Hello all, merry Pitchmas! This was written for @free-falling-grenade as they’re my Secret |Santa for Pitchmas 2018! Hope you enjoy, apologies that it’s a little shorter than I’d like.
(cross posted to AO3 here)
“Chloe?” Beca calls uncertainly. She feels nauseous, can’t really comprehend what’s happening.
From the depths of their house, the redhead replies, “Coming!”
She steps outside of the bathroom and closes the door tightly just as Chloe appears in the corridor. Chloe stops still at the expression on Beca’s face. “Babe, are you okay? You’ve gone white as a sheet. Are you sick?” She presses her hand to Beca’s forehead, retracting it instinctively when it comes back slick with sweat. Chloe’s voice is tinged with alarm. “Becs, talk to me, are you okay?”
Beca finally, finally, breaks out of whatever spell she had fallen under, and glances, bewildered, at Chloe. “I don’t know what’s happening,” she mumbles. Chloe’s face breaks in relief.
“That, I can work with. We’ve been through this before, haven’t we?” Not noticing the slightly alarmed look on Beca’s face, she continues regardless. “So… hot chocolate or coffee?”
“Coffee,” Beca mumbles, “black like my soul.”
Chloe laughs, dragging her wife downstairs. “Your soul is as pure as snow, you goof. But fine, coffee it is.”
Settled on her favourite couch, cradling a hot espresso, Beca starts to feel a little more like herself. Chloe, always the expert at Beca-reading, sits and waits patiently for her to sort out her feelings. Beca, for her part, is twiddling and fiddling with the fabric on her hoodie, trying not to panic.
And now here she was again.
Beca instinctively reached out for Chloe, who let her take her hand. Beca finally decided to just say it, the way she knew best to do so. She pulls her phone from a pocket and plays a song.
It’s not one that Chloe recognises, but she does recognise the underlying beat, and knows instinctively that this is one of Beca’s own songs. She stretches out, listening intently. The song starts out fast, with the signature Beca-beat Chloe had come to love, but it morphs into something slower, until Chloe recognises the Beca-beat has become a heartbeat. She hadn’t even been listening to the lyrics. She focuses back in on the song.
...We dance in slow motion,
Can you feel the way I feel tonight?
Cause I got news, and it’s bigger than this,
You don’t know, but you’ll love it too,
Two hearts, one soul, it ain’t enough,
‘Cause I think I’m eatin’ for two.
Our hearts keep dancing around our song,
You need to know, our two hearts, one soul,
The song fades out, Chloe’s eyes well up, and she pulls Beca into a strong hug. “Oh my god, you’re pregnant? We’re gonna have a baby!”
Beca smiles, because how could she not, even though her stomach swirls with fear and uncertainty. “I’m scared, Chlo,” she whispers into ginger hair.
“Oh gosh, babe, I’m terrified too. But I know you’re gonna be a great mom.”
“I just- I saw the test and I panicked, Chlo… what if I’m terrible at this?”
Beca kept looking at the little device in her hands. Looking and looking until it felt like her eyes were going to pop right out of her skull and bounce along the tiles in her bathroom. It was unmistakably, indelibly there. The second pink line happily nestled next to the control line. She blinked hard once, twice. Yep, it was definitely still there.
They had been trying for months with Chloe, who had always wanted to carry a baby, but it just wasn’t working out. Beca had agreed to try one round on herself, not really expecting anything of it. After all, with Chloe, they’d tried seven rounds before they had a viable pregnancy… she had visibly winced at the memory. Chloe had lost the baby. They had been heartbroken. Beca had wanted to give up, didn’t want to experience the suffering any more. Chloe was plagued with guilt, constantly wondering what she could have done to deserve that happening.
But there it is, clear as day, those two little pink lines promising a life and future ahead of them that Beca is terrified of, oh God she’s terrified, but there’s something in her which feels so much joy she’s terrified she might explode. She’s never felt this awful mix of joy and fear before, and she isn’t sure what to do. She puts the test down and steps slowly away from it. She turns around quickly, as if not looking at it will make it go away. She panics, and calls for Chloe. Heart in her throat, she hurries out of the bathroom and closes the door.
Chloe’s soft kisses on her neck pull her back to the present. “Becs. You’ve got me, and I’ve got you. We’re gonna rock the socks off this baby thing. Besides, you know ‘Bree did like, twelve courses on childminding to prepare for Alfie, and she’ll totally help out. Ooh,” she said, reaching for her laptop, “let’s tell her the good news!”
Beca hurries to press her hand on the laptop. “Chlo...” she says, in the tone of voice she uses when Chloe’s got too excited about something. “Can we, I don’t know, just enjoy this for us for a bit?” she says uncertainly. “I mean, I’m happy, god I’m happy, but I just want to share this with you for a minute.”
Chloe smiles fondly. “We can totes do that, babe. Totes.” She gently kisses Beca’s jaw, just below her lips. “So… what do you propose we do with all this… enjoyment time?”
Beca smiles. This, she knows how to do.
“Oh, I might have some ideas...”
Telling the Bellas was easier than Beca had expected it would be: all she really did was show up to Emily’s wedding and somehow they all just… knew. Beca still had to tell Aubrey though, and hadn’t seen her yet to do so.
Chloe swore up and down that she hadn’t told the Bellas about it, so Beca wondered to herself if it was that obvious that she was carrying. She took a moment to look in the mirror whilst the wedding rehearsal was running (wedding rehearsal? When Chloe and she got married they just went for it and hoped it turned out right – oh god she sounds like a grandma).
There, before her disbelieving eyes in a fancy church bathroom, she could see the beginning of a baby bump on her slight figure. It seemed that with all the preparing and panicking, she hadn’t really had time to pay attention to her shape. She pressed her hands to the bulge, and recoiled when she felt something push back. Fumbling, she pulled out her phone.
Sent at 12:44
🌈Becs🌈: Babe, come to the bathroom now xx
Sent at 12:46
❤️ Chloe ❤️: Becs, really? Not that you arn’t great but we’re in a CHURCH! Xx
Sent at 12:46
🌈Becs🌈: Not for that!
🌈Becs🌈: Just get in here pls xxx
Sent at 12:47
❤️ Chloe ❤️: be right there xx
Beca drums her hands on the marble countertop, anxiously awaiting Chloe’s arrival. The sweeping door opens, and Chloe comes in, Aubrey a few steps behind. “Okay, whatever sexy business you two want to get up to, I am putting a stop to right now,” Aubrey announces plainly. Beca’s blushes so hard her ears glow red with embarrassment.
“That is so not my plan,” Beca mumbles, shooting a desperate look to Chloe. Chloe smiles softly at her, before turning to Aubrey.
“Give me five minutes, Bree, and I promise that if we aren’t out by then you can march in here and drag us out.” When Aubrey doesn’t look convinced, Chloe brings out her ultimate weapon and pouts. Within seconds, Aubrey caves, adding, “Five minutes, and not a moment longer!” She heads back to the door calling, “I’m starting a timer!”
When the door shuts, Chloe turns inquisitively to Beca. “What’s up?”
Beca takes off her dress jacket, and Chloe laughs. “I thought you said that wasn’t what this was about?”
Beca’s ears flush again. “That’s not- ugh- just look.” She stands face-on to Chloe, who scrunches her face in confusion.
“Becs… what am I looking at?”
Beca groans in frustration, pulling Chloe toward her. “Okay, fine, feel.” She places Chloe’s hands on her abdomen, and waits. Watching Chloe’s face transform will forever go down as one of Beca’s top 10 memories; first she’s confused, then surprised, and suddenly her lips curve upward into one of the biggest smiles Beca has ever seen. She looks into Beca’s eyes. Unshed tears of happiness glisten in her own.
“Oh my god…” Chloe whispers reverently. “I can feel her moving.”
Beca’s lips quirk into a lopsided smile of her own. “Her?”
Chloe shrugs. “I just have a feeling.”
Beca can’t take it any more, she leans forward and kisses her wife, then wrapping her arms tightly around her. She can feel tears dripping onto her shoulder, and is pretty sure she’s crying too. At some point, Aubrey opens the door and comes in, the words “Time’s up!” dying on her lips as she sees the two.
“Are you two okay?” she says hesitantly, coming over. After she receives no response, she mumbles, “I can go...”
“No,” Chloe says from somewhere buried deep in Beca’s collar, “Stay, please.”
Beca wipes her own eyes and chuckles. “I thought I was supposed to be the hormonal one,” she jokes lightly to Aubrey, and Beca watches in amusement as she puts the pieces together.
“You’re pregnant?” Aubrey whispers in disbelief. “After all the trying… you’re really pregnant?”
Beca nods, tears threatening to escape again. Aubrey envelopes the two in a hug, squeezing tightly. “Oh my god, I’m so happy for you two…” Suddenly she steps back from them. “I am so sorry. Um… take all the time you need.” She hurries out of the bathroom.
Beca extricates herself from Chloe and smiles softly. “I guess we need to go out there and get ready.”
Chloe nods, begrudgingly straightening her dress out as Beca dons her jacket once more. They have a wedding to attend, and they simply have to be the most beautiful couple there. Well, except Emily and Benji of course.
It turns out that Chloe’s intuition was correct, and they did indeed have a little girl.
To anyone who would ask, Beca would swear up-and-down that the middle name was Chloe’s idea. However, it had come about entirely from Beca’s mind, and it was posed as something of a question to Chloe. “So, uh,” Beca had begun in that eloquent way only she seems to be able to pull off, “have you thought about names?”
Chloe had shaken her head. “We’ve still got three months, Becs. What’s on your mind?”
“Oh, nothing, I was just, uh, looking at names myself and...”
“And…?” Chloe had prompted, wrapping her arms around Beca. “I know you’ve got an idea swirling around in there,” she had teased, “so whenever you’re ready.”
Beca had mumbled something incoherent, and Chloe had paused. Beca had quickly begun rambling, “Oh, no really, listen it’s fine, we don’t have to call her that, I mean she’s your best friend and that’d be weird, forget I said anything.”
Chloe’s smile had then widened into a Cheshire cat grin, “Are you telling me you want to name our daughter after Aubrey?”
“I mean… we’ve gotten along so much better now, and I just thought… y’know what? Never mind. It was a stupid idea.”
Chloe had wrapped her arms tightly around Beca and interrupted the ramble with a searing kiss. “I think it’s a beautiful idea. She’ll love it.”
Madeline Aubrey Mitchell-Beale came into the world at 9:36am on a Tuesday. Beca knew from the moment she first held her baby that her life had been irrevocably changed. They say that you never realise how important something is in the moment, but Beca knew for a fact that she would be telling people for the rest of her life that this was the most perfect moment she would ever experience.
It was perfect in its imperfection, how her baby was still damp with blood and fluids, how she herself was slick with sweat, how they had no privacy whatsoever… but that, Beca decides, is exactly what made it so perfect. The doctors and nurses bustling around… it all faded away as she held her child for the first time.
Despite how catastrophically their lives had been changed from that instant, in a strange sort of way nothing changed at all. Beca and Chloe still snuggled up on the sofa, there was just a bassinet not far away with an equally dozy baby in it too. Beca still worked on tracks, but sometimes she would do so with only one arm, as the other cradled a sleeping child. Chloe still sang in the shower, and Beca still harmonised from across the house. Chloe still cooked, and Beca still ate. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed too.
Despite Beca knowing that Maddie’s birth was the most perfect moment in her life, she had near-perfect ones too. Maddie’s first word; when she first waddled across the room to Chloe’s arms; the first song they ever sang together. Their first Christmas. Their second Christmas. Their third Christmas.
Their life wasn’t perfect, far from it. They argued, cried, hugged, laughed and learned together. Beca never quite got over her fear that she wouldn’t be a good mom, and Chloe never quite managed to stop taking life three stairs at a time, proverbially speaking. But together, they did the best they could.
Maddie taught them things, like how blue suddenly could become their favourite colours, simply because she said it was hers, how turkey dinosaurs and sleepovers and cupcakes and birthday parties could become something Beca finally loved, and how happy it was physically possible to be. As Maddie had once put it, it was like being, “so happy your eyes laugh!”
They showed up to every recital, clapping proudly irrespective of how big or small the role. Chloe taught her to sing (“Becs, with these genes there is no way our daughter doesn’t have an aca-amazing voice.”) Beca patiently showed her how to find Middle C on the piano, and how to strum her first chord on a guitar. Chloe taught her optimism, and Beca taught her realism.
It should have been scary, Beca reflected, how quickly one person could become the center of your universe. It should have been even scarier that it could happen twice, the three of them revolving around each other in an orchestrated dance of love, hope and joy. The scariest part of all was that she didn’t care.
For the first time in her life, Beca truly felt happy enough to let her eyes laugh.
