrey froze, keys in hand, staring at Beca with wide eyes.
"Just like that? You didn't even think about it."
"It's you, Aubrey," Beca said simply, turning on her heel to walk toward a kitchen cluttered with cables, synthesizers, and half-empty mugs. "I'd never leave you out on the street. Now come in and tell me where you're putting all those expensive clothes."
Beca grabbed one of the hardshell suitcases Aubrey had left by the entryway and dragged it toward the back. From the outside, the apartment looked like a typical cramped Silver Lake pad, but inside, it was surprisingly spacious: high ceilings, exposed brick, and an open floor plan where the living room merged into a corner packed with instruments and a kitchen with a wooden bar.
"The place isn't half bad, Mitchell," Aubrey admitted, looking around as she set her handbag on the coffee table. "Though your audio cable management is a latent hazard to physical safety."
"If you don't trip over a cable, you're not getting the full experience," Beca shot back with a sly smirk, tossing a couple of pillows onto the couch. "Come on, I'll help you unpack before you have an anxiety attack seeing my stuff out of place."
Together, they began hanging Aubrey's clothes in the small hallway closet and clearing a corner of the main storage unit. Watching Aubrey Posen, with her immaculately ironed silk blouses, fold clothes next to Beca's torn t-shirts and cables was an almost surreal sight.
"So..." Beca started, leaning her hip against the dresser as she watched Aubrey arrange her fabric organizers. "How'd you end up in LA? Last time Chloe mentioned you in the group chat, she said you were turning Camp Fallen Leaves into a wellness empire. I thought you'd stay there forever."
Aubrey paused briefly, smoothing the lapels of a white blazer before hanging it up.
"The camp was incredible, Beca. It taught me how to channel all that... energy I used to spend making you all throw up at Barden." She let out a short, almost nostalgic laugh. "But after a while, I realized it wasn't enough. The camp was for healing, for disconnecting. I wanted to build something that created new things."
She turned to face Beca, and for the first time all day, the spark in her eyes wasn't born of stress, but of raw passion.
"You know me. I've always had this need to direct, to organize, to push people to their limits so they bring out their absolute best. But I didn't want to do it through military discipline or guilt anymore. I wanted to blend singing, acting, dance... everything we learned in the Bellas, but within a real professional framework. A performing arts academy right in the heart of the industry felt like the logical next step."
Beca listened in silence, taking a sip of her coffee. She knew Aubrey's character all too well: her stubborn inflexibility at first, but also her unwavering ability to carry an entire group on her shoulders when everything fell apart. She was born to lead; it was in her blood.
"A talent empire," Beca summarized with a genuine smile. "It suits you, Posen. If anyone can whip a bunch of ego-driven LA artists into shape and turn them into pros, it's you."
Aubrey looked at her, taken aback by the warmth of the compliment, and a tiny, genuine smile slipped out.
"Thank you, Beca. That means a lot coming from you... considering how hard it was for you to submit to my leadership at Barden."
"Oh, don't get it twisted. I still think your dress codes were outright tyranny," Beca teased, grabbing one of Aubrey's shoeboxes to place it on the top shelf. "But I never doubted that you knew what you were doing."
The atmosphere between them settled into an unusually comfortable rhythm, a quiet truce built on years of shared history. Yet as they finished organizing the boxes, the close quarters made one thing glaringly obvious—one that neither was ready to admit just yet: the old Barden tension hadn't vanished; it had simply shifted shape.
That night, the silence that settled over the apartment carried a different weight. It was thick, almost foreign.
For years, their relationship had been defined by noise. There was always a piano playing in the background, Chloe stepping in to diffuse tempers, Amy cracking an inappropriate joke, or ten girls talking all at once on the tour bus. They had never had an "after rehearsal." They had never shared a car ride alone, nor a cup of coffee without a group acting as a buffer.
Aubrey adjusted the last hanger in the closet and turned around, wiping her hands on her trousers. Beca was perched on a stool at the kitchen bar, swirling the melted ice in her coffee glass between her fingers.
"It's weird, isn't it?" Beca blurted out, breaking the quiet.
Aubrey raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms.
"What is? The fact that you haven't left a single dirty dish in the sink yet?"
"No." Beca offered a lopsided smile, glancing at the exposed brick ceiling before locking eyes with her. "This. Us. Being in the same room without anyone singing a cappella, without Chloe barging in to hug us both, or Amy dropping something on the floor."
Aubrey froze for a split second. She walked slowly across the space separating them, leaning against the far edge of the bar. The warm kitchen light caught her features, softening the rigid armor she usually wore.
"I suppose so," Aubrey admitted softly, with a rare, quiet honesty. "At Barden, if we were left alone for more than five minutes, it meant we were about to scream at each other over the setlist or control of the group. We never learned how to exist in the same room without a battle brewing."
"Or without an audience," Beca added, her gaze fixed on her. Her dark eyes held that quiet intensity she got whenever she was processing a big thought. "We were always 'the Bellas.' It was never just you and me."
The air between them grew suddenly heavy. Stripped of the past's distractions and their friends' chaotic buffer, the other's presence felt amplified, almost overwhelming. Aubrey held Beca's gaze, feeling a strange flutter in her chest as she realized that, for the first time in years, she had no script and no rules to navigate the moment.
"Well," Aubrey said, clearing her throat to regain her composure—though the slight quiver in her voice gave her away—"we're here now. No Bellas. And you're stuck with me for a whole month."
Beca let out a soft chuckle, stepping closer to the bar without breaking eye contact.
"I think I can handle it, Posen. The real question is whether you can handle me."
The afternoon slipped away, and the sun dipped completely beneath the Los Angeles skyline. Beca returned to the apartment just past eight. Her job as a music producer at an established label gave her a comfortable living in Silver Lake, but on weekends, she couldn't resist the rush of the stage. She loved DJing at local clubs, feeling the energy of the crowd, and experimenting with live sets.
When she walked in, she found Aubrey sitting on the couch with her laptop balanced on her knees. She was wearing thin-framed reading glasses and typing rapidly, cross-referencing student rosters and organizing instructor schedules for the academy.
"You're back," Aubrey said without looking up, though her shoulders visibly relaxed at the sound of the door.
"I'm back." Beca tossed her keys onto the entryway table and collapsed onto the opposite end of the sofa, stretching out her legs. "How was your afternoon? Did you survive the permit bureaucracy for the remodel?"
Aubrey lowered her screen halfway and slipped off her glasses, looking at her with a faint, tired smile.
"Surprisingly, yes. I made significant progress on the first-semester curriculum. Though I admit my eyes are begging for a break from spreadsheets. How was your day?"
"Intense. We were finishing up the mix on a new EP at the studio." Beca turned toward her, fidgeting with her wristband. She hesitated for a second, picking her words carefully. "Hey... it's Friday. I have a gig in a couple of hours at The Abbey in West Hollywood. Doing a two-hour DJ set."
Aubrey raised an amused eyebrow.
"The Abbey? That's quite the crowd for a Friday night."
"Yeah, well..." Beca scratched the back of her neck, avoiding direct eye contact for a brief moment before spitting it out. "I don't know if it's really your scene—I know you're not big on clubs or massive noise—but... if you want to come along, you're more than welcome. Just to get out for a bit so you don't spend the whole night glued to a screen."
Aubrey looked at her, genuinely surprised. She had expected Beca to go off and live her life, leaving her to her own devices in the apartment. But seeing the subtle hint of anticipation on Beca's face made her mind up instantly.
"I'd love to, Mitchell. Truly. A little night air and good music sound like just what I need to clear my head."
Beca smiled, visibly relieved.
"Awesome. We hit the road in forty-five minutes. Time to get ready."
They plunged into a frantic race against the clock to get dressed. The apartment bathroom turned into a shared war zone. While Aubrey applied red lipstick in front of the mirror, dressed in an elegant top and high-waisted trousers, Beca was putting the finishing touches on her leather jacket over a faded black graphic tee.
Suddenly, while working pomade through her messy hair, Beca started humming a familiar melody. Then, without overthinking it, she rasped out the first line aloud, mimicking her old tone from Barden:
"It’s getting hot in herre, so take off all your clothes…”
Aubrey froze, lipstick hovering inches from her lips. They locked eyes in the mirror reflection. An instant spark of nostalgia flared in Aubrey's eyes; she couldn't help the side-smirk that escaped as she harmonized instantly, hitting the exact note from their old Riff-Off:
“I am getting so hot, I’m gonna take my clothes off!”
Beca burst out laughing, spinning around and slapping a beat against the sink, changing the song without missing a beat:
“No diggity, I got to bag it up…”
“Bag it up…” Aubrey chimed in without a second's hesitation, matching her vocals flawlessly to Beca's, blending into a seamless vocal sync they hadn't rehearsed in years.
For a brief moment, the Silver Lake bathroom seemed to fade away. There was no rivalry, no pressure of competition—just two voices that knew each other by heart, echoing off the walls. They capped off the impromptu jam with a shared high note and fell silent, staring at each other with breathless grins.
"You've still got it, Posen," Beca murmured, looking at her with a mix of respect and something far deeper.
"I never lost it, Mitchell," Aubrey replied softly, slipping her lipstick back into her bag. "Let's go before you're late to your own gig."
They grabbed the keys, walked down to the car together, and headed out toward the glowing lights of West Hollywood, ready to discover what would happen when the night finally belonged to just the two of them.