For Kate

[a_capella_boy]

Ever since Jesse had spent the small amount of money he had earned coming up with a commercial jingle on DJ equipment for Beca, he browsed pawn shops regularly looking at guitars. That's what he had been intending to buy when he got Beca's equipment (something he had no intention of letting Beca know) and while he didn't regret his decision, he really missed having a guitar.

He really needed some sort of job, because otherwise it was going to take forever to save up for something like a guitar, even one from a pawn shop.

"I'm going to go a little Wayne's World right now," Jesse announced, glancing around the mostly empty pawn shop. "Is that okay? I mean... okay, yeah, I think it's okay."

Turning back to the guitar, Jesse uttered those immortal words.

"It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine. Wow, okay, that felt a little bit dramatic there. Did that feel a bit dramatic to you?" he asked, turning to face the random person walking by.

Comments

[everyonetakes]

"Like two weeks," Kate answered, hefting the flamingo under her arm so they could leave. "Long enough to know I need to decorate the shit out of that apartment, but not long enough to have found a job that means I can decorate it with stuff out of the fancy stores."

She hated the idea of having to get a job again. Especially since she still had absolutely no idea what she wanted to do.

[a_capella_boy]

"I'm still pretty much telling myself that I'm in the freak out stage and that I don't need a job yet. One month of living off of ramen bought with the allowance the city gives is my grace period for myself," Jesse said. It was kind of a lame excuse, but he knew that pretty soon he'd find some direction and hit the ground running with it. It was just finding the right direction.

[everyonetakes]

"Yeah?" she asked. "And then what? I mean, do you have any ideas? Because I'm pretty much stumped." She didn't have any interest in college, she knew that much, but she also didn't want to get stuck working at some fast food joint for the rest of her life. She'd already done the waitress thing and pretty much sucked at it, but part of that was Gene's fault, she figured.

[a_capella_boy]

"Well, I love music and movies," Jesse said. Movies and music were his passions and he already knew what he wanted to do with his life. The problem was just figuring out if that job actually existed here.

"Ideally, someone will walk up to me and offer to have me write a soundtrack or movie score for money. Barring that, there are coffee shops I could play in. And street corners. Of course, I need the guitar for that. Which I need a job to get."

[everyonetakes]

"Everything always comes back to money," Kate said, because no matter what, that was how it worked. "I used to love money, but now I'm starting to think that I actually really hate it. I'd probably love it more if I had some, though."

[a_capella_boy]

"It's a lot easier than bartering for goods," Jesse said. He grew up in a tiny town where some people did that and it was kind of a pain in the butt.

"I mean, imagine trying to get a pig in her to exchange for the guitar?"

[everyonetakes]

"You'd just have to make sure it was a small pig," she said, shrugging. "Like, a really cute one. I'd trade you a guitar for a tiny, adorable pig. I mean, if I had a guitar, I would totally trade you, but I don't, so I can't. There's a lot of stuff I'd probably trade for a tiny, adorable pig, though. I bet they're good pets."

[a_capella_boy]

"Excellent, I've known you for just five minutes and I already know what to get you for your birthday," Jesse said. He wondered if he really could find a tiny pig for her.

"Like a teacup pig. With a leash and stuff so you can take it for walks."

[everyonetakes]

"That would seriously be the cutest thing ever," Kate said, almost wishing she could have a pig right now. She missed Harry and she missed her Reggie and she missed Carla Jean. She even missed Chang. A pig wasn't the same as any of them, but at least it might help a little bit.

"Maybe I should get a kitten or something," she said. "I was never big on cats, but I kind of miss my dog." She missed his owner more, but Jeff was just another in a long line of people she had to miss.

[a_capella_boy]

"Wait, wait. You were never big on cats. You miss your dog... so you're going to get a kitten?"

That didn't make a lot of sense to Jesse, but it didn't seem like a really terrible idea either. Kittens were pretty adorable and fuzzy. Also they potentially had super sharp claws.

"Which also comes back to money, because pets are expensive."

[everyonetakes]

"Yeah, but I can't have a dog in the apartment," Kate pointed out. "A kitten is the next best thing, right?" She didn't actually know, given that she'd never owned one. Chang was a pain in the ass, but at least on the island everything was free and he'd mostly been trained when Jeff had disappeared.

[a_capella_boy]

"Kitten's are good. We can always swing by a pet store and see what sort of pets they have," Jesse suggested. He know of people who had really strange pets and while a snake would be awesome, it seemed like Kate wanted something a little more fluffy.

"Maybe you'll find an animal that doesn't exist in your world. Maybe some world has a cog, a cat-dog hybrid."

[everyonetakes]

"What? No," she said, shaking her head. "Let's stick with movies today and I can leave my bad decisions regarding dogs, cats and cogs to another day. I'm totally vulnerable right now, having left my boyfriend behind and all that. I need to deal with that shit first before I try to fill the hole in my heart with a fuzzy animal."

She grinned and asked, "How that for dramatic?"

[a_capella_boy]

"Inter-dimensional separation earns you an 8 out of 10 on the 'relationship complications' scale," he said with a nod. He realized that he could have easily been in the same situation if Beca hadn't shown up first. Beca had been in that situation.

"But he needed to be the last of your kind to push it over into a full 10."

Her situation sucked, no doubt about it. But they both knew that and telling her it sucked and he was sorry wouldn't change that. Neither would convincing her to pretend her flamingo didn't exist or making a little joke, but at least either of those things might cheer her up.

[everyonetakes]

"Nah, there was definitely a ton of us left," she said with a bit of a grin. "But seriously? You leave someone behind and what does that make you? Am I still in a relationship? Am I single? Have I been interdimensionally widowed? This place needs to come with some kind of handbook for shit like this."

[a_capella_boy]

"I don't know," Jesse admitted. That was a question that he was glad that he didn't have to answer. Beca didn't even have to answer it since they weren't official when she had showed up.

"Maybe think about how long he'd want you to wait before moving on and how long you'd want him to wait before moving on and find some sort of common ground?"

[everyonetakes]

"Ugh," she said, throwing up her free hand -- the one not holding the flamingo under her arm -- and rolled her eyes. "No wonder I stayed single for so long. This shit is the worst. There are always rules, but then the rules are never hard or fast and you have to use your better judgment. I don't have any of that! All my judgment is usually pretty terrible."

[a_capella_boy]

"Also, what happens if you move on and he comes here, but only from a time when you guys have been together for years and raised several dogs together?" Jesse asked. Potentially, he and Beca could have arrived from conflicting times and that would have been rough. Not as rough as what Kate might experience of course.

[everyonetakes]

"Ugh, yes, exactly," she answered, although she didn't know if she and Harry ever would have made it that far. Even when she was happy, Kate wasn't sure she was capable of being with one person for the rest of her life. Her parents had been good at it, but it had been fucking hard by the looks of it and they'd spent a lot of their time unhappy. "So, see? Complicated."

[a_capella_boy]

"I guess you just do your best and hope your toddler from an alternate universe doesn't show up," Jesse said with a shrug. He was pretty sure that at least one point in everyone's life where they made the sort of choice that would end up with them having a child.

"Or that it does if you want a kid without the whole nine months of carrying a parasite thing."

[everyonetakes]

"No," Kate said, looking horrified. "No, no, no, no, no. Definitely no toddlers ever. Do I look like the sort of person who can handle a kid? I can barely handle myself most of the time." A child was not something that had ever been on her list of things to do. "My toddler from an alternate universe can just stay in that alternate universe."

[a_capella_boy]

"See? Now in perspective you've only lost a boyfriend. Compared to potential children showing up, that's not so bad, right?"

It was probably a horrible way to offer comfort, but Jesse thought it did put things in perspective. It also made him wonder if he was going to end up with any alternate reality children or something.

[everyonetakes]

"I guess not," Kate answered, nose wrinkling a little. The logic wasn't something she was totally down with, but that wasn't Jesse's fault and he sort of had a point. Besides, it was probably better for Harry that she wasn't around anyway. She sort of sucked as a girlfriend.

"The same could be said for you," she realized. "Maybe you have alternate universe babies."

[a_capella_boy]

"Oh man, that would freak Beca out majorly," Jesse said with a bit of a laugh. In reality, it was a seriously scary thought, but it's not like he could do anything about it, so he might as well laugh at the idea, because there were definitely some scary aspects.

"But I mean, there's just as good a chance they'd arrive here as an adult, right?"

[everyonetakes]

"Okay, we need to stop talking about this, it's freaking me out. What if our adult children are here already? What if I'm your adult daughter and I don't even know it?" she asked, even though that was impossible, because she knew exactly who her father was.