It Was Inevitable

Chapter 26.

A/N:
A lot of Stacie in this chapter!

There were three knocks on Beca's front door that night, and the brunette's mom opened it with a smile.
"Stacie, what a surprise, are you okay?" Beca's mom asked in a worried tone.
"Yeah it was kind of spur of the moment, but I'm fine, I just need to speak to Beca, is she in?" Stacie asked.
"She's just in the shower, I'm sure you can wait up in her room," the older woman smiled broadly as she welcomed her into the house.

Stacie lay on Beca's bed, listening to the flow of water from the shower as she thought. After Chloe had left, Stacie finally managed to tear Beca away from Jackie and pull her towards her English class. She knew that Beca hadn't noticed the redhead watching her earlier and was eager to get to their class to see how Chloe was doing.
Throughout the class, Stacie had observed how Chloe would totally avoid eye contact with Beca and only spoke to her once when she was asked a question. Stacie could see that Chloe had done her best to compose herself, but Stacie could still see the traces of pain in her eyes. She had tried to communicate with the redhead in any way that wouldn't draw any attention to Beca, but she almost refused to look at Stacie as much as she did Beca.
Stacie heard the shower stop and stood to look around Beca's room whilst she waited for the brunette to change. It was then that she saw, tossed into the corner of Beca's bookshelf, a USB. It confused Stacie as normally Beca would keep all her USB's in one place, as it's where she kept all her mixes and other music stuff. She picked it up and turned it in her hand, eyebrows scrunched together, until she saw Beca's scrawled handwriting on the side. 'Chloe' it read in black ink and suddenly the fact that it was away from the rest made sense. Stacie hesitated for a minute, before tucking the stick into her back pocket.

"Just why Beca? What do you see in this girl?" Stacie groaned. Her and Beca had been debating about Jackie for the past 10 minutes.
"Is that all you came here to discuss Stacie?" Beca asked.
"You know what Beca, it actually is," Stacie sighed as she shook her head.
"Why? Stacie what in the world has it got to do with you?"
"I just want to make sure that you, my best friend knows what she's doing!"
"I know exactly what I'm doing Stacie!"
"Y'see I don't think you do Beca, I think that you think you do... but you have no fucking clue," Stacie said firmly, trying to keep her voice down as to not cause a scene with Beca's parents.
"I like this girl, and she likes me. Why is this so hard for you to understand?"
"Because I don't think you're thinking straight!"
"Why? Because of Chloe?"
"Yes! Okay, because of Chloe," Stacie ran her hand over her face and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"How many times Stace. I'm over it, I'm over her. She can do whatever the fuck she wants and so can I. So I'm gonna se where it goes with Jackie, dude she seems happy." Beca calmed. Stacie took a breath before shaking her head,
"I better go," she stood and walked to the door.
"Stacie wa-"
"I'll see you tomorrow, Beca," Stacie interrupted as she walked down the Mitchell stairs and saying goodbye to Beca's parents before sliding out the door.

Stacie couldn't put her finger on it but she just didn't like Jackie. She would admit, she hadn't really had a proper conversation with the girl but it was just the way that she seemed too dependent on the brunette - constantly hanging off her arm and not leaving her alone during the party at the weekend. Stacie grounded her teeth, kicked a stone that was underfoot and carried on.

- - - - -
The moment that Stacie passed Chloe the following day reminded her of all that had happened. She was walking from her chemistry class with Beca, who obviously has Jackie tied to her waist as they walked. Stacie saw Chloe round the corner, her eyes quickly flicking to Beca's arm around the blonde's waist before straightening her posture and forcing her eyes forward as she walked. When the trio were almost outside, Stacie spoke,
"Ah dude, I just remembered I gotta speak to Posen about some maths things she wants me to do with the freshmen," she sighed, "I'll catch you later,"
"Good luck," Beca scoffed with a chuckle.