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The ground shakes.
She’s angry. Her teeth clench and her muscles tense up and her throat's raw.
The ground is fucking shaking. Her anger gives way to fear and she pitches forward, hands grabbing tightly onto Jesse’s shirt.
And, all of a sudden, it stops.
The room is silent and a car alarm blares somewhere down the street.
“What the fuck?” Jesse says, quietly, measured.
There’s a pause and Beca twists his shirt. “What the fuck?” she replies.
He takes a step back. Beca lets go. “Did…” He stares at her, wide-eyed and gaping. “Did you just make an earthquake?”
“I don’t fucking know,” she says, high-pitched.
She’s never breaking up with anyone else ever again if this is how it's going to go.
…
It takes Jesse twenty minutes to calm her down.
She’s sitting on her front porch and he’s coming out with two beers.
“The news is all over this,” he says, settling down beside her. “And also, by the way, I have many questions.”
She sighs and takes a swig of the beer he hands her. “Well, I don’t know anything. This is sorta new, dude, so.”
Jesse blows a breath out of his mouth, eyebrows raised. “You’re like a superhero, Bec.”
“Maybe it was a freak accident,” she says.
“Maybe.” He points to a tree across the street. “Try and make that shake with your brain.”
“No.”
He pouts. “Come on.”
“No.”
"Okay. Fine."
They go silent and Jesse makes a show of drinking his beer, gulping audibly and clearing his throat afterwards. The can of beer makes a loud thunking sound when he puts it down on the step.
She sighs as loud as she can and he grins. "Asshole."
She squints at the tree, feeling very stupid, and clenches her fists. The can in her hand crinkles.
The ground rages. The tree falls over. So do all the other trees lining the street (which sucks) and Jesse’s beer falls over the porch.
“What the fuck,” Jesse yelps, stumbles, and rubs at his wet pants. Retribution, bitch.
…
Beca really should’ve known better. Jesse’s always been a film buff, so she should’ve seen this coming from a mile away, and fuck, does she regret discovering this thing she has.
Jesse’s cousins own an estate between the middle of god-knows-where and fuck-if-I-know, and it’s basically just a giant cabin in the center of an overgrown corn field.
He tricks her into his beat-up Toyota, tells her they’re going for Taco Bell, but ends up driving her out to the estate.
(She caught on after they drove past the third one and threatened to earthquake his ass to hell, but she’s not stupid or suicidal and neither is he. So she sits silently, sullenly, in the passenger seat for an hour.)
“You kidnapped me,” she starts, standing a little ways away from the cabin, “so I could train to become a superhero.”
“Yup,” he says, locking the car behind him – she doesn’t know why, there’s literally no one here – and carrying a duffel over. “I brought some stuff and googled it, so you don’t have to worry.”
“Don't worry?!” she hisses, kicking a rock into the field. “What did you even google? ‘My ex has superpowers and probably caused the strange California earthquakes, how do I make her a superhero safely?’”
He rolls his eyes and unzips the bag. “No, it was ‘my ex broke up with me, found out she could literally shake the earth, and did nothing; what do I do?’ but you were close.” He pulls out five metal bars. “Also, I just looked into your power. Some comic book nerd probably came up with your power ages ago, so I figured I could take ideas off them.”
"And?"
He shrugs. "We'll see."
Beca watches as he sticks the bars into the ground, each approximately six feet apart from each other, in a line. On each one, he puts a paper plate and a rock to weigh it down on the top of the bars.
When he’s done, he takes her by the shoulders and wheels her deeper into the field, until the cabin disappears from sight.
“No,” she says when he turns her around.
“I promise to take you out to Taco Bell after this,” he says, crossing his arms.
“Yeah,” she scoffs, “and let you kidnap me again?”
Jesse tilts his head. “Okay. True. I promise to pay for every meal we have at Taco Bell.”
Beca frowns.
She hasn’t had lunch and she’s really feeling tacos right now. Ugh. “Fine.” She pushes her hair back over her shoulders and squares them. “Okay, what now?”
“Only make the plate in the middle fall off.” He points to where she assumes is the middle one. “Here’s a walkie-talkie, I’ll tell you when you can go.”
And with that, he disappears into the field, back towards the house.
Off in the distance, a murder of crows squawk and the field sways in the wind. A cackle from the walkie-talkie. And she clenches her jaw and her eyes slide shut.
“Go.”
…
For the next month, Jesse shows up randomly on the weekends and whisks her away to the estate. (He always pays for her lunch afterwards and she really has nothing better to do, so she allows it.)
By the fifth week, she can focus the quakes onto specific spots and even detect the mass of whatever is on that area.
It’s also the week Jesse shows up with a ski mask and a cape.
“Like hell that’s going to happen,” she says immediately.
He zips up the duffel and tosses it into the backseat. “Well, why not?”
"Are you, like, serious?"
He makes a vague gesture. "Yes?"
“Because I did this for fun, not to actually become a superhero,” she says, exasperated, getting into passenger and clicking her seatbelt in place. “You really have to find a hobby, man.”
“This is my hobby,” he says. “I’m invested now.”
“That’s sad.”
“You’re sad.”
“Well, if you’re going to try and convince me to be a hero, you’ve gotta at least get me a cool costume,” she reasons, sipping at the Capri Sun he stocked for her. “I mean, what kind of sales pitch is a burglar mask and the curtain you stole off an XL kids Batman costume?”
He laughs. “Costumes are expensive. I googled it.”
She grins. It’s a joke. He's joking. Thank fucking Christ. “If you get me a short skirt and a crop top, I’ll split the price with you.”
“That’s not practical, everyone knows that, god, Bec.”
…
Jesse’s away on business for the weekend, something about a deal with a small film company, about his music scoring, so she uses the time to buy the new couch she’s been planning to buy for the past year.
She splurges for a giant Ikea monstrosity that’ll take up at least a quarter of the living room space in her house and buys David Guetta’s newest album from the nearby Target.
In good spirits, she walks home, hands in her pockets and earphones in. It’s halfway there when she hears it.
A scream.
It’s almost six, the end of autumn, so the sky is pitch black above them, no stars in sight. She can’t tell if it’s due to light pollution or if it’s cloudy.
Above her, a streetlight flickers and she tightens her hold on her bag.
A yelp this time. “That’s mine!”
Distressed.
Beca glances nervously to the opening, a crack between two buildings, and approaches.
“Let go, bitch,” comes, lower and rougher. “Or this won't go well for you.”
Shit. Beca presses her back to the building and peers around the corner. There’s a towering figure at the end, against a fence. Shit, he's got a knife in his back pocket.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the guy growls out, breathing heavier now.
She can’t call the police without alerting this dude, so she rummages around in her bag for something to throw at this guy. And he’s reaching for his knife now.
Oh my god. She comes up empty, only a black scarf she keeps in there.
She sees no other choice. Cursing, she wraps the scarf around her face, over the bridge of her nose, and pulls the hood of her jacket over her head.
“Hey, asshole!” she yells, stepping into view.
The guy turns, knife pointed forward. Before Beca can get another word out, he turns again and grabs the woman, pressing the knife to her throat.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. She takes a cautious step forward, hands up.
“Whoa, okay! Maybe put that down,” she says, trying (and failing) to sound calm. “Dude, come on. Put that down. Let's just, like, be calm.”
“What’s with your outfit? Some kinda vigilante?” He hauls the woman up higher, pulling her up onto the tips of her toes, and she whimpers, eyes wide. “You’re a bit small. I suggest you run along and leave this alone.”
He’s sneering at her and her skin crawls. Crawls and crawls, until it starts feeling a little like anticipation. Beca narrows her eyes and feels the earth beneath her, feels the pull of gravity against her feet.
She clenches her jaw, turns around, and walks away.
“That’s right!” he calls after her, snickering. “Run along, pussy!”
When she’s almost rounding the corner, she turns and sees the knife falling away from the woman’s neck. Whew.
She clenches her right hand into a fist and it trembles, tips of her fingers white, crescents pressed into her palm. With a slow exhale, she lifts her arm and twists her fist around.
The ground roars, or she’s snarling, she can’t tell the difference, and the guy’s losing his balance and falling onto the ground with a thud. The bigger you are the harder you fall, so they say. The woman loses her balance, but Beca quickly diverts the tremors to where the man is lying.
She jogs over to the man, kicks the knife away, under the fencing, and plants a foot on his collarbone for good measure. “Call the police.”
The woman behind her nods and fumbles for her phone. She stutters her way through the call and falls silent.
Beneath her, the man is winded and coughing. “The fuck are you?” he wheezes.
“Oh, shut up, man,” she says. She glances over her shoulder to make sure the woman is okay, only to find that she’s looking much more put together than Beca is.
She’s actually sorta pretty if a little frazzled. To be fair, she just survived a mugging. Her eyes are wide and blue and they shine whenever the streetlight flickers on.
After a moment, the woman manages a wobbly smile. “Thank you.”
Beca blinks and presses her foot down a little harder. “Uh. No problem.”
“The police will be here soon.” A pause. The woman hikes her purse higher up her shoulder. “I’m Chloe.”
“Cool,” she says, nodding and stepping off the guy. “I’m, uh… Well, sane and not an alien, so please don’t try and sent me to Area 51 or something.”
There are sirens now and she takes it as her cue to flee the scene.
Chloe grins just as there’s a break in the clouds above her and a star peaks through.
Beca just wants to lie down on her new couch and sleep for days.
…
She dreams of wide eyes and the moon shining through the clouds in the sky.
…
Her new couch actually comes three days later and Jesse helps her assemble it once he’s stopped smelling like airplane.
“So anything fun happen while I was gone?”
“Got lost in Ikea, found $100 on the floor, and I saved a random stranger from getting knifed.”
Jesse’s arm jerks and his attempt to do a bottle flip fails, badly. It lands sideways on her table and rolls off onto the floor. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
Beca fiddles with the aux cord in her hand and twists her lips sideways. “Well. I’m just saying I’m not an intern at Residual Heat anymore, so I’m actually getting paid. So.”
Jesse’s grinning like a madman. “So you want to split the price for a kickass superhero costume.”
And suddenly he’s laughing, bent over by the waist and slapping at his knee laughing, hysterical and loud and tearing up.
Fucking asshole.
…
Admittedly, she’s had better ideas.
Still, she looks fucking awesome in her suit, even if it’s really tight and she’s 80% sure there’s going to be some horrific camel toe at some point.
It’s sort of like Catwoman’s full body suit, except there are streaks of red over her shoulders and around her waist, and instead of cat ears, she’s got an Assassin’s Creed-esque hood and bandana.
It takes her a month to gather the courage to actually put it on.
Jesse’s supportive and offers to attend her beginners Krav Maga classes with her. She turns him down, because, hello, they’re sort of exes and it’s still really weird that they hang out as much as they do.
She discovers more about her powers around the time she puts the suit on for the first time in public.
(She mostly just stands on her back porch and focuses on trying to move patches of land.)
“You’re telling me you can mess with gravity.”
“Yeah,” she says, “but not a lot. Like, I can’t fly or anything, but I can make people feel heavier or lighter.”
“You’re crazy.”
…
She meets Chloe again and this time it’s as herself, not as a shady vigilante in the dead of night.
“Hi, I’m Chloe,” says Chloe, and Beca’s thrown by how cheerful she sounds. There’s a scar on her neck which Beca eyes for a couple of seconds before Chloe notices and touches her fingers to it. “Got mugged last month. Anyway, welcome to Target.”
She says it as if it’s a casual thing; like someone saying got lunch an hour ago or bought a couch just then.
And fuck, she just realizes how it’s sorta rude to stare at someone like that.
“Uh, Beca.” She pushes the poster over the counter and dies a little inside because social etiquette has left her completely and, okay, she knows no one actually introduces themselves to the cashier at Target.
Chloe rings the poster up and pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “What’s happened to your knuckles?”
“Oh, uh, I started Krav Maga,” she says, tucking her hands self-consciously into her pockets. She’s thrown away the scarf and jacket from the night of the mugging and feels a wave of cool relief roll over her body at her own foresight because she really doesn’t want anyone to know she’s running around causing tiny earthquakes in a shitty Catwoman cosplay, or planning to at least.
“That’s cool!” Chloe hands her the rolled up poster. “I do yoga. Thanks for coming!”
And that’s it.
She smiles awkwardly and takes the tube, and walks out the door and – “Wait!”
Beca swallows the lump in her throat and turns around, scuffing her feet against the floor. “Um, yeah?”
Chloe literally climbs over the counter and jogs over.
“You’re not supposed to do that, right?”
She’s ignored, which, like, okay. Chloe comes up and grins, hands slotted into the pockets on the back of her jeans. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime.”
Beca gapes at her.
“My shift ends in half an hour and there’s a cute café across the street,” Chloe says, smiling easily. “Wanna go?”
Chloe’s really fucking pretty and Beca, to her great embarrassment, feels the ground underneath her tremble a little in anticipation. “Yeah, dude, sure,” she finally says, clearing her throat and going pink in the face. “I’ll just go over there and wait?”
Chloe nods, brightening and throwing a wink over her shoulder. “See ya!”
…
It turns out Chloe’s the manager of that particular Target, so no one’s going to chew her out for climbing over the counter.
She’s dressed in a sky blue button up that she’s stuffed haphazardly into her jeans and there’s the same purse from that night. She pulls off the look spectacularly. Beca feels somewhat inadequate in her purple hoodie and grey tank top.
Chloe talks a mile a minute and she happily shares her muffin with Beca, who takes a tiny nibble, before Chloe giggles and shoves it in her face, forcing her to take a giant bite.
“So, what do you do?”
Beca, mouth full of chocolate chip muffin, manages a choked, “Music Producer.”
“Oh, that’s cool! I’m a singer,” she says, offering Beca a napkin. “Well, when I’m not helping cute girls find the poster box.”
Beca blushes and swallows, nervously fiddling with her cartilage piercing. “That’s cool.”
“Can you sing?”
“Ha, no,” she says, biting her lip. “I prefer behind the scenes.”
Chloe doesn’t seem to believe it, but she moves on anyway.
By the end of the night, Beca’s blushed more times than she can count and has Chloe's number in her phone.
Jesse’s let himself in and she finds him on her couch when she gets home, smiling a little and folding a napkin with Chloe’s number on it into her shoulder bag.
“You had a date?”
Beca grabs her costume and shrugs. “Chloe.”
“The girl from the mugging?”
She doesn’t reply, but she can feel him shaking with silent laughter. The ground tells her this, so she makes the gravity in front of him pull him forward until he rolls onto the hardwood floor.
He groans, rubbing at his shoulder. Serves him right.
…
Chloe takes her out on another date. Friday night. They go bowling.
“Hey,” she says as she locks the door, coming to stand right in front of Chloe.
“Hi,” Chloe replies. She’s in a thick coat and the tops of her boots disappear into the bottom of the coat.
The air is cold, so Beca finds herself leaning into the warmth, into Chloe. “You look beautiful,” she breathes, digging her fists into her bomber jacket. “And, um, I got you this… thing. It’s inside, so I’ll give it to you later.”
Chloe seems to find her incredibly cute because she loops her arms around Beca’s waist and tugs her closer. “You look hot,” she replies. “And I got you free bowling shoes.”
She pulls away and Beca mourns the loss of the heat, but she subconsciously loosens her connection to the earth, feeling light and floaty, when Chloe tangles their fingers together.
Together, they walk through the streets to the bowling place, where Beca kicks her ass because if there’s one thing that these powers are good for, it’s cheating at sports she’s usually terrible at.
“You know,” Chloe says conversationally, swinging their hands together as they push the doors out, braving the rush of cold air against their faces, “I’m pretty sure you’re cheating somehow.”
Beca feels her heart drop to her stomach.
“Because I’ve never lost at bowling.”
She sighs and lets a tiny smile tug at her lips. “Well, maybe it’s because you’ve only played losers.”
“I’ll have you know, my dad’s won several bowling competitions. And I’ve never lost against him.” Chloe pouts and Beca has to resist the urge to yank her over and kiss her senseless against the nearest storefront. She’s a lady. She’s respectable. “Where’s your trophy, cheater?”
“Well, sorry, Mr Beale, I’m taking your daughter as my trophy,” Beca says, grinning at Chloe’s indignant huff.
“That’s objectification, Beca,” she says, yanking Beca's arm.
Okay, well, maybe she’s not that respectable, because once they’re back at Beca’s house, she leans forward and presses her lips to Chloe’s.
Chloe lets out a sound of surprise from the back of her throat but hums in satisfaction. She’s warm and solid against Beca, a stark contrast from the frigid winter air.
It’s an innocent kiss, all lips and breathy giggles fanning across cheeks.
When Beca pulls away, Chloe’s eyes are wild. The tips of her ears, cheeks, and nose are red and her mouth is parted slightly.
“Beca Mitchell,” she huffs, eyelashes fluttering, and walks Beca backwards, gently pressing her against the front door. “It’s not even the third date.”
“I’ll make up for it,” she says, kissing Chloe again. “I’ll take you out tomorrow and we can make out forever.”
Chloe laughs, chest rumbling against hers through their layers. “You’re corrupting me. My innocence, Bec, it’s all gone.”
“As if you had any to begin with.”
“That’s so rude.” Chloe's fingers flit from the zipper of her bomber jacket to her cheeks. "You can kiss your third date goodbye, Mitchell."
"Gladly," Beca replies, laughing, and curves her neck to give Chloe a tiny peck on the lips.
Chloe hums, satisfied, and leans in for a longer kiss. "I change my mind," she mutters against Beca's lips.
“Come in,” Beca says, reaching for her keys and pulling away.
Chloe’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.
“Not for that.” Beca rolls her eyes and twists around in Chloe’s arms to unlock her door. Chloe takes full advantage and presses in closer, pressing her cold forehead into the nape of Beca’s neck. “Your gift, remember?”
Chloe sighs into her skin and lets her go once the door clicks.
She leaves Chloe in the hallway to retrieve the gift, but when she returns, she finds her inspecting the frames Beca has up on the walls.
She’s looking at a picture of her, Jesse, and Luke playing one on two ping pong. Luke had beat them both.
“That was from college,” she says from behind Chloe, who spins around and smiles, shameless. Figures. “I worked at the campus radio station. Luke, the blonde guy, was my boss and Jesse… Well, we dated, but now we’re friends. Anyway. Here's your gift.”
Chloe’s eyes widen with delight when Beca presents a CD case to her. “Is this a mixtape?”
“Um, yeah,” Beca says, glancing down and pursing her lips. “It’s sorta lame, but, uh… It just happened, so might as well, right?"
Chloe grins, steps into Beca’s space, and kisses her. “I’m sure it’ll be awes.”
She leaves half an hour later, lips swollen and grin wide.
…
“I wouldn’t do that, man.”
“What the ever loving fuck are you wearing? I’ll fuckin’ shoot you, man. Just - back off.”
She sighs, rolls her eyes, and suddenly, the man’s gun flies out of his hand, landing heavily onto the ground. “You did this to yourself.”
“W-What?” the man gasps, taking a step back.
Beca helps the other guy off the floor. “Call the police and wait around the corner.”
“Thank you,” he says, voice shaking. “Thank you.”
The cops find the mugger pinned to the ground by an invisible force and it takes them three tries to make the man stand up once the gravity seems to miraculously let him go.
…
“You made the news,” Jesse says, barging into her house on an early Sunday morning.
Beca, sitting at the island in her kitchen, scowls. “What if Chloe was here?”
“You’ve been dating for a week and you have no game, so why would she be here in the morning?” Jesse elbows her side with a grin, pouring himself some cereal as well. “Speaking of whom, you’ve still gotta introduce us, Beca.”
“It's not happening. You’re more embarrassing than my mother,” Beca says, spooning some cereal into her mouth. “And go back to the news thing.”
Jesse takes his cereal and sits down on the couch, turning the TV on. “They’re calling you Silvertongue.”
“That’s fucking stupid,” she says.
He laughs. “Don’t have to convince me, but apparently the mugger you caught last night was babbling about your awkward speech patterns.”
“What? So everyone thinks it’s funny to call me that?” She frowns. “That’s actually really stupid, dude.”
“Well,” he says, letting out a thoughtful hum, “You do talk like a teenager from a decade ago, so it’s kinda funny.”
“You shut the fuck up and buy your own cereal.”
He laughs.
…
Chloe is extremely affectionate and usually, Beca isn’t into all of that physical touching stuff all the time, but Chloe’s warm and it’s the middle of winter. Besides, Chloe's turning out to be an exception to a lot of Beca's apparent hang-ups.
“Are you going home for Christmas?” she asks, grabbing Beca’s wrist as she walks by and yanking her into her lap.
Beca lets out a short shriek of surprise before pushing Chloe’s shoulders to regain her balance and scowling. “Jesus. Thanks, dude,” she huffs, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “No, I’m staying. You?”
“I gotta go home, Tampa. Only for ten days, so I’ll be back on the 2nd.” Chloe wraps her arms around Beca’s waist and falls onto her side, bringing them both horizontally onto Beca’s couch. “Where’s your home?”
“Here, but if you’re asking for where I grew up: Maine.” She tucks her head into the crook of Chloe’s chin, lips brushing against her collarbone.
Chloe tangles her fingers in Beca’s hair, brushing out the knots. “Remember the mixtape you gave me?”
“Mhm,” she hums, closing her eyes and listening to the beat of Chloe’s heart.
“You made those mashups?”
“Is this 20 questions?” Beca returns, lips curving. “Yeah, I did."
Chloe yanks her hair a little, though Beca reckons it’s an accident. “They’re really good. Like, really good, Becs. No wonder you’ve got a job at Residual Heat.”
She blushes and opens her eyes, staring at the throw pillow squished between Chloe’s arm and the back of the sofa. “Sing me something.” A beat. “Santa Baby, really?”
“It’s Bublé’s Santa Buddy,” Chloe says, “Gosh. Uncultured.”
“Oh, my mistake.”
Chloe giggles and picks up where she left off.
Beca falls asleep somewhere between the line about hotties she’s never kissed and a yacht she really wants.
…
Jesse offers to drive them to the airport since Beca has flunked her driver’s test at least five times and Chloe doesn't want to leave her car at the airport lot.
Beca mentally prepares herself, except when they roll up to Chloe’s apartment complex and she burrows into the backseat with her bags, there’s nothing awkward about this.
“Hey, uh, this is Jesse,” she says, jerking her thumb over in his direction and peering around the passenger seat to glance at her girlfriend.
She’s still thankful for her mental preparation because he proceeds to embarrass her. Thoroughly.
“She’s told me all about you. Everything. We haven’t talked about anything other than cereal and you in the past month.”
“Oh my god.”
“Really?” Chloe grins, pulling her beanie off her head and leaning forward over the center. “Tell me all about it.”
“I hate you both.”
…
It just so happens, the moment Chloe leaves, a jewellery store is robbed three blocks away from her house. Jesse drops her off in full suit and is dialling 911 as she sprints in.
The owner of the store is cowering under a row of necklaces when she comes in, held at gunpoint. There’s five of them.
Immediately, the robbers erupt into yelling and gun waving when she steps over the broken glass door. Wordlessly, she disarms three of them, the gravity beneath their weapons pulling them to the floor. The earth shudders around her, more glass breaks, but the robbers lose their balance.
Of the two that are still armed, one of them loses their grip, and it lands with a thud by the store owner, who kicks it away in a panic. The other lifts his gun and shoots blindly.
Beca yelps and dives for cover, next to one of the robbers who raises an arm to swing a punch, but Krav Maga kicks in and she dodges and flips him over, knocking the wind out of him. His trigger happy friend shoots him in the leg and a strangled cry escapes him.
She winces as he howls in anguish, twisting into himself, cradling his leg. There’s blood gushing from the bullet in his calf.
Fuck. Fuck. She stands abruptly and throws a punch into the air, desperate. The gun the last man standing holds goes crashing into the floor, bringing the shooter down with it.
There’s the sound of broken bones and a hoarse scream from the fallen robber.
Fuck.
Without turning back, she flees the scene, feet pounding against the floor and sending tremors with every step. Behind her, sirens wail.
…
“No one died,” Jesse says, wiping her face with a wet towel. There’s blood staining her cheek, from the man who was shot. “The worst was the broken fingers.”
She takes the towel and lets it drop square on her face. “Someone was shot, Jesse.”
“Not life threatening and you didn’t shoot him.” Jesse places a plate of spaghetti on the coffee table and sits down beside Beca. “No harm done.”
“That was too messy,” she says into the towel, muffled. “I need to work on my control. I need to take more Krav Maga.”
“No, what you need is to rest,” Jesse says, frowning. “Seriously, Becs, Chloe just left this morning, you can’t kill yourself before she gets back. She'd kill me."
Beca sighs, straightening, and reaches for the spaghetti. The towel flops into her lap.
…
News coverage is ridiculous. There’s footage from the security cameras of her in her costume, ducking underneath a punch and breaking the man’s fingers underneath his own gun.
Chloe texts her about it nonstop. And apparently Jesse too. Beca doesn’t even know how she got his number.
“She loves you.”
“What?” Beca yelps, voice high.
“Gaea.” Silvertongue hadn’t stuck, thank god, but since the footage was released, the media has taken up the name Gaea for her. She doesn’t know what to make of it, it’s not like she’s making dirt come up off the ground like in Avatar. “Chloe is majorly in love with Gaea. She’s telling me how she’s seen Gaea before she got famous.”
She sighs. “Kill me.”
“Just tell her,” Jesse says. “She’s not going to be the one calling up the scientists at Area 51 to have you dissected.”
“We’ve only been dating for a month.” She bites her lips. “And a half. I don't want to come off as a creep."
Beca feels like a teenager again, scared to come out to her mother. It’s unreasonable. Present tense, because she realizes she actually hasn’t come out to her mother. It’s been seven years since she realized that she was neither team Jacob nor Edward, but was, in fact, team Bella.
Shit. She should get on that.
God, she’s twenty-five already.
…
The line rings for all of seven seconds and Beca already wants to hang up.
Too late. There’s a click and then: “Beca?”
“Hey, mom.”
“Nice of you to call,” her mother says, slowly, and Beca winces. “Want to update me on the last two years of your life?”
“Uh, Merry Christmas?” Beca pulls her blankets up to her chin and curls up. “How're your flowers?”
“You’d know if you came to visit.” There’s rustling on the other end. Beca imagines her mother relaxed into an armchair, reading a book on botany, and feels the bittersweet taste of melancholy seep into her mouth.
She sighs. “I’ll visit for Easter,” she says. She shifts a little to fill up the stifling silence that follows, then: “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, honey,” her mother says through a sigh, “I know how you can get caught up in your life. Want to tell me what’s wrong now?”
Damn woman knows everything. “Nothing. There are just some things that I realize I probably should have told you ages ago.”
“If you have an STD, I don’t want to know,” her mother jokes. Maybe not jokes. Beca can’t really tell. “And if you’re pregnant, I will fly to California this instant and–”
“Mom,” Beca huffs. “I do not have an STD and am not pregnant, trust me. Jesus Christ.”
“Well, tell me, then.” Another rustle. The turn of a page.
“I’m sort of, uh, seeing someone,” Beca says after a moment of pause. “She’s called Chloe.”
Rustling. A creak of a chair. “That doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant.”
Beca laughs and throws an arm over her face. “Mom.”
“I’m glad you could tell me, honey,” her mother says, her smile bleeding into her voice. “And I’m sorry if I’ve ever said anything to offend you, but to be honest, I knew you liked women years ago.”
“What?”
“You don’t exactly hide it. I’ve seen a picture of you kissing a rando with pink hair on Facebook.” Another page turned. “...that’s not Chloe, is it?”
She snorts, still trying to process this. Also trying to figure out when her mom started saying shit like rando. “Chloe’s a redhead. Rest assured, mom.”
“Mhm,” her mother hums, “now tell me the other thing you’re scared to say.”
"Fuck, how did- Actually, whatever." She takes a deep breath. “Have you seen the news?”
Her mother huffs. “If you’re trying to tell me you’re the serial killer in China plaguing the news, I don’t think that’s a smart thing to do, I’ve got the police on speed dial.”
“Mom. Gaea? The superhero?”
“Is that Chloe?” her mom asks. Beca doesn’t know whether she should be offended that her mother thinks serial killer before superhero.
“Uh, no,” Beca says, deciding to move past it because she figures this is forgivable, after all, she didn’t talk to her mom for two years before this. “That is me.”
There’s a moment, then. A silence that is tense and uncomfortable, reminding Beca of a time when she was thirteen, watching her mother’s favourite vase teeter on the edge of the dresser and knowing she wasn't fast enough to catch it, so she’d stood there, waiting for it to either be a miracle or a monumental fuck up that’ll cost her hours of TV privilege.
“You stay safe, B,” her mother says softly, a murmur. “Don’t mess around with this, okay? I don’t know how this is possible, but I… I’ve a weak heart, Beca, so I’m going to go to bed now and I’ll call you back in the morning.”
Beca doesn’t know what to make of it, so she sighs into her pillow and mumbles, “Goodnight.”
“I love you,” her mother says. Then there’s a click and a long beep that Beca lets drone in her ear for minutes before pulling the phone away and hanging up.
…
The night before Chloe comes back, she receives a call from Jesse. It’s the witching hour and she’s half asleep over her laptop when Don’t You (Forget About Me) blares from her phone.
She jumps an inch into the air and literally hovers there for a brief moment before she bounces back down onto her couch.
“Dude,” she starts, voice thick with sleep, “Why’re you calling me at butthole o’clock?”
“I got you a police scanner for Christmas!” he tells her. “And I’m telling you now because I’m at a bar with Luke and he’s just given it to me. His roommate runs a thrift shop. Did you know he moved here?"
“So you’re regifting me a police scanner from a guy I haven’t seen in two years.” A beat. “Speaking of which, thanks for the invite.”
Jesse snorts over the line. “I’m on a date, dude, Luke’s in the bathroom right now.”
Beca blinks. This is unexpected. “Are we all bi? Am I part of some club that hooks me up with every bisexual person in LA or is this some kind of magnetism thing?”
“You’re as alluring as a brick,” Jesse says.
“You’re the one who dated me for four years.”
“Touché.” Jesse laughs. “Anyway, gotta go, Becs.”
“Enjoy,” she drawls slowly.
In her inbox, Chloe’s sent her a line of hearts and wink emojis.
She sighs, puts her laptop away, and falls back onto the sofa, smiling.
…
“Becs?”
“Hm?”
“Why do you have a police scanner in your closet?”
Beca shoots up, hair thick and tangled. “Chlo!”
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Chloe says, turning around and diving into bed, arms snaking around Beca’s waist. “Well, afternoon, actually.”
“I thought you were landing at eight,” Beca says, sinking down into bed until she was face-to-face with her girlfriend. “I was gonna pick you up.”
“Jesse came to pick me up at three to surprise you,” she says, leaning forward to press her lips to Beca.
Beca grins into the kiss, hands smoothing over Chloe’s dimples, into her hair. “I missed you.”
“And I missed you too, Becs,” Chloe says, pulling away. “But I’ve gotta wash Florida out of my hair right now and you’ve got things to explain.”
Beca watches as Chloe breezes into her bathroom, eyes wide as saucers when Chloe pokes her head around the bathroom again and says, “That was an invitation.”
“Oh,” she says. Shower sex is ironically really messy, but still, she’s not about to say no. “Oh, uh, yeah.”
When she slips for the fourth time right over the drain, she’s already used to softening the blow for herself, but still decides to never do this again.
Above her, Chloe is wracked with laughter, suds running over the slopes of her shoulders and pawing loosely at Beca's shoulder in an attempt to help her up.
Beva thinks that this is the moment. The moment she realizes she's madly, desperately, in love with this woman.
…
“Becs,” Chloe whispers, pulling Beca closer on the bed. “Do you want to come to Tampa with me next year?”
Beca blinks and pushes a curl of red away from Chloe’s cheek with a curved index finger. It’s bizarre how Chloe’s so sure they’ll still be together next year because Beca’s always called herself realist, bordering on pessimist; she prepares herself for worst case scenario. Also, she probably has some abandonment issues to work out.
She should probably stop that if she's going to be dating Chloe Beale, she muses to herself, because Chloe is a brilliant person through-and-through.
“Yeah, sure,” she replies easily. “If you want me there.”
Chloe laughs, eyes drooping a little. “If I didn’t want you there, I wouldn’t’ve asked, silly.”
“Don’t call me silly. You’re silly.”
“Mhm, silly me,” Chloe says, presses a soft kiss to Beca’s jaw, and shuffles around until Beca’s spooning her. Weird, since of the two, she’s taller. “I got you a late Christmas gift. It’s a necklace and it’s in my bag. I’ll give it to you tomorrow morning.”
Beca sticks her nose into Chloe’s hair, smelling freshly of shampoo. “Your gift is in my closet,” she mumbles against Chloe’s skin. “Goodnight.”
“Night.”
…
“Why do you have a bruise on your elbow?” Jesse asks, poking at it. “Were you fighting a mugger or…?”
Beca stiffens, face heating up. “I slipped in the shower.”
“Oh.” Jesse nods and twists a knob on the police scanner. “So you slipped multiple times on your neck as well?”
Mortified, one hand flies up to her neck while the other grabs a nearby jacket to drape around her shoulders. “Oh my god.” Jesse’s red in the face from holding in his laughter. “Shut up, you’re the one with ass bruises from kinky sex with Luke.”
He’s still cackling when she pulls on her costume, getting ready to help out with a car pileup on the highway reported from the scanner.
…
Chloe’s been staying over more often, so Beca’s taken to stuffing her costume under her mattress whenever she’s over.
The police scanner, she tells her, is just a cool gift from Jesse.
“Do you want bacon?”
Beca startles. Pro: someone who actually knows how to fry an egg without setting fire to the pan; con: not enough time to work.
(Though, it’s also partly because she’s been using up work time to be Gaea since Chloe’s taken up all the actual Gaea time in her life.)
“Yeah, thanks, Chlo,” she says, clambering up off the sofa and setting her laptop down on the coffee table on the way to the kitchen. “You’re a godsend.”
She makes a sound of acknowledgement from the back of her throat. “You’re wearing the necklace.”
Oh. Beca finds herself fiddling with the music note dangling from her neck. At this, she brings it down to the table and taps the table with a fork instead. “Yeah.”
She’s exhausted, actually, and she really hopes LA can stand a week without Gaea because she’s seriously thinking of going into goddamn hibernation. It’s been hard, trying to strike a balance between work, her nighttime hobby (barring Chloe), and her social life. She’s only needed about two pots of coffee to be able to cope.
“You’ve paid more attention to it than you have me,” Chloe says casually, but Beca can tell she’s irked. Well, fuck, she’s been dating Chloe for three months now, so she should know.
Beca sighs, murmuring another ‘thanks’ as Chloe hands her the plate with bacon on it. “I’m sorry. It’s the last song for Emily’s album and I’m hardcore stressing.” She sullenly stabs at the bacon until she sees Chloe lean onto the island, spatula pressing into her palm. “I’m sorry,” she says again.
Chloe scrutinizes her, searching, and Beca finds herself avoiding eye contact.
After a moment, Chloe sighs, leaves the spatula where it is, and scoops her purse up from the couch. When she leaves, she doesn’t look back at Beca, car rumbling to life outside and leaving Beca alone in the house, searching the streets for the familiar weight of Chloe against the ground.
The ground beneath her shakes, hard and violent and sudden, throwing off her equilibrium and sending her plummeting to the ground harder than normal.
She reaches for the police scanner in its permanent spot on the coffee table and calls her mom as she flicks it on.
When she hangs up, she suits up and leaves.
There’s a forgotten, shattered plate of bacon on the floor.
…
Los Angeles rarely rains, only drizzles more often in February, early spring, and that's it.
Outside, she can feel the light pitter patter of water sprinkle the earth, humming with life. There’s a warmth pressed up beside her.
When she cranes her neck around, she sees a head of red spilling over her shoulders and tickling the underside of her jaw.
“Chlo?” she rasps, rubbing an eye with the back of her hand. The clock on her nightstand tells her it’s seven in bright blinking red.
Chloe grunts and rolls around, back to Beca, and pulls the blankets over her head.
Beva snorts to herself. Message received. Relieved, she stays there for a couple of seconds, eyes closed, and basks in Chloe's body warmth.
She brews a pot of coffee and sips at a mug, staring out at the rain splashing onto her backyard.
An arm weaves around her waist and a chin slots itself in the curve where her shoulder meets her neck. Chloe presses a lazy kiss to the side of Beca’s throat, then another on her shoulder where it stings.
She stiffens and reaches up to pull her sweater up higher onto her shoulder, which slips back down almost immediately after.
“You have to be careful,” Chloe whispers, pressing another kiss, this time gentler, onto her shoulder where an ugly purple bruise is blossoming.
Beca goes slack. She leans into Chloe, turning her head slightly so the side of her forehead is pressed against the line of Chloe’s jaw. “How long have you known?”
Chloe smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “I guessed it when we first met. At Target. You didn’t even try to disguise your voice.”
“It’d been weeks since your mugging,” Beca says, defensively, “I assumed you forgot.”
“I spent the better part of my life dedicating myself to the wonders of the human voice box, Beca, I don’t forget anyone’s voice, much less my superhero's,” says Chloe as she stares out the window.
Beca sighs. “I’m sorry. For being distant.”
Chloe flattens her palm against Beca’s navel and she takes a tiny step forward, body flush against Beca’s. “When I say you’ve got to be careful, I also mean careful with pushing yourself, Becs. You’re exhausted.”
“I’m not. I’m awake.”
“Yeah, and you’re also hopped up on coffee,” Chloe huffs a little, breathing into Beca’s shoulder. “C’mon. Leave that in the sink and come back to bed. I’ll be big spoon.”
Beca sighs. That does sound nice.
Really nice.
"I was going to tell you," she says quietly.
Chloe's disgruntled puff against her shoulder pulls a smile out of her, though it fades when Chloe replies. "When?" she asks, thickly. "I was waiting, y'know."
Beca lets out a tired sigh and shrugs. "When I told you that I love you."
She really was. Beca might be the one with a weird connection to the ground, the one who takes care of everyone, but it's Chloe that keeps her grounded, it's Chloe that takes care of her. The rainfall comes heavier. Chloe burrows into her and tugs the back of her sweater lightly.
"I love you too." She pulls away, hand warm in Beca's. "Come back to bed."
The earth is still when she goes to sleep, wrapped tight in Chloe’s arms, and outside, the rain continues to fall.
…