Not so unexpected

18. You'll do it just fine

It’s been a week already, a week since she was kicked out of the Bellas.

It was Saturday evening; Beca was bored, alone at her house. Today Stacie performed with the Bellas, she was thinking is she should go root for her best friend; she had nothing to do so why not?

She grabbed her phone and dialed a number. "What's up?" Jesse said from the other side of the line.

"Hi jess, you busy?" Beca started looking for clothes to wear.

"Kind of, the trebles perform in half an hour, why?" Her friend asked.

She took a deep breath before continuing "Can you pick me up before you head to the ICCA?"

That was weird coming from Beca, everyone thought she hated acapella.

"I’m sorry." Jesse said, Beca immediately regretting what she asked him. "Are you Beca Mitchell? No problem, dude." He laughed.

Beca let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and a smile grew in her face. "Thanks Jesse you are the best."

She hung up and threw her pajamas somewhere and grabbed a pair of skinny jeans and her jacket, not minding to take her batman plaid off. She got a text from Jesse telling her he was out; in the rush she took a beanie and her keys.

Jesse drove her to the ICCA, he wasn’t wearing a stupid uniform like the Bellas, he was simply wearing a red hoodie and jeans. "I have to be backstage preparing for the performance, my family is over there." He said pointing to his mother, who waved her hand at him.

Beca wished him good luck and went to the last seats, the furthest from the stage.

Meanwhile, backstage, the Bellas were freaking out because they were not just missing one member, they were missing two.

"Aubrey we don’t have much options." Chloe said, exasperation and fear taking over her.

The girls were warming up; they were the second ones to perform. Amy wasn’t anywhere to be found and she was one of the altos and with a solo, they only had 4 altos when Beca was in the group, now that she wasn’t a Bella and Amy wasn’t there, only 2 altos left.

"We DO have an option." Aubrey stated, she was NOT taking Beca as an option. "Denise." She called.

The girl walked towards Aubrey, too scared to say a word.

"Do you think you can take Amy’s part?" The girl slowly nodded but her nod was transformed into a shook. "aARGH."

"Aubrey, breathe. You don’t want to shower people with vomit, right? You know she's our last chance." Chloe said.

Aubrey was indeed freaking out. She had no other option; she had to call the hobbit.

"I found Amy." Aubrey's head shot up. When she heard Jessica say those words she felt a glint of hope.

She gave Chloe a fake smile and before she could tell her 'I told you so' Amy appeared.

"I’m sick aca bitches." Amy said, Aubrey then looked at her, Amy was paler than usual, red nose and eyes and her breathe smelled like if she just threw up.

Chloe looked at Aubrey with a confident smile and her eyebrow raised. Her told-you-so look.

"Just give me the phone and take that smile off your face."

Chloe happily handed her the phone and Aubrey called Beca.

It ringed twice before the brunette answered "Chloe?" She asked in shock, not expecting a call from the red head.

"It’s Aubrey." That made even less sense to Beca.

Beca's mind was a mess. What was going on? "We need you." Was the only thing that Aubrey said before Beca could say something.

Neither of the both girls could believe what just happened.

"Hum what? I can’t hear you. The Footnotes are about to go on stage so be quick." Beca said having none of it.

"YOU ARE HERE?" she said out loud, catching everybody's eyes.

The only thing that Chloe thought that moment was 'go find her' but she was so not going to look for her, she looked at Stacie with puppy eyes, knowing that she wouldn’t say no.

"I go." Stacie said.

She knew Beca, she was her best friend, she knew Beca would be somewhere in the last row of seats. And there she was.

"Beca." she said approaching her.

"What’s going on?" She said when her friend started dragging her towards the backstage by the upper arm.

"You are going to perform, no not’s or buts." Was the only thing she said before the Bellas started attacking Beca with lyrics and moves and make up.

6 minutes passed by and Beca was dressed with light make up, ear monstrosities free and a messy bun.

"This is against my will, I can’t perform. I WON’T." Truth is she'd liked to perform, but she couldn’t.

Aubrey was about to rip her head off, but Chloe elbowed her on the arm. Aubrey rolled her eyes but did what Chloe wanted "Beca please, I’m begging you." Aubrey begged.

"You were the one to kick me." Beca crossed her arms above her chest.

They knew there was no chance to make her chance her mind.

"This is the only favor we'll ever ask, just please Beca, help us to perform and then you are free." Chloe was the one to talk, the one that managed to make Beca to look at her eyes and actually, change her mind.

"okay." she sighed.

Every Bella ran to hug Beca, everyone except Aubrey, who was ashamed since she had to beg her enemy to sing with them.

The footnotes where on stage now, Beca didn’t dare to look out, but something was pushing her to do it. Hundreds of people were there, her nerves started playing her, her anxiety getting higher.

"I can’t." she muttered.

Stacie looked at her shaky friend. "Hey, it’s okay."

Except it wasn’t. She ran away. Stacie ran after her, so did Chloe.

"Beca open up." Beca locked herself in some small room. She was having a panic attack.

Chloe found Stacie trying to open a closed door. "SHE'S HAVING A PANIC ATTACK." She yelled at Chloe, Stacie wasn’t prepared for this, she didn’t know what to do and she was freaking out.

"Stace, listen to me." Chloe said forcing her to look at her. "Breathe. It’s going to be fine, go with the Bellas, I take care of this." She said wiping a tear from Stacie's cheek.

Stacie walked back to where the Bellas were waiting to go on Stage. Everyone turned to Stacie, waiting for an explanation.

"She's having a panic attack, she suffers anxiety, she's been taking meds since she joined the Bellas, we shouldn’t have pushed her." Stacie said wipping her eyes.

While every Bellas was feeling bad for pushing Beca and judging her, Chloe was dealing with Beca.

"Becs." She said softly. "It’s okay, I’m here. Take deep breathes." She heard that Beca's shaky breathes stopped for a second. She had to think on something that would distract her. Capitols.

Chloe took her phone out of her pocket and started searching for countries as fast as she could. "What's the capital city of Afghanistan?"

She heard nothing for a moment. "Kabul."

Chloe felt relieved. "Great Becs. Iceland?" Chloe was trying to open the door with pin while asking Beca the names of the Capital cities.

"Reykjavik." Beca answered.

"Right." She scrolled looking for another country. "Namibia?"

"Windhoek." Beca seemed more relaxed now.

"Can I come in?" Chloe asked.

The door slowly opened revealing a messy Beca with red eyes.

Chloe didn’t think twice, the first thing she did as soon as Beca opened the door was embraced the brunette in a tight hug. She’s missed Beca's scent, she really did. The brunette was hugging her back as well, like if her life depended of the red head.

"You think you can manage to perform?" Chloe asked softly.

Beca shook her head.

"Maybe this will help, when you are on stage, search 5 things that you can smell, 5 things that you can touch and 5 that you can taste." She looked at the brunette's blue eyes, finding fear in those. "Try it, if you can’t, I’ll leave the stage with you, deal?"

"Deal."

Aubrey heard heels knocking on the floor, walking towards her. She had her hands on her head; she knew Beca would do the possible to ruin the Bellas. She raised her gaze from the floor to found her best friend walking beside Beca, arms crossed.

Chloe nodded reassuring Aubrey that Beca would perform with them.

"Are you good?" Stacie asked rubbing Beca's back.

Beca nodded in response, mentally preparing herself for what was about to happen.

"Okay Bellas." Aubrey said breaking the silence. "We practiced this, and if we do it JUST like we practiced, we'll go to the finals."

A few glances were exchanged between the 9 girls, Amy had to go off stage with the trebles since she couldn’t perform.

"Hands in."

Stacie hasn’t figured the 'hands in' thing yet. "On three of after three?"

It was noticeable that Aubrey got frustrated. "Whatever let’s do this." And with that, she headed to the stage.

Beca felt a hand on her's. It was Chloe, encouraging her with a smile.

"5 that you can see, feel and hear." She reminded the brunette.

'What did I do to deserve her?' Beca smiled back at the red head and followed her to the stage.

The second she stepped on the stage her breathe stuck in her throat.

Okay 5 things, 5 things. She started scanning the place starting to calm down.

The pitch pipe was blown. She started cursing herself for agreeing to do this. She took a deep breath and started singing the chorus of the song, like the last time they performed.

She took the courage to look at the crowd. Of course they weren’t surprised that they were singing the same lame song with the same lame choreography.

The judge’s weren’t happy. She had to do something; Aubrey would kill her but, f**k Aubrey.

She played the rhythm on her head and immediately thought of a song that would match it. Another deep breathe, and the lyrics of 'Bulletproof' by La Roux started matching their lame song.

Beca had a hell of a voice, she didn’t need a microphone to be heard, her voice was so powerful that everyone heard her. The Bellas started looking at Beca like if she was out of her mind, she caught Aubrey's death stare. She knew she was in deep s**t, but didn’t care, the crowd started enjoying their set for the first time, the judges showing positives signs.

"Beca what the f**k?" Aubrey asked pushing everybody so she could have a proper look of Beca and yell at her face to face. "Were you trying to screw us up?"

Beca only rolled her eyes, waiting for the blonde to stop complaining.

"Newsflash. This isn't the Beca Show." Aubrey said clearly pissed.

"Okay, I'm sorry that I messed you up, but in case you hadn't noticed, everybody pretty much dozed off during our set." A few Bellas nodded in agreement.

"It's not your job to decide what we do and when we do it." Aubrey snapped.

Beca was ready to get the hell out of there, she never should have agreed to perform and get yelled at for trying to save the performance.

"Yes, I added a song to our set. Big deal." She said sarcastically. "But at least I’m original and actually try to save this lame ass performance. You stick to the past so much that you can’t let go of a f*****g set that you ruined a year ago. I’m not f*****g sorry for what I did out there-"

"Not sorry for trying to ruin the performance? Incredible." Aubrey cut her off.

"It’s hard to believe you beat 100,000 other sperm." Beca was starting to get frustrated. "Im NOT f*****g SORRY FOR TRYING TO HELP. I almost had a mental breakdown because I didn’t want you to lose again. I tried to make the performance less heavy so you can win for once, but you never acknowledge the damn good things I do, right?"

That hurt. Beca was right. Aubrey was speechless, she only nodded. In silence.

The trebles were getting on stage now; Beca and Stacie wishing a quick good luck to Jesse.

It's been the worst 4 minutes of their lives, the trebles finished their performance, the judges made a decision. The Bellas were ready to go home.

"Here goes nothing." Aubrey muttered.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the moment we've all been waiting for. The results of tonight's semi finals competition. In second place, and advancing to this years' finals..."

There was a tension in the air, they really didn’t have a good chance to win anyways. "The Barden Bellas, The Barden Treble Makers winning the first place."

The girls couldn’t believe what just happened. Beca made this possible, Aubrey hated to admit it but it was the truth.

They hugged each other in a group hug, they were so happy they made it to the finals.

"Beca." After the trebles got their trophy, the girls walked towards the bus. Beca turned around to face Aubrey. "I know that I've been hard on you, okay? I know that I've been hard on everyone here." Now every Bellas was facing Aubrey. "But I am my father's daughter. And he always said, 'if at first you don't succeed, pack your bags."

Aubrey's voice slightly cracked and she was struggling to keep the tears on her eyes.

"I guess we don't really know that much about each other. About most of you really." Beca said after a while. "Why don't we all go around the room, and we can all say something about ourselves that nobody else knows."

Beca wasn’t the type of human who has good ideas, but this one was perfect, the girls sat on the bus opening up to each other.