~ Chapter Fourteen ~

"Welcome to Gomorrah."

Anna replied to that with a nervous little laugh as they approached the waiting line of cabs at Aeroport d'Eivissa - or, as it had been called when they got on the plane in Toronto, Ibiza Airport. Of course, while they were in baggage claim, Elsa had called ahead to request a reserved car so there would be no more standing around than was necessary.

"It's so dark out," she finally commented as they approached the one with the large man holding a sign that said "Erica" - which made Anna snort, remembering she had called Elsa that in Gerda's.

"Jetlag. We're six hours later here. Plus the ten we were on the plane, and yeah, it's almost midnight." Her look was weary, but she still smiled as she added, "We can go out if you want, but I can't promise we'll stay out long."

That sounded like the worst idea in the world. Handing her bags to the man, she said, "Nah. Let's crash and get up tomorrow, start exploring fresh. I'm so excited, though!"

"Me too," Elsa agreed with a light chuckle. "I mean, for you, and to show you everything."

"Thank you so much. I mean it, this is all way more than I-"

"Didn't we talk about this?" Anna nodded, bowing her head. "There. No more thanking me, you already did and I appreciate that, but from now on the only way I want you to 'thank' me is by enjoying yourself as much as possible while you're here. That's it."

"What if… I only wanna enjoy myself by eating cereal in the hotel room in my PJ's all day every day?"

That comment prompted Elsa to burst out laughing, head falling back as she clapped her hands together. Anna giggled along for a minute before Elsa's hand fell to her shoulder and she said, "Oh, Anna! GOD! No, no, I don't think you'll do that. Not once you get out and look around the island a little. But I'd be down for that."

"Sure, sure you would."

Anna's eyes remained wide as they were taxied from the airport. She had been expecting a wealth of bright lights, but the highway remained fairly rustic, with a few billboards interrupting the trees and brush along the side, the occasional building. Seemed that despite the notorious level of nightlife Elsa had been telling her about, they had done their best to preserve some of the island's natural beauty.

However, slowly but surely, civilization began to take hold. Anna saw more rental car companies, bus stops, underpasses… transit signs that she couldn't read. Then they pulled off the main highway into a local city, or district, or whatever it would be called. She definitely began to feel like the country mouse who had just landed herself in vastly unfamiliar surroundings.

"Is this it? Are we there?" she whispered.

Elsa's smile was so bemused it made her feel dumb for asking, but what she said was, "We're almost there, yes. But this is not 'it'; we're only in a tiny corner of the whole island, you know. It's pretty big."

"Yeah, you said it's bigger than Manhattan… but I've never been there, either," she admitted softly.

"Hey." Elsa reached over and squeezed her hand briefly. "Stick with me. I promise I won't let the big, bad Ibiza monster gobble you up."

Anna smiled out the window at a colourful little playground as they passed, with Mickey and Minnie Mouse painted on the entrance, and she squeezed back. "Yeah… yeah, I think it'll be okay. Oh - I recognise the word 'sushi', you could eat there!"

"I could? Can I not eat somewhere that doesn't have sushi?"

"Apparently," she laughed, and Elsa elbowed her. "So, which one of these great big hotel buildings is ours?"

"Most of these are condos, actually. But we're not going to any of them."

"Look, and there's a- okay, wow, nevermind. I thought it was an anime store because of the billboard, but it's a sex shop. Whoops!" Then Anna blinked, looking back around to her friend. "Wait, we're not?"

With a sly smile, the diva glanced over at Anna directly as she whispered, "We're going to The SEEK House."

~ o ~

Fifteen minutes later, and they were standing in a circle drive, waiting for the driver to unload their luggage as Anna gazed up at the most beautiful property she had ever seen. Pristine white walls arranged in seemingly-haphazard boxy shapes around wide windows, obviously designed to be both aesthetically pleasing and to stand up to the elements.

"Whoa… I think I heard about this once, but I didn't know it… I mean, does it belong to the record label?"

"It belongs to us," Elsa grunted, heaving one of her bags up and over the kerb. Anna laughed when she first saw how many she had, since they had all been previously checked; nobody else she knew travelled with five suitcases. "All four of us; we each put in an equal amount of money in buying the property. I sent out an IM to the group chat telling them I wanted the use of it this week, and nobody replied so I presume there's no problem."

As she struggled with her own bag again, only to have the driver suddenly help her lift it, she asked, "They didn't reply? Is that, um, normal?"

"Very. We typically only use it to make announcements or requests like that."

"But don't you guys… I dunno, ever talk? Like… I know you said you aren't really 'close friends', but you work together so often that…"

Elsa's smile was both sad, and pitying for Anna's perceptions that she had to shatter. "I told you, we're coworkers. So yes, we get along, and we do care about each other, but… when we take time off, we go back to our own lives." She tried for a little bit wider of a smile. "Though last summer, we did spend a few days here together. Just…" Her eyes dropped. "Nevermind. Let's get inside."

Navigating the house wasn't all that hard. There only seemed to be three bedrooms, despite there being four members of SEEK; Elsa explained that one of the sofas in the living room was an IKEA model that converted into an extremely comfortable bed, and that Snow always chose that.

"Sorry we'll be split up," Elsa said as the three of them - including the driver - got the rest of Elsa's bags into her room. "But then again, at least you don't have to worry about my nose strips falling off and listening to me snore."

"I can't believe that Elsa snores. I don't. You'll have to prove it."

Elsa smirked as she wheeled one of the bags through the door. "What, are you going to sleep with me to find out?"

"I- what?! Whoa, where did that come from?"

Once Elsa had set down the bag, she straigthened, frowning. "Oh, sorry, I didn't… I thought that would be funny. Sometimes I'm bad at that."

"Well… I guess it is," Anna said, rolling her eyes after a minute. "Just caught me off guard."

"Just say the word and I won't make any more, um, lesbian-related jokes. Honestly, I won't!"

With all the focus being on her and her sexuality, Anna couldn't help but look a little bashful as she replied, "Um, it's really okay. I'm not used to anybody but Kristoff saying things like that to me is all; I mean, my parents are cool with it now, but when I first came out they were really confused and asked a lot of questions. Even now, they still don't… well, gay jokes, I mean. Not really where their comfort zone lives."

"I think I understand," Elsa laughed as they went back to fetch Anna's bags. "So is it safe to say, I'll keep working on it, and you'll let me know if I go too far?"

"Definitely. God, it's nice to have more than one friend who's accepting. I guess Rapunzel counts, but I can tell she…" Anna paused to think, halfway through the action of lifting her lighter suitcase through the front door. "You know that thing, where people technically aren't unsupportive, but you can tell they wish that you were more like them so they didn't have to make the effort of being supportive?"

Elsa pulled a face. "Ah. I'm very familiar with that 'thing', yes."

"That's Rapunzel. But I think she's coming around; she's really, uh… like, you heard that she was homeschooled, so she's really smart and a great person, but I don't think she gets out a lot. I'm probably the first LGBT person she ever met."

"I can relate," Elsa chuckled. "That is, I saw more of the world when I was younger than your friend, and way more after I joined up with SEEK, but… the boarding school was very reserved and strict. There were girls who couldn't care less about the rules, but I distanced myself from them; my father was already irritated at being left with me to raise by himself as it was, so I didn't want to make unnecessary waves and get him yelling at me."

Anna dropped her suitcase right where it was in the hallway, turning to place a hand on Elsa's bicep. "You gotta tell me, at least… did he ever… hurt you? Like, with anything besides words." Elsa looked away. "Hey…"

"No. But he threatened to, occasionally. It… was enough. I believed him." Clearing her throat, she pulled out of Anna's grip a little roughly. "Let's not talk about him anymore."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. This is old news." Looking over her shoulder, Elsa shot her a would-be confident smile. "The past is in the past. Right now, we're on Ibiza; just you and me, and an entire island of possibilities. Who cares about bad memories when you can make new, better ones?"

But even after she disappeared around the corner, Anna was standing there, staring after her new friend with her mouth hanging open. An upbringing that awful wasn't something she could disregard as easily as that.

~ To Be Continued ~