#the Doctor is stuck with one foot on a landmine for an hour and it keeps the tension the whole time

[gen-is-gone]

I mean I don't wanna just be like 'finally, episode I actually liked' about the moffat episode but. like.

finally, an episode I actually liked!

No seriously, holy shit my man pulled exactly zero punches that was fucking excellent

[suituuup]

Could you do a follow up to the amputee Beca story where she and Chloe talk about Beca’s time in the military and Beca opens up about how she really feels about being a double amputee? And how Chloe felt seeing Beca’s residual limbs for the first time. Love what you did with the prompt.

Thank you! Here you go :)

home is wherever I’m with you

rating: T

word count: 2k

ao3 link

*

The knock on the door jolts Beca out of her thoughts, her heart doing a happy flutter. 

 Chloe’s here. 

 After graduation, Chloe moved to California to attend Davis’ vet school, and Beca’s dad finally agreed with Beca’s plan to go to LA and to support her financially until she found herself a job in the music industry. 

 Fast forward to after the summer, Beca’s now an intern in one of the country’s most praised labels. Sure, she’s not making any money yet, but at least she’s got a foot in the door. 

 (well, figuratively speaking.)

She and Chloe have been doing long distance for four months now, and they were able to see each other twice, Chloe flying down to LA every eight weeks or so. Past the fact that it’s easier for Chloe to travel, she lives in a dorm while Beca has her own studio, which grants them more privacy. 

 Rolling away from her desk, Beca heads to the door, unlatching it and pulling it open. Chloe is straddling her a second later, Beca’s squeak swallowed by the searing kiss she’s pulled in. 

 “Jesus,” she croaks out when they part, her hands drifting down to Chloe’s ass as she rests her forehead against hers. “Miss me?” 

 Chloe answers by kissing her again, and Beca can only respond in kind, her own body throbbing with want. She’s thankful Chloe chose to wear sweatpants as she slides her hand down them minutes later to give Chloe what she needs. 

 “Wanna order a pizza?” Beca asks as they lie in bed an hour later, spent and hungry from their earlier activity. 

 “You mean you didn’t whip up a romantic dinner for your girlfriend?” Chloe teases, knowing damn well Beca can’t cook to save her life. She pushes a kiss to Beca’s lips. “Pizza sounds great, babe.” 

 Beca reaches for her phone off the bedside table, wincing as another pang of pain shoots through her leg. A leg that’s no longer there. She’s been experiencing those a lot lately, and upon visiting a physical therapist, was told they’re called phantom pains. 

 “What’s wrong?” Chloe asks as Beca dials the number of the pizza place on her phone. 

 “Nothing.” She hasn’t told Chloe about it, finding it difficult still to address anything related to her amputation. But the look Chloe gives her tells Beca she won’t let it rest, and Beca heaves a sigh. “I-I sometimes have pain like-- it feels as though my legs are still there and they’re burning.” 

 “Phantom pains?” 

 Beca blinks, putting her phone aside. “You’ve heard of it?” 

 Chloe nods. “When we started dating, I… did some research about all of it.” 

 Beca’s heart does a funny thing at that. “Oh, right.” 

 “What did the doctor say?”

 “He suggested the mirror therapy where I should stand in front of one so my brain can integrate the fact that I no longer have legs, and also massaging my residual limbs.” 

 “I can do that,” Chloe murmurs. “Give you massages, if-- if you’re comfortable with that.” 

 “You really don’t have to.” 

 “I know I don’t.” Chloe’s hand drifts to cover hers. “I want to help, if I can.” 

 Beca purses her lips, hesitantly glancing at her girlfriend. “Are you sure?”

 “I’m sure. Let’s have dinner and then do that?” 

 “Yeah, okay.” 

 After dinner, Beca tells Chloe where she keeps her oil and settles back on the bed, over a towel to protect the sheets. “You’ll tell me if you feel uncomfortable, right?” She asks just to make sure as Chloe settles down beside her. 

 “Yes,” Chloe says with a smile, brushing a kiss to Beca’s lips. “And likewise for you.” 

 “Yeah.” 

 Chloe rubs some oil between her palms and starts kneading Beca’s left thigh, a groan flitting past Beca’s lips as the relief is near instant. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back against the headboard, exhaling deeply. 

 “That helps a lot,” she murmurs, brushing her fingers over Chloe’s upper arm in an affectionate gesture as she looks at her. “Thank you. I’ve always… been self conscious about how I look, ever since the procedure, and I was convinced you’d find it gross or something.” 

 “Seeing it for the first time at your PT appointment was a bit unsettling, yeah, because I couldn’t help but think about the trauma that triggered it. But did I think it was gross?” Chloe shakes her head. “Never. I promise. I know it’s easier said than done and your feelings are entirely valid, but your body is beautiful the way it is, baby. I hope you learn to accept it someday.”

 Beca is silent for a little while, letting Chloe’s words wash over her and settle the anxiety swirling in her guts. “We drove over a landmine in Afghanistan,” she croaks out after a minute or two, the memory still fresh in her brain even though it’s been two years. She feels Chloe’s movements pause but doesn’t look up. She can still smell it. The tires burning, the oil leaking, the  blood.  “The back of the truck blew up. It’s still blurry and I’m not sure what happened next but I got stuck under the side of it and my legs got crushed,” she takes a pause, emotions rising as she’s never told the story aloud except to her therapist. “Help arrived pretty quickly and they managed to free me. I was choppered to the nearest trauma center.” Beca inhales sharply as tears burn behind her eyes. She can still hear the whines and cries of her comrades before they drew their last breath. “My two best friends… they didn’t make it.”

 Chloe shuffles up to sit by Beca’s side, draping an arm around her waist as she rests her forehead against the side of Beca’s head. Beca leans against her, her hand resting on Chloe’s forearm. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

 Beca swallows, licking her lips. “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you what happened. It’s still… hard to talk about.”

 “Thank you for trusting me,” Chloe murmurs and presses a kiss to Beca’s jaw. 

 “Thank you for being you,” Beca replies, twisting her head to look at Chloe. Her hand drifts up to cradle her cheek. She’s still in awe of how lucky she is to have found such a beautiful person who loves her as much as Chloe does despite everything; being a double amputee, the nightmares, the PTSD episodes. “I love you so much.” 

 Chloe nuzzles Beca’s nose, then brushes a kiss to her lips. “I love you, too.” 

 They experience some ups and downs over the next two years as sometimes long distance is hard to handle, but their relationship only comes out of it stronger. Beca lands a job as assistant producer in the same label. Chloe finds a job in LA after graduating, and they move in together in a cute one bedroom apartment in Pasadena. 

 “What do you mean that last scene was ridiculous?” Chloe asks, seemingly affronted. They’ve just come out of the theater after watching a romcom Chloe dragged Beca to. “I thought it was cute.”

 Beca rolls her eyes as she walks beside her girlfriend. “It was cheesy as f—” 

 A loud  BANG! cuts Beca off and she visibly shrinks, her mind and body going into shock so quickly she can’t stop it. She leans against the nearby street post, her legs feeling like jelly.

 “Babe?” Chloe’s hand comes to rest on her shoulder but Beca recoils from it as her breathing turns labored. “It was a car backfiring, Becs. We’re safe.”

 Beca shakes her head, panic having already gripped her insides and shut out any kind of rationality. Flashbacks jump her mind and sounds that still haunt her in her dreams weave themselves in a continuous loop. 

 “You’re okay baby,” Chloe soothes. “You’re okay. You’re in LA, with me, not at war. You’re  safe. ”

 Beca hears Chloe’s words without really registering them; they get lost in the cloud surrounding her brain and keeping her from going back to reality. 

 She doesn’t know how long it takes, but she eventually snaps back into the present. Street chatter replaces the cries of her friends, cars passing by are quieter than the crawlers of tanks crunching the dry ground, and Chloe is here.

 Beca leans against her, clutching on for dear life as she tries to bring her heart rate back to normal. 

 “It’s okay,” she soothes, brushing a kiss to Beca’s temple. “You’re home.”

 A year later, Beca proposes. There’s no big speech or romantic meal planned; she asks Chloe as they lie in bed one lazy Sunday morning after making love. The sun is shining over them through the window, and Chloe is pressed snugly against her, laughing at one of her lame jokes, and it’s just… perfect. 

 They get married six months later at a resort in Northern California, surrounded by their close friends and families. The next few years are a blur of domestic bliss, before their lives get a whole new meaning with the arrival of their baby.

 Beca’s not quite used to being woken up in the middle of the night, and she jolts at the shrill cry coming through the baby monitor.

 “I’ve got her,” she rasps when she feels Chloe shift next to her, and uses her arms’ strength to transfer herself in the wheelchair set next to her side of the bed. 

 They moved into a larger place when Chloe found out she was pregnant, a house with a garden on the outskirts of LA. It has no stairs and large rooms, ideal for Beca to manœuvre her chair around as she tends not to wear her prosthetics at home. They got a custom made crib which slides open on the side so Beca can easily pick their baby up from her chair, and their changing table can also be lowered to her height. 

 “What’s up, sweet pea?” She coos as she undoes the latch and slides the side of the crib open, leaning forward to lift the three month old. She knows it’s her hungry cry, and with Emma on her lap, rolls towards the kitchen to heat up a pouch of breast milk. Much like the stroller, the wheelchair movements momentarily sooth Emma. 

 “Here we are,” Beca murmurs minutes later, cradling Emma in the crook of her elbow and presenting her with the bottle. She’s still completely in awe of this tiny human being who’s captured her heart the moment Beca held her in her arms for the first time. It’s like she felt her heart double in size to be able to accomodate all the love she held for her wife and daughter. Yeah. Motherhood has turned her into a real softie. She smiles as Emma’s big blue eyes lock on her while she feeds. “You had to have your mommy’s eyes, huh? How am I going to be able to ever say no to you?” 

 Once Emma finishes, Beca heads back to the nursery to change her and sings her back to sleep, carefully setting her in her crib. 

 “Mama loves you, my sweet girl.”

 She rolls back to the master and parks her wheelchair next to her side of the bed, locking the brakes before transferring herself back into bed. After years of practice, it doesn’t take Beca as long as it used to. 

 Chloe snuggles into her side as soon as Beca’s settled down. “All good?”

 “Mhm,” Beca hums, brushing a kiss to her wife’s hair. “Everything’s perfect.”