Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

INTRUDER OF THE FUTURE

Darkness.

Beca Mitchell can see nothing but pitch-darkness. She is blindfolded, so the rest of her senses are acutely focused. And she’s led to God-knows-where.

She recognizes that she is still in the house because she can smell the familiar scent of their home, hear the faint classic hits streaming from the radio channel WYNZ emanating from her mom’s office every afternoon, and feel the different surfaces of the floor under her bare feet.

And only five minutes earlier, she was upstairs in her bedroom, working on a new mashup, when she was prompted to put on the blindfold and follow the “intruder" downstairs without asking any questions.

Beca didn’t care, so she followed him.

By counting her steps from her bedroom and having some basic sense of orientation, she can tell she’s heading down to the first floor. She takes each step slowly and carefully, making sure not to bump her small toe anywhere, as that shit can hurt like a bitch.

However, without her sense of sight, her clumsiness is magnified every time she bumps into something—a corner of the sideboard, or a plant that suddenly looms above her head. Her arms are flailing and grasping the handrail next to her, while a hand rests on her forearm to guide the way down the stairs.

This man’s an epic fail as a sighted guide!

“Last step,” the man tells her at last. He leads her further down the hallway, where he opens another door.

“Ew, shit!” Beca curses when she accidentally steps on something moist while descending the cold, stone stairs leading to the basement. “Where are we going, Victor? I thought you were taking me outside?”

Yeah, Beca initially hoped her stepfather would lead her to the front door, where she'd discover a brand-new car awaiting her as a high school graduation present, enabling her more freedom to explore the city of Atlanta—where she’d be attending college—at her own convenience. But her hopes were dashed the minute she heard him unlock the basement door leading to his “secret lab.”

If her stepfather was planning to murder her, now is the perfect chance because her mother is currently busy writing Sporcle articles about the lamest jobs in the United States—Oh, the irony. There’d be no witnesses. Also, Beca dreads meeting her biological father, a professor at the college she plans to enroll in next week, so she doesn’t mind being murdered. She feels queasy just thinking about seeing him again.

“Please just push me down the stairs,” Beca grumbles and tries to cover up what she's just said. She clenches her hand and coughs, but in response to her unsettling remark, Victor removes the blindfold from Beca's eyes and gives her a disapproving look.

“Beca, why on earth…” His frown lines deepen. He has known Beca since she was nine, but his surprise at her disconcerting comments and mild emo phase after she hit puberty never wore off. When she looks at him, she immediately feels guilty. Victor is a human being who could not harm a fly, much less his stepdaughter, whom he loved like she was his own. He puts a hand to his chest as though that struck him square in his soul. Beca's dismissive laughter prompts him to shake his head and prods her forehead lightly with the tip of his index finger before he guides her down the stony stairs. “Follow me.”

“Great, you’re taking me to the laundry room?” On their way to the basement, she puts on a pair of socks from the laundry basket and slips into her old Vans while wondering what this old, eccentric man is up to.

He's set up a laboratory here for his “scientific research.” He’s, in fact, a full-time game designer for ePlaces, but he gets to do the—in Beca’s opinion—lame duties, which is writing code by using various computer programming languages for the entire game design team who bring creative concepts to life. He’s a total geek.

Despite its location, this cellar has excellent air circulation and lighting. It is equipped with state-of-the-art media production and computer equipment, which are often only found in support of research laboratories or studios. There’s a small room to keep supplies, as well as separate storage where he has several unfinished devices and constructions, some of which bear an unusual resemblance to the early stages of the development of Terminator. Beca wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if a portal suddenly appeared and someone assassinated this man.

Looking around the room, she notices that, besides the abundance of chalkboards covered in mathematical calculations, diagrams, and observations, only a little has changed since she last visited him here. Formulas, charts, and scribbled observations are scrawled on stacks of paper and tacked to a massive whiteboard. Electric meters, forceps, soldering tools, tweezers, wires, wire cutters, wire strippers, you name it, are thrown everywhere; you'll need a variety of electronic gear to get the job done along with mechanical instruments such as files, hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, etc.

One of the posters, which is black and white with red lettering, has the following inscribed on it:

‘Is time travel possible?’

“Ta-daa!” he exclaims gleefully. Victor shows her an oddly shaped headgear on the table amongst scattered tools and wires, where the yellow LEDs flash. Beca assumes it’s on standby. “It’s finished on time for you to try.”

“Okay… and what… is it?”

What he’s pointing to seems like a cross between a cyberpunk virtual reality helmet and one of those trial frames used in ophthalmic clinics. Beca knows about them from when she accompanied her grandfather to the optometrist as a kid and relentlessly bugged the poor doctors with questions about them.

“I…” Victor starts with a wavering grin but drops his head, “…have no name for it yet. But–” he takes the headgear carefully and holds it in front of Beca as if it’s the Holy Grail, “–this works! You can travel through time to wherever your heart desires, Beca!” As he rotates the funny-looking helmet in his hands, he reveals the many shiny displays and touchscreen buttons attached to it through cables. “This works like a VR headgear, but you’re physically there without leaving this room.”

“Nice.”

Beca's eyes flicker toward the stack of his creations while she crosses her arms, unimpressed. She has tried many of his supposed innovations as she grew older. When she was younger, she was naturally excited about anything he did because it seemed so cyberspace-y, high-tech, and futuristic to her. Until she learned that they were only flashing LEDs designed to attract gamers and that doing so has always been a part of his profession as a video game developer and programmer. And because of her newfound passions, such as mashup production, she has been spending less time with him, further breaking his heart.

And the fact that he wasn’t a real scientist like she first thought, broke her heart. But she never told him that…

Upon reflection, she became her own father who abandoned her child—this kind man who merely desired to bond with his stepdaughter before she went to college.

“Victor, I have no time for this, dude,” Beca says indifferently. “I better get moving before Mom kills me. And, like, you could’ve just put the blindfolds on me in front of the basement door if this is what you wanted to show me. I almost fell down the stairs, and I’m yet again disappointed that I didn’t.”

He sighs; dark-green eyes turn glassy. He opposes these unsettling, dark emotions because he cares for Beca as if she were his real daughter. Fearing that she will be let down and abandoned by yet another father figure, Beca finds it hard to allow him to love her.

Victor did nothing wrong. It’s also not her biological father’s fault that his marriage to her mother ended in divorce. If a relationship doesn’t endure forever, that’s okay.

But she needs to make somebody the scapegoat, right?

Though Victor has a full beard and some greying hair at the temples, he has remarkably few wrinkles for his age. He's 45 years old and has a youthful spirit. Who wouldn't be, though? He gets to wear sweatpants in the office, makes a living by playing video games all day, and occasionally pretends to be a mad scientist. He had achieved the pinnacle of success that Beca dreams of.

“I’m sorry, Vic.” At last, Beca gives in and takes the VR headpiece in her hands, inspecting it as though performing a quality check. “What do we have here, Professor?”

In her childhood, she used to serve as his mini-lab assistant, complete with a white lab coat and protective eyewear. Those moments were the best.

Beca resolves to offer him one last chance of meaningful bonding before she leaves for college in a week. Awaiting the next major phase of her life. She saw many parallels between this phase of her life with Andy’s—from Toy's Story—decision to cease playing with his toys as he grew up.

Victor's expression changes to that of a young boy on Christmas morning. “Aha! I’m glad you asked, my little bug! This is a device you can put on to time travel. It’s sort of like a time travel machine but without the nauseating feeling of traveling at light speed through wormholes and such nonsense! You wanna try?”

“But this shouldn't cause permanent brain damage, right? I mean, despite my excitement about spending the next four years in college, I realize I will still need my brain in order to, yah know, irritate the living daylights out of other people?” She proceeds to the seat he indicated while she continues inspecting the handheld apparatus twice the size of her head. “And I certainly wouldn’t come up with slaying clapbacks if my brain were malfunctioning, Professor Clueless.”

“Worry not, Dr. Bug,” Victor says, holding up a finger to assume certainty, “I tested this gadget myself and was able to see a glimpse of the future not a while ago.”

“And what did you see?”

“Um, nothing of interest,” Victor chuckles. Before he positions the headset on Beca's head, he enters a few codes into the computer and makes minor adjustments to the headset's side wheels, “there’ll be a heavy thunderstorm tomorrow. But only for a day.”

“Sure, because that’s uncommon in Maine,” Beca smirks and giggles at him. “You sure you weren’t watching the weather forecast?”

Beca experiences a mild tingle at the back of her head. She sees as Victor finishes entering data into the computer and docks the VR headset's dangling wires.

“Lean back and relax,” Victor instructs her. “This is pretty safe, Dr. Bug.”

Beca did as she was told. She trusts him, of course. His inventions were never dangerous or harmful. The most disheartening part, though, was having to say to him that his constructions had failed once again.

“Where would you like to go?”

“Um, send me 20 years into the future, Professor Clueless,” Beca orders with an amused laugh and a roll of her eyes. It makes her feel too old to have imaginary space adventures with a grown man. And it’s a little weird, too.

“Alright, 20 years into the future! Let’s see… Dr. Bug, be ready in 3… 2… 1…” She hears him through the headset speakers, “Oh, I think this CSS code isn’t supposed to be–” His voice breaks off, leaving a constant white noise in her ears.

“Prof– um, Victor? What happened?” she says before she removes the headset. “Dude, uh… where are you? Hello?”

The basement has disappeared. Her stepfather is gone, and with him, all of his equipment. And this isn’t their basement at all, she realizes with another start. It looks more like a stockroom.

“Victor?” she calls out as her voice leaves a faint echo in the narrow passage.

She leaves the basement and steps outside. And is surprised when it’s not their kitchen. She’s in someone else’s home.

“What the–? Victor? Great illusion, man. I think it worked!” Beca says nervously and lets her hand touch the table's surface before her. She notices that there’s a heavy thunderstorm raging outside. “This feels realistic, like… wow, dude, but how do I turn this off?”

She's confident she would be arrested for trespassing if this wasn't her home.

However, it's also possible that everything is an optical illusion, and none of this is real. That being the case, she takes the time to investigate the place before she gets caught.

“Hey, babe. I didn’t know you were home already.”

A woman’s dulcet voice speaks behind her, seemingly out of nowhere. Beca turns around to apologize for invading their home, only to be taken aback when she finds a gorgeous woman looking up from the stack of envelopes in her hands, having the brightest, dazzling blue eyes Beca has ever seen. She's dressed for the summer in a floral green dress, and her luscious fiery locks sweep gently over her shoulders. After setting down the mail on the counter to her left, she raises her head again.

“Jesus, Rylie? For a second I thought...” the woman exclaims in shock. “What are you wearing, honey? Going through a new phase again?”

“Uh, I-I’m not…” Beca stammers, waving the stranger off dismissively and taking a step back.

This woman walks to Beca and pecks her cheek, making Beca cringe.

“You remind me of your Mom when I first met her,” this red-haired beauty tells her as though they knew each other, giggling but covering her mouth bashfully. “Dinner’s ready, honey. Go wash off that makeup before your Mom thinks I’ve put it on you.” Her jaw drops when she discovers something else on Beca’s features. “You have got to be kidding me, Rylie! You got your ears pierced? Wait until your mother comes home! You’re only thirteen!”

“Dude?!” Beca exclaims in utter indignation, wiping at the cheek this stranger has kissed. “Do I look like thirteen to you?”

“Uh… honey, what’s with your voice?” a new tone of doubt enters the woman's voice as she asks. This time it's her turn to back away slowly. She looks Beca over thoroughly, analyzing everything from her hairstyle to her sneakers. “Y-You’re not my daughter? W-What… who are you?”

“Dude, I’m Beca, and who are you?” Smiling her signature smirk, she lets the lady know she’s in charge of this situation. Beca certainly has no right to act so outrageously, what with her being the one who has intruded on the woman's house in the first place.

“BECA?!” the woman echoes, blinking in confusion as though recognition dawns in. “H-HOW?!”

“Tell me who you are!” Beca demands and grabs the woman’s wrist. She might as well get some information from this weird virtual reality future before she returns home again.

“I’m Chloe…” The woman almost sounds uncertain about her own identity. “What on earth is going on?!”

“Chloe?” Beca repeats. “And… do we know each other?”

“Beca, this isn’t funny…” this drop-dead gorgeous responds when she takes another step back, jerking her arm away. “I’m your wife.”

“MY WHAT?! Nuh-uh, bruh,” Beca retorts with laughter, “sweetie, I-I’m not… I mean, if I were, like, I wouldn’t exactly kick you off the bed, but…”

“Aren’t you a little disrespectful?” Chloe glares at her.

Biting on her bottom lip and averting her gaze, Beca cringes at her own behavior; she certainly wouldn't speak to her own mother in such a rude way, so why did she to this woman?

Before her vision blurred, Beca sees a glimpse of her future self just scurrying through the front door to escape the heavy rain outside. She doesn’t see the woman’s face clearly but recognizes her chestnut-brown hair and petite frame. Only this other woman is wearing business dress attire and heels, looking glamorous like she just returned from the Grammys.

Beca, on the other hand, feels like a stray emo jerk who may have just enraged her future partner in life.

*

*

Beca sees darkness.

She opens her eyes, and her stepfather blurs into her line of sight, holding that VR device in one hand.

“Dr. Bug, B-Beca, you okay?” he asks, concerned as he shakes her a little. When Beca opens her eyes completely, he sounds relieved. “Jesus, you almost had me there for a moment. You fainted, I guess, but don’t worry. I had everything under control. It was strange. The gadget failed, huh?”

“I’m not sure,” Beca grumbles and rubs her forehead. “How long was I gone?”

“For about 20 minutes,” he tells her, “I had to abort when you stopped responding to my questions. Were you able to see something? Have a look at the recordings.” Fast-forwarded footage shows Beca falling asleep after only a few minutes and her stepfather comically panicking and close to a nervous breakdown when he struggles to wake her up. “Guess it didn’t work, huh?”

“It did,” Beca says after some consideration, his expectant green eyes on her.

“It did? What did you see?” he asks enthusiastically.

“You were right.” Beca scratches her neck and looks back at the recordings. “There’ll be more rain in the future,” she chuckles.

Her stepfather beams broadly.

TWO MONTHS LATER…

Two months have passed since Beca first stepped foot on campus. Given that she hadn’t encountered a girl named “Chloe” yet, she assumed Victor's invention was yet another failure. She simply didn't have the emotional fortitude to break the news to him.

Also, contrary to what her future had foretold, Beca did not feel “gay” while attending college. Would she suddenly transform into a gay person? How did that work? She has no idea... She hasn’t found a woman she finds sexually appealing or who took her breath away, but she found a couple of dudes quite cute, so she might still be straight.

She reasoned that maybe she wasn’t turning gay just yet. Perhaps this is a drawn-out process, like a caterpillar undergoing metamorphosis to become a gay butterfly. Beca will have to adjust to her sexual orientation more gradually than others who are either born homosexual or came to terms with it earlier in life.

And the catalyst that would turn her gay she would have to meet yet.

Maybe, this isn’t even the college they would meet at, but another. Or she’d meet her future wife later, like next semester. However, she is fully prepared and unafraid of any situation. It’s just… she is not currently seeking a girlfriend or another female who might help her in this complicated process…

*

She had a few awkward encounters with her biological father on campus, but she always avoided his dinner invitations and visits to her dorm. Instead, she stayed in touch with her mother and Professor Clueless, the latter of whom she frequently asked about his latest innovations and who always responded with enthusiasm and detailed information.

“I miss you, Dr. Bug,” her stepfather once told her over a video call and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “Since my assistant moved to Atlanta, work on the inventions has stalled, but it’s cool.”

“I’ll be back in time, Professor Clueless,” she told him with a salute, smiling warmly, “for Christmas. Miss you, too… Dad.”

Beca's mom has to end the video call with an empathetic grin on her face and a roll of her eyes because her husband was suddenly bawling his eyes out.

Beca goes to her first frat party ever that Saturday night. Despite her rudeness during orientation day, she made friends with some peers like the bubbly Jessica Smith and the aloof Ashley Jones.

While making her way through the crowd of people to find her companions and tell them she’s leaving, Beca accidentally stumbles over the feet of a jock who is having a passionate make-out session with a girl on the couch.

He glares at Beca, who’s about to flip him off for putting his feet in her way, but her movement instantly freezes as she meets the dazzling blue eyes of this douchebag’s gorgeous girlfriend with the flaming red curls.

It’s Chloe—the catalyst.

She found her!

Let the metamorphosis begin…

Chapter Text

It turned out that the curly-haired redhead wasn’t Chloe after all.

Because Miss Party Girl was rude and arrogant.

There was no smile or friendly greeting for Beca. Instead, her expression remained cold and distant throughout their—whatever it was—interaction as if Beca were invisible to her.

What did Beca think would happen? That in their timeline, her future wife would recognize her before they even met?

What a bummer… Chloe doesn’t realize yet that she’s facing her true destiny, Beca muses as she watches the couple with a perverted level of interest.

She reminds herself to be patient and give their relationship time to unfold naturally. She is, after all, prepared to live life colorfully and be proud.

The redhead grimaces at Beca and giggles as her lover makes fun of Beca and the spiky piercing hanging from her right ear before returning to her spit-trade with this icky weirdo with a beardo… which is simply disgusting. How do some people even take such pleasure in PDA?

“Enjoying the show?” the redhead sneers, making Beca realize she’s still watching them. “Creepy perv…”

“I just couldn’t help but notice the blisters on his lips,” Beca says and tries not to smile, “might be oral herpes. I’d know; my dad is a doctor,” she elaborates further as she notices Chloe leap off the man’s lap with a shriek.

Beca bolts away before she gets beaten up.

Okay, so it wasn’t an outright lie. Her father holds a doctorate, but it’s an academic title.

*

Several redheads have crossed Beca’s path in college; these girls have all sported reddish to auburn to strawberry-colored hair and styles, all shades of eye colors, and who knows about their personalities. Beca didn’t get to know them all, of course. That’d be a waste of time, and she wasn’t that desperate to find her.

Secondly, she isn’t exactly the kind of girl who’d strike up a conversation with the ladies… or anybody.

Because what if one of them redheads with bright blue eyes were gay and was her Chloe? Would Beca be like, “Hey, I’m gay, too. What a funny coincidence, right?” Like Beca even knew what being gay entails…

As Beca and her friends sit together in the school library, discussing various topics, including music, rumors, and potential extracurricular activities that may be interesting, Ashley suggests that they all join a club together.

The Pastimers’ Club.

“The fuckin’ what club?” Beca asks, propping her chin on the table with her arms spread out as if she couldn’t care less about the extra room she’s taking up. She’s bored. She never knows what to do in their spare time.

Spreading out a crumpled leaflet on the table, Ashley reads the description aloud.

Well, basically, it's just a brightly colored patchwork of recreational activities, one that Beca compares to something designed for kindergarteners. In addition to the rainbow-colored club name, “The Pastimers’ Club,” each hand-drawn image is labeled with colorful, girly lettering.

“Baaarf!” Beca drawls and pretends to yawn.

“It looks like we can do anything in this club, as long as it’s a hobby we enjoy,” Ashley explains. “A girl just threw this away. It looked interesting, so I picked it up.”

“Dude, you literally picked up some garbage!” Flabbergasted, Beca sits bolt upright and laughs.

“Well, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” In a very childish manner, Ashley shrugs and sticks her tongue out at Beca, who keeps laughing.

“What kind of hobbies, though?” Jessica’s eyes wander in curiosity between her two friends. “Like, I can just bring my Pokémon cards collection and trade with other… ‘trainers’? That’s so cringe, right?”

Beca narrows her eyes at her blonde pal, whose cheeks fill with a blush, chuckling at the specificity of the example. “I had no idea just how weird you are.”

Ashley squeals very excitedly. “We might just find some cool people to hang out with. As far as I can tell, the club's sole requirements are to share with people your hobby and interact with them. Sure, a great example would be exchanging Pokémon cards.”

“I doubt we’d meet ‘cool’ people in such a club, Ashley,” Beca mumbles.

“I’m not collecting Pokémon cards, guys,” Jessica straightens out and laughs nervously. Moving in her seat, she tucks her hair behind her ear. “Like I’m familiar with Pokémon TCG! As if I care about Ultra Rare, Legend, or Prime. I mean, come on, who even knows about the first-edition Crystal Charizard, duh!”

Beca wrinkles her nose. She’d never met a closeted person before—a closeted Pokémon cards collector.

“You, guys, game for it, though?” Ashley asks, looking expectantly at her two friends.

“Nuh. I don’t have any hobbies,” Beca yawns and mutters into her fist to emphasize her point. She is a very basic girl with no life. “I don’t care. You guys can join. I’m gonna spend my free time slacking off or napping.”

“But we could meet new people?” Ashley whines.

“I’m already overwhelmed with you two; I don’t need more people to waste my social energy on.” Beca leans back in her seat and guffaws. As she rocks her chair back and forth, she bumps her head against someone behind her who passed their table. She quickly turns to apologize. “Sorry, dude, I–”

“Oh, my golly gosh,” the person gasps overdramatically, a sneer playing on her lips, “if that isn’t the lil pervy?”

Beca’s eyes narrow as she recognizes the curly, red-haired chick. In her tow, that same brawny jock this girl had been making out with at the party. She can't get over the fact that he appears not to recognize her and is instead stuck appreciating his dull, thousand-yard stare. And look at that: no herpes at all.

“So, is this an exclusive gathering of buttnoodles?” the girl asks in a giggly voice, but her attention seems to focus exclusively on Beca.

To be threatening and not accept anybody’s bullshit, Beca jumps to her full height and balls her hands to fists beside her. But the girl is still two inches taller; she doesn’t even flinch when Beca stands glaring in front of her—with a menacing glare on her face. Seriously, did Beca expect that by some miracle, she’d meet someone shorter than 5’2 she could look down on?

“Guess it’s none of your flopping bunnies!” Beca flashes her teeth.

With the girl’s chin held high, looking very self-confident and smug, she glares back at Beca. Her right brow raises slightly, and her head cocks to the side. She doesn’t say a word as she looks Beca down like she is some bug. Beca doesn’t know why, but this ticked her off even more.

The jock beside this girl steps forward. “Babe, we’re already late. Stop messing with the freshies. Get moving.”

Chloe gives her one final look before being dragged down the aisle by her boyfriend.

“Becs, did you know her?” Jessica asks, suddenly standing beside Beca. “That felt very… personal.”

Shaking her head and still frowning, Beca collects her belongings from the table and shoves them aggressively into her backpack. She’s pissed for some reason.

But not for the reason she should be.

Her hands tremble in anger as she grits her teeth and closes her eyes to compose herself. In a nervous tic, she bites on her tightened knuckles and nibbles on the skin.

She’s seen the girl’s eyes up close now. Long enough to grasp what this entails...

Crystal-clear blue.

Filled with so much disappointment.

Just like the eyes of her future wife.

*

By the next week, her friends had persuaded her to join the Pastimers' Club, which she was sure she’d regret. Beca is willing to give this a shot if it means she can finally forget about that awful girl. How could she possibly feel such animosity towards someone she hardly knows? Beca doesn't know her personally. Gosh! The sole effect of that clumnugget's actions has been to make Beca more annoyed.

Beca had called Professor Clueless the weekend before to discuss his new invention with him and how she would like to give it another try when she returned home for Thanksgiving. For quality assurance purposes, of course.

“Your mom and I would be happy to see you, Dr. Bug,” Victor said happily when they video-called that Saturday evening. “So, what’s up? You look a little watermelancholy, like you’ve been hit by a truck carrying oranges.”

Beca chuckled at that. She took a deep breath and sighed. “Listen, um… I think college will turn me gay, and I just wanted you to be prepared for it.”

“Uhh…” Victor’s whole face filled with a blush, his eyes averting to something interesting he found on his table. He sure didn’t see this coming. “Do you want to talk with your mom ‘bout that, doodlebug?”

“No, because it’s… about your invention.”

“About my invention… which one?”

“The one you showed me last time… that showed the future.”

Victor nodded, a proud smile on his face. “Yeah. And it worked, you said.”

“Yeah, it did.”

“And, am I right to assume… you saw yourself with another… um…” He dropped his gaze, chuckling. “And now you’re confused,” he concluded.

“It showed me that I’ll have a wife someday. It could only mean one thing, right? That I’m… gay. But I don’t feel attracted to girls, so I think I might be doing something wrong. What if I’m a freak?”

“Doodlebug, calm down. No child I’ve raised is a freak,” he said, his comically huge lab goggles bobbing from his disheveled head as he laughed. “Let’s analyze this together, alright?” Beca nodded. “Did the future show you when you’ll meet your wife?”

Beca shook her head. “No… But there’s this girl who resembles her, only younger, of course. I don’t feel attracted to her at all. And she has a boyfriend. Not gonna lie, that girl’s kinda unbearable.”

“Oh-okay,” Victor said thoughtfully as he brushed his chin, “maybe it’s not the right time yet. You have to get to know her, to feel attracted to her, logically. Maybe this process will take some time, months, or even years to develop.” He paused. “Do you think your mom immediately fell in love with me—a nerdy-looking nerd who programs video games? My charisma was the key! It took me months to convince her that my basement was not a fetishist’s playroom but a hobby laboratory where I create my inventions,” he laughed manically, which made Beca laugh, too. She knew their love story by heart. “So, try not to worry too much, Dr. Bug. Okay?”

“Thanks, Professor Clueless, that actually helped me a lot,” Beca replied, meaning it. She felt better after their talk. “By the way, what are you working on next?”

Beca is pulled back to the present when she hears Jessica and Ashley tittering. They each brought a board game they wanted to share with the group, which is required to join the Pastimers’ Club. Not bothering to bring anything, Beca sighs impatiently as she looks around the room.

The small group consists of some boys and girls from all year levels. From where Beca is sitting, she can see a long-haired woman with chocolate brown hair conversing with an Asian girl whose board game of choice looks like a Ouija board. There's another girl nearby telling the other lads tales about a particular mermaid dance she knows; she's pretty boisterous and speaks with an Australian accent. One male with black, curly hair responds with some excellent beatboxing and pen drumming, while another girl with short pink hair is rapping some real sick lines to the rhythm.

“Okay, everyone, listen up!” says the new arrival with a cocky expression. Beca guesses this person is the club president, given the level of confidence with which the announcement was made. “I’m Jesse. Just introducing myself formally to the ladies here,” he says while making finger guns. In one hand, he holds a handheld game console. “Anyone brought his Nintendo 3DS because I got… Oh, hello there, Miss Rosebud.” He meets Beca’s eyes across the room and smirks at her crookedly. “I’m Jesse. Jesse Swanson.”

Beca grimaces at his outstretched hand, then leans back without introducing herself. She isn’t being rude, but this dude is too cocky for her taste.

“Are you the club’s president?” Beca asks him instead. Again, she scans the room for a club leader who can explain the club's purpose and activities. “Or is this only a ‘club’–” she says while making finger quotes, “–to hang out together?”

Jesse takes the empty seat beside Beca and turns it around so he can prop his elbows on the backrest.

“I’ll volunteer to be the leader!” the blonde Australian says.

“Well, on the flyer, it states that a… Miss Posen and Miss Beale are the club’s leaders and…” someone says from the other side of the room, which Ashley confirms with a nod.

There’s another commotion at the door, and all eyes are drawn there.

“Guys, we’re so sorry for being late,” the new arrival says while hurrying into the room with a stack of books in her arms, “we were in a meeting with the council.” The tall blonde walks to the front of the room and places her books down. “I’m Aubrey, a senior, and this–” Another person is trailing after her, face hidden by the enormous canvas and easel they’re carrying. Most likely an aspiring or some wannabe artist. “My God, Chloe, what’s taking you so long?”

“If you’d help me carry this, it would’ve been easier,” the person retorts, whose voice Beca instantly recognizes.

No, please… don’t let it be her, Beca pleads to the almighty universe.

Her focus is immediately drawn to the two newcomers, particularly this Chloe girl. Beca's jaw drops as Chloe sets the easel and large canvas on the ground to reveal her face.

“Hey, guys,” Chloe greets the group, all cheerful and beaming as she waves. “I’m Chloe. Thank you for joining our club.”

“Did you all bring something for us?” the taller girl, Aubrey, asks and clasps her hands before her, “something you’d like to share? A hobby you like to do.”

As Aubrey explains what the club is about and when the meetings will be held, Beca turns away quickly and hides her flushing face behind her long hair. “Fuck!”

“Becs, it’s fine if you didn’t bring anything,” Jessica opens the box she has been holding, like a sly drug dealer displaying a new shipment of illegal goods, to reveal a deck of Pokémon trading cards. The other holographic Pokémon cards are sealed and sorted by value in an open album she has on her lap and protects like her own life. “You can borrow this deck and tell them you brought them.”

Beca raises a brow at her friend. “Finally coming out, huh?” she teases her timid friend.

“This is who I am. I can’t hide forever,” Jessica sighs, looking proud of herself. She’s suddenly serious and drops her voice more. “Isn’t that the girl from the library?”

Ashley leans in, too. “It’s her. Oh, my gawd! Sorry, Beca, I had no idea.”

“It’s fine, I won’t stay, anyway. This is a childish club for freaks! We aren’t in middle school, y’know?” Beca mutters, miffed about the turn of events. “Maybe the Quidditch Club is accepting new members...”

“You want to leave?” Jesse asks, who Beca almost forgot is still beside her.

“Who wants to leave?”

Beca clutches the box of Pokémon cards in her hands and refuses to look up. She knows who’s asking that question. She doesn’t dignify the girl with a glance.

“We only joined to see what this club’s about,” Ashley responds courteously. “But…”

“Which we truly appreciate,” the girl says in a lovely, chirpy voice. Beca groans, still hiding her face behind a curtain of her hair. “Aubrey and I are happy to have you, guys.” Chloe taps the box of card decks clutched in Beca’s hands and giggles. “Interesting. Collecting cute little monsters, huh? What’s your name?”

Beca, feeling embarrassed, stands up slowly and gives the slightly taller girl a smirk. Their eyes meet once again. She can see in Chloe’s radiant blue eyes that she recognizes her right away, but she has no idea if Chloe is surprised, upset, or feeling anything at all. She just keeps smiling.

“I’m leaving,” Beca announces and walks backward to the door.

“What?” Aubrey asks from the front of the room. “W-We’ve only just begun; I promise this’ll be a fun club to hang out together and get to know each other.”

“Sorry, we meet here to play games? What are we—12?”

“This is about socializing and finding harmony,” Aubrey says, calm and collected.

“Yeah, you do that.” Indifferent to the muffled sounds of conversation in the room, Beca makes her way to the exit.

“You paid the fees already,” Aubrey calls after her, “no refunds!”

“Just keep the ten bucks, dude,” Beca retorts.

“Beca, wait! We should go, too,” Jessica says and looks at Ashley. “You coming?”

“Yeah, wait…”

“No, you guys stay. You wanted to be here,” Beca tells her friends. “I’ll see you later!”

*

Weeks went by, and soon enough, Halloween was right around the corner. Beca never regretted that she didn’t stay in the Pastimers’ Club, though she later realized that it could’ve been her chance to get to know this Chloe girl a little better—but fuck it!

It turns out that there was more to it than just hanging out with a bunch of weirdos and playing board games. They would often meet for parties, drink secretly, and hook up with people. Beca is sure the club only exists to justify their flimsy existence and stave off boredom.

And both of her friends have tried to convince Beca to join. It seems like all Ashley and Jessica can talk about is the club, talking effusively about the club's president and vice president and how pleasant everyone is there.

“Chloe isn’t really such a bitch, Becs,” Ashley tells her during their lunchtime. “And Jesse, that cute boy, asked us about you. But we didn’t tell him anything; thought you’d rather introduce yourself to him yourself.”

“Uh, not that douchebag,” Beca grunts and grimaces at the thought of him. “And I don’t care about any of that. If you guys are having fun, good for you.”

“Why not?” Jessica sighs. “Is it enjoyable to spend all your free time in your dorm room playing video games by yourself?”

“Are you serious? I’m having the best time of my life! Annnd, my roommate also joined a club, and she’s never around,” Beca laughs as she leans back and props her legs up on the vacant chair beside her. “In fact, I’ve created myself in The Sims. She’s about to get promoted to music producer but hasn’t met new friends yet. She’s a freakin’ outcast!” she tells them, laughing out loud.

“And Chloe asked about you, too,” Ashley adds casually, erasing that smile from Beca’s face. Ashley pops a grape in her mouth and chews leisurely.

Beca almost topples backward if Jessica hasn’t reached out to save her. “Careful!” warns her friend, “and I have to agree with Ash: Chloe is nice. And if you thought that my obsession with Pokémon cards was weird, Chloe’s obsession is even weirder… but cute.”

“Like what?” asks Beca, her eyes narrowed, “like… collecting banana stickers?” she scoffs and ponders about this weird hobby that dork could be into.

“Oh, you should find that out yourself,” Ashley giggles and nudges Jessica’s side.

Beca’s eyes dart between her two friends. “So, with that hobby, Chloe has only one-banana problem at the most,” she roars with laughter and throws her head back. “But her heart is in the ripe place…”

Ashley and Jessica snicker in amusement.

“Beca, you should get to know her,” Jessica says after recovering from her laughter. “She’s a sweet person.”

Beca sighs into her hands, her aggravation rising once more at the thought of that infuriatingly sweet girl. Chloe is like honey—where overconsumption can have unexpected side effects, like cavities.

“For the love of barnacles! I dunno. I… um… have you ever met someone you can’t stand right away? It’s not about their personality or their appearance or anything. You just don’t click. I can’t really explain, but do you catch my drift?”

“Hmm… sort of, but I normally like most people,” Jessica chirps in, smiling. “You should give Chloe a chance. Who knows you two share the same interests and become fast friends.”

“Meh!” Beca shrugs.

“We have a Halloween party coming up, Becs,” Ashley announces and spreads out another crumpled-up flyer.

“You collecting these flyers out of the trash now, or what?” Beca sneers.

“C’mon, get a spooky costume and come to the party,” her dark-haired, bubbly friend says, disregarding her comment, “who knows, that’ll be a night that’ll change everything.”

“Dude, I’d go bananas if that were truly the case, I swear.”

*

With a frown, Beca watches the partying people before her at the Halloween party that started too early in the late afternoon. She had expected a more relaxed and spooky atmosphere, but instead, the raucous crowd and overwhelming noise made her regret coming. Jessica and Ashley had urged her to stop by, insisting she spend at least a few hours there.

“If that isn’t the lil pervy,” someone says behind her.

Beca gets a gag reflex whenever she hears that irritating voice because she can't help but picture Chloe and her boo lip-locked at some frat party. She turns around to throw a scathing remark at the girl, her fists already balled up, when she notices that grin on Chloe’s face and the costume she’s wearing. “Glad you came!”

“Wowsers!” Beca holds back a laugh as she looks Chloe up and down. How is she going to take this chick seriously?

Because Chloe has a large bubble dome as her hat, with colorful LED battery-powered string lights blinking under the whitish bubble wrap layer. From all sides are dangling strings of iridescent, wavy fabrics, probably around 4 yards in total, reminiscing of tentacles. And the rest of her is just covered in a dark, skin-tight dress.

“Do you like it?” Chloe giggles and gestures down herself; she fumbles with the rim of her dome hat. “I’m a bio-luminescent jellyfish.”

“Oh, my Cheez-its!”

“And you’re dressed as a… devil?” Chloe asks, a playful tone in her voice.

“I’m not wearing any… oh, ha-ha! Nice!” Beca grunts. “Excuse me, I have to find my friends.” She spins around and excuses herself when she heads for the exit. She doesn’t have the time or the patience for this girl.

“C’mon, lil devil, I was kidding!”

*

This gigantic bright jellyfish has been stalking Beca all night, except less creepy than Michael Myers does on Halloween. There aren't many places she can go to avoid her.

Chloe’s jellyfish costume restricts her movement as she makes her way past the partying crowd, all of whom are dressed in gloomy, spooky outfits. On the dance floor, between the zombies, werewolves, and vampires, a glowing blob bobbles and twists.

“God! She looks so ridiculous!” Beca groans behind her plastic cup of beer and feels her cheeks warm from annoyance.

Whenever Beca was chatting with one of the other club members, like Stacie, Lilly, or Fat Amy, and a few of the boys, the luminescent jellyfish came wobbling along with a cup of beer in one hand and calling Beca’s name in a playful kind of way—like drunkenly serenading to and calling Beca’s name across the dancefloor. And every time Chloe did it, a bunch of people cheered with her, which Chloe’s boyfriend didn’t find funny at all.

“Wow, she likes you,” Stacie comments, who’s dressed as Lara Croft. Beca immediately recognized her character after playing the remastered version; Victor had been involved in the game’s development and had given Beca early access so that she could try it out.

“No, she’s drunk and trying to embarrass me,” Beca says as she rolls her eyes.

“Have a beef with the glow stick?” Fat Amy asks curiously, looking baffled that someone doesn’t like Miss Queen Bee, the Duchess of Barden. Fat Amy is dressed as a princess—well, she has merely put on a plastic crown and wears a pink top. “Becs, little ginger’s harmless, I swear. Let me prove it to you—CHLOE! GET YOUR ASS OVER H—”

Spilling her cup of beer, Beca throws herself at Fat Amy and clasps her hands over the other girl’s mouth, even if she stands on tiptoes and the chunky girl merely scoops her aside. “Amy, knock it off! What the fuck, man?”

“Oh, here she comes!” Fat Amy declares in a sing-song voice, her body shaking with laughter that she also spills her beer. “I swear to God, you’ll like her!”

“No!”

Beca’s head heats up, her mind racing. Do you know how it feels when your friends disregard your wishes and insist on doing what they think is best for you instead? This pisses Beca off the most.

“Beca, she was kidding!” Jessica tries to intervene, speaking softly.

But Beca, knowing full well that she’s the party-pooper kind, withdraws from her group and decides to call it a night. Enough social interaction for today.

Her Sims-Beca is waiting for her to return home.

*

Thanksgiving came next. And Beca wanted to go home, about which her birth father wasn’t happy.

“Okay, please explain to me again, Bec. Why don’t you want to have dinner with us?” her father asks, hurt, and dismayed when he comes to see her in person to convince her to spend Thanksgiving with him and the step-monster. Despite her feelings of guilt at making her father so unhappy, Beca has other plans for the holidays. But she can’t please everybody.

“We can always see each other,” Beca reasons as she packs her bag, “but I barely see Mom and Victor.”

Her father looks crestfallen. “Whenever I reach out to you, you turn me down. Tell me, Beca, when did we spend time together since you moved to Atlanta? When did I get to see you?”

Beca is grateful that she has the room to herself. Because luckily, her roommate, Kimmy Jin, departed earlier in the day to spend Thanksgiving with her folks. She’s a good daughter.

“Dad, please, don’t put me in this awkward position,” Beca groans. “Don’t make me choose between you and Mom.”

“This isn’t fair, Beca.”

“Seriously, you want to talk about fairness?” Beca snaps back. Without knowing why, she has been growing increasingly frustrated, miserable, and angsty over the past few weeks, and her father is only the match in the powder barrel. “You left me when I was a child. You left Mom! Don’t you talk to me about fairness!”

“Don’t do this, please. I did everything to keep in touch with you, but you shut me out and–”

“No, I have Victor now, and he’s been a great dad to me,” Beca tells him scornfully without looking at him as she shoves her laptop into its bag. As she puts her jacket on and throws her backpack over her shoulders, she adds, only to spite him, “and unlike you, he would never cheat on Mom.”

*

When Beca arrives in Maine and retrieves her luggage from the conveyor belt, she exits the arrival gate and instantly recognizes her mother and Victor waving at her. Until this bearded man in his green Hawaiian shirt, baggy cargo shorts, and sunglasses, unfolds a large cardboard sign and holds it up above his head, with the inscription,

‘Cheeky Brunette College Girl WANTED’

And below that, three winking Smiley faces.

As she reads the placard, she can feel her cheeks heating up while everyone around her smiles at her. Beca, feeling humiliated, hides her face in her hands and wishes the ground would open and swallow her whole. She pretends as if she doesn't know this couple and looks around as if someone else will pick her up.

“Beca, Honey! We’re here,” her mother calls, waving excitedly at her daughter. “Over here!”

“Guys! Oh, God, put that down!” Beca squeals in utter mortification, though she can’t help but laugh at the sight of her stepfather. “Seriously?”

“DOODLEBUG!” Victor exclaims with outstretched arms to pull his stepdaughter into a body-crushing embrace. “You’re home!”

“Dad, stop it!” Beca giggles. At least his fatherly affection doesn’t feel as embarrassing anymore as it used to be.

*

Dinner with her parents went great. Her parents updated her on everything going on in their lives and careers—Victor finished coding a brand-new design for an upcoming game that’d be released next year, which he was very excited about. Her mom was promoted to Chief Editor and received hundreds of positive reviews on her latest article.

As Beca helps clean up the kitchen, her mother asks her about new people she met and how it was going with her dad. To the latter, Beca has no answer ready. She doesn’t feel like talking about him after what she told him before she left campus.

“Mom?” Beca says carefully as she dries the pots in the sink, “Would you still love me if I was gay?”

Her mother stops what she’s doing to look from Victor, who wipes the table clean, back to her daughter.

“What? Of course, Honey!” her mother replies as if that’s expected of a mother who loves her child unconditionally. “Why? Did you meet a nice girl? Why didn’t you bring her?”

“No, no, Mom,” Beca laughs and realizes the misunderstanding, “I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m not even gay. But if I were to turn gay…”

Victor decides that now is the right time to rearrange the table decorations by shifting them by a millimeter on the table, pretending to be admiring his work, before he remembers that he needs to bring out the trash.

“I’m confused, Honey. Why would you think…?”

“I dunno, just in case…”

“Beca, baby,” her mother tells her firmly, “I will love you no matter what, as long as you’re happy.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Beca says with a smile and turns around, before mumbling to herself, “because I might do something stupid to figure it out.”

*

“Are you sure you want to do this again?” Victor asks, sitting on his office chair and wearing his ‘Professor Clueless’ white coat, including the comically huge goggles on the top of his head. “What if something goes wrong?”

“It worked last time. I’m not worried at all,” Beca says, making herself comfortable on the special chair hooked up to funny-looking machines.

“Beca, you passed out last time,” Victor reminds her. “I almost panicked.”

“Yeah, almost,” Beca chuckles as she remembers the footage of Victor scurrying around the room, trying to wake Beca up. He reminded her of a Sims character when the house was on fire, and the player fast-forwarded the game. “I trust your invention, Professor. I just need to speak to my future wife and ask her when we’ll hook up.”

Victor looks stunned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

“Why not?”

“You might accidentally change the present, and that, on the other hand, might influence and affect your future,” Victor argues. He rubs his beard and looks thoughtfully ahead, seemingly conflicted. “Asking about probable events that have yet to happen is careless. And from what you’ve told me, you seem to have a wonderful life with your future wife, Becs.”

Beca contemplates that briefly. Victor is right. Even though her memory of her future has slowly diminished and evaporated, she does remember how future-Chloe has looked at her. She can’t ask her when they’ll fall in love. Or at which point Beca will turn gay.

“But…”

“Beca,” Victor continues, as though he's been giving this some serious thought since Beca told him about her private struggle. “A person’s sexual orientation isn’t predictable; it’s not a choice being made. It’s part of who a person is. It’s not predicted by someone’s DNA, by psychological, or environmental factors, or by time or space.”

She lets that sink in. “I just wanted to be prepared,” she sighs and slaps her forehead, “if, um, the ‘shifting’ happens, if you get my point. I want to be ready.”

“That’d be unfair to those who underwent sexual confusion, Beca,” Victor laughs softly, “they didn’t prepare themselves for it, either. They embraced it. Or denied it, which I think is very sad. But you have loving parents who will support you, no matter your sexual orientation.”

“Dude, don’t make me cry,” Beca sniffs. Victor drops his head bashfully and rubs his nose. After a short pause, she adds, “Weirdly enough, I wasn’t scared about becoming gay. I was only worried I might be, well, broken, because I’m not attracted to girls… or to Chloe at all. God, I hate that bitch.”

“You’re just not ready yet, that’s why.” Victor does a few keystrokes on the keyboard until it’s raining numbers and symbols on the screen. “If you still insist on seeing her, you can do that. But don’t ask her anything that might change the course of events.”

“Yeah, I’d love that.” Beca leans back on the chair and tries to relax.

Nodding once, Professor Clueless puts on his goggles and hands Beca the VR helmet, which she puts on over her head. He makes a few adjustments to the straps and checks if her eyes are covered. Beca only hears his voice through the built-in intercom.

“Dr. Bug, are you ready for this second mission?”

“Yes, Professor!”

“I’m watching your brainwaves and neural activities in case something goes wrong,” she hears him say. Beca nods her agreement. “Counting from 3… 2… 1…”

The familiar darkness again…

Beca opens her eyes and finds herself in the basement of a house again, but it looks a little different from the fragments she remembers. She knows the stairs lead upstairs to the kitchen, so she sneaks upstairs, careful not to run into anybody who isn’t her wife.

Even the kitchen looks slightly different. A couple of stuffed toys are lying all around, rinsed baby bottles turned upside down in the sink, and a pot simmering on the stove.

“Shit, I think this isn’t the right house,” Beca mutters.

She turns around to go back to the basement, but as she does so, she steps on something, and the house is suddenly filled with an extended quacking sound. It turns out to be a rubber duck.

“No, shit! Shit! Fuck!”

“Geez, Beca! I just put her to sleep! Be quiet!” The same red-haired woman stands before Beca; this time, she looks slightly older and not too different from Chloe in Beca’s timeline. Chloe drops her voice, and her frown turns to a soft smile. “I thought you’d be home later today?” Chloe collects the toys from the floor and throws them into a wooden box atop a side table before she walks to Beca to kiss her.

Beca is too frozen to react or dodge what is coming for her. She didn’t see a kiss coming at all—not a kiss on the lips.

But she should’ve.

Because what she’s learned from the older Chloe is that this redhead is quite unpredictable.

And very, very affectionate.

Instinctively, she closes her eyes and feels the warmth of this woman’s lips on her own, her fragrance mixed with baby shampoo wafting in her nostrils. Beca’s mind doesn’t catch up with what’s happening, so she remains frozen on the spot while pressed against the counter.

Chloe isn’t stupid—Beca assumes—not to notice the difference.

Beca pulls away first. She grimaces, turns her head, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I’m not… I’m not…” Beca stammers, “n-not...”

“Not what?”

“This might be confusing to you, but I’m not...” Beca swallows the lump in her throat. She backpedals, deciding that it would be a bad idea to tell Chloe that she isn’t who Chloe thought Beca was.

That this Beca isn’t her wife… yet.

Chloe’s facial expression shifts from irritation to confusion to regret. “I knew you were still mad at me,” she says ruefully. She walks to the stove and stirs the pot that’s been simmering. “I’m sorry. I-I’ll return it first thing in the morning. I made a mistake. I just thought it was cute…”

“What d’you mean?” Beca looks around her in the room and takes in all the baby items, the toys, the baby formula. Chloe seems exhausted, presumably from being a mother. And what if now, she regrets all of this, all that she shares and has with future Beca? Beca feels a pang in her chest. She remembers their baby’s name. “You mean Rylie?”

Chloe’s jaw drops as she looks flabbergasted at Beca as if she’d lost her mind. “Did you honestly think I was talking about our baby?!” she shrieks in horror. “I meant I’ll return the life-size Jellyfish stuffed toy to the store, Beca!”

“Oh.”

Chloe storms out of the kitchen, but not without hissing in Beca’s direction, “If you keep infuriating me like that, you get to sleep on the couch tonight!”

*

*

“Are you back?”

“Beca, please wake up! Bec… Beca?”

Beca blinks her eyes open and stares at the concerned eyes of her stepfather.

“My God, you were gone for twenty minutes. And your brain activity started to worry me. I had to abort.” He exhales deeply and runs a hand over his face. “Were you able to see her?”

Slightly dizzy, Beca sits upright, her hands brushing her thighs in a nervous tick. The VR helmet rests on the table in front of Victor, where he removes the memory card to insert it into the card reader. But his full attention is on her.

“Bec?”

“It was different this time,” Beca starts, trying not to think about how this version of Chloe has kissed her. “It was a younger Chloe.”

“Did she see you?”

“Unfortunately, yes. But she didn’t think I was an intruder,” she explains, shrugging it off. “She thought I was her wife.”

“Oh…” Victor thinks about this piece of information. He brushes his beard thoughtfully. “I wonder if she’ll mention that to her real wife, and they find out the truth.” He checks the data on his screen. “I can’t say how you ended up in that timeline, Doc. I entered the same data as the last time.”

“Can’t answer that for you, Prof.” Beca smirks. She allows her mind to process what just happened in that timeline as she looks around the room, her eyes landing on the blinking LEDs, the codes on the screens, and how her stepfather tries to read the data. “You think you can send me back again to that same timeline?”

Victor turns and blinks quickly at her. “Doodlebug, I have no clear data on how this might affect your brain, your psyche, anything. We know nothing about probable side effects.”

“Please, I need to speak to Chloe. I need to figure this out. I mean, I won’t talk to her about my future or anything.” Sighing in exasperation, Beca stands up from the chair and paces up and down the tiny space in the room, thinking hard. She stops and turns toward her stepdad again, looking at him with begging eyes as if her life depended on this outcome. “This is important to me.”

“Beca, honey, please give me time to do a proper analysis, and let’s wait to see if there might be side effects,” he says calmly.

It was like that one time when Beca was ten years old, still adjusting to this somewhat new man in her and her mom’s life. Beca had just recovered from a terrible flu, and her mom wouldn’t allow her to play outside in the freezing cold. Victor covered Beca in blankets and scarves and brought the snow to their porch to build a tiny snowman together. He told his wife they weren’t technically ‘outside,’ which made Beca giggle.

“Please, Dad, I just want to learn more about… myself.”

After a moment, he flops over in defeat. “Fine. But tomorrow. Not right away,” he says somewhat sternly. “I need to ensure your safety and overall health, Beca. You have to understand.”

Beca places an arm over his shoulder and kisses his cheek. “I knew you were cool.”

A half year later, Beca still didn’t befriended Chloe. Their overall interaction was still tense, and they still acted like strangers.

Beca needed to find out why. She was still not attracted to college-Chloe or any other woman at all. And she was more than certain that she might be broken.

She went home to Maine whenever she could—Christmas, Spring Break, over short holidays—to visit her parents and, well, to see future-Chloe.

Any version of her, until that Chloe became used to getting regular visits from Beca—the little intruder from the past—and they became friends.

But her relationship with Chloe from her own timeline didn’t progress to anything. No friendship. No romantic interest. No sexual attraction. Nothing.

As if those two ‘Chloes’ were different people altogether.

Chloe was no longer dating her boyfriend but met a new dude.

There was that one instance when Beca ran into a distraught and crying Chloe in one of the restrooms. But Beca pretended she didn’t notice to avoid making the usually chirpy redhead uncomfortable or embarrassed.

Not even two weeks later, Chloe was with another dude. And after that fling had ended, Beca didn’t see a saddened Chloe. She went for two months without a boyfriend—at least Beca didn’t notice her with one—until she saw Chloe again in a new relationship—her most recent boyfriend.

This meant that this Chloe wasn’t gay yet, either.

And the worst part was that Chloe would graduate and leave college soon.

How is Beca supposed to fall in love with this girl, marry her someday, and have a house and kids together?

“This sucks!” Beca groans as she instructs Sims-Beca to complete a few tasks to get her mood up again. Luckily, Sims-Beca is an introvert, so she doesn’t need people around her to be happy. “I earned so much money from all these promotions, been livin’ in a huge-ass mansion, but I’m still no closer to happiness. You’re a fuckin’ loser, Sims-Beca. He-he.”

She saves the game on her laptop and shuts the lid.

As Beca has brought her laptop outside, in the far distance, she can see Chloe with her new boy toy, cuddling together. A small group of Pastimers' Club regulars are huddled together, clearly enjoying themselves while doing whatever it is they do together. Even Jesse has found himself a new girlfriend with whom he’s now holding hands to show her off.

Ashley and Jessica have been waving for Beca to come over, but Beca has refused and turned to face the other direction.

As Beca rests on the bench, she fishes out her novel from her backpack, which she got from Victor for Christmas—about the adventures and drama of feral cats and the multiple Clans that exist in the forest.

As she read on, however, she realized that the novel, which she had initially dismissed as a “kid’s book,” has excellent writing and a riveting plot. She concluded that the violence and bloodshed made it inappropriate for very young children. Distracted, she places it on the table before her and reaches into her bag’s side pocket to dig out her headset.

“So, are you a ‘kittypet,’ a ‘loner,’ or a ‘rogue’?” someone asks out of nowhere, who is rude enough to take the seat beside Beca and run her fingers delicately over the closed cover of the book. She’s alluding to the novel’s classification of felines as outsiders who don’t belong to any Clans and are stigmatized by Clan members. “I love the Warriors series,” she adds in an afterthought. “Do you have a favorite warrior cat?”

Beca tries to calm her nerves by closing her eyes. How come this girl has to be so obnoxious? Why can’t she let her be? Why can’t others see that Beca needs time alone? She opens her eyes, gives the girl a shaky grin, and then goes back to frowning.

“I’m sure if you joined a Clan–” Chloe continues to coax a response from her, tapping on the protruding bookmark on the top of the book, “–you’d rise through the hierarchy pretty quick and become a leader, like Rusty…”

“Dude, I haven’t finished it yet,” Beca says snippily. “Please, no spoilers!”

“You almost reached the end of the story already.” Chloe shrugs. “How did you like it thus far?”

“Seriously, would you mind?” Beca grunts and opens her softcover novel provocatively, as if she were immediately engrossed in the plot.

“How was your Spring Break, by the way?” Chloe tries again, grinning all over, after some pause in which it seems that she isn’t going to leave any time soon.

Beca merely glances over her shoulder to look for Chloe’s boyfriend. He still stands there with the other members of the Pastimers’ Club, looking awkwardly around as he smokes his cigarette.

She casually points a thumb in his direction. “Did you fight with your beau, or why are you here?”

“I… was just trying to make conversation, Beca.”

Beca scoffs and shakes her head, resuming to ignore her. Wasn’t it obvious that she wasn’t interested in socializing, so she picked a bench far away from everyone?

“Okay,” Chloe sighs, clearly disheartened by Beca’s cold reception to her. “Maybe next time…”

She gets up and leaves. Just like that.

And Beca can't figure out why she and this chick just don't vibe.