They tell you what will happen after you have won but it is pathetic preparation. 

There is an awkward amount of waiting, and filled with camera flashes that don't allow me to let my boredom rise to the capturable surface.

Messi wins again, which must be getting old for him, and we have to pose together. They don't explicitly ask me to, but I bend my knees slightly for his sake.

My parents and Jaimie hang around for our own photos, which are separated just like their old custody arrangement until someone urges us, with alarming insistence, to squeeze in one of the entire family. In my head, I grumble at the photographer that not all families need two parents, but he just wants a valuable picture to sell to tomorrow's newspaper so it really isn't worth protesting.

There is no time for chatter with anyone else because I speed off to the airport with Jaimie, promising my father that I will visit and my mother that I will answer her phone call when it comes. The cameras follow us, some of them our own. Olivia looks as though she's the winner, because her grin has not stopped growing since they first got a glimpse of my dress.

Security is rushed and the planes' engines are screaming at us to hurry up. Jaimie is heading back to Mexico, and I play a match in Glasgow tomorrow.

I need to go to Amsterdam, I need to arrange a time for Mum to come to Barcelona, I need to work out the best way of carrying the Ballon d'Or box, and why is Olivia coming with me to my match?

I also need to fetch Oli when I get back from Amsterdam, or tell Alexia to get him. Or maybe not, because she is preoccupied with her own pet troubles and I don't want to add to that. So Mapi?

And I need to reply to all the messages I'm getting, because I don't want people to think that I'm–

"Would you like something to drink?"

I look up at the air steward with furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. He has bags under his eyes but his smile is radiant enough to distract from that. I flick my gaze to Olivia, who is comfortably asleep in her seat, her iPad flat on her lap with a lengthy email draft slowly fading on the screen.

He clears his throat to indicate that his patience has waned.

"No thanks," I say, alarmed at how strangled my voice sounds. "Do you know how long we have until we land?"

"An hour."

I notice his accent, and how it sounds as though he is hitching a flight home. "What time is it?" However foggy my brain feels, I figure out the timezone the Spanish team is in relatively quickly. "European time," I clarify.

She's in Zürich.

I wonder if she is sleeping.

"Wait, no. Just – do you think my girlfriend will be awake?" I get a strange look and then he tells me to text her and find out, but one look at my keyboard sends my head into a swirling tornado and I have to close my eyes to fend off the pain piercing through my temples.

Next thing I know, someone is gently shaking me awake and I am being coaxed down the steps and onto the tarmac of the airfield.

━━━━━━━

Being the Ballon d'Or has its perks, but according to Keira Walsh, no more Spanish lessons isn't one of them. I don't know how she found this out, but she has been on my back about it ever since I returned from Amsterdam a few days ago, and she is actually quite upset.

"I'm sure you can squeeze in an hour lesson in your press schedule," she insists as I kick a ball towards her, partnered up in training because Alexia still wants to hide things from the team. Her mentality is confusing because it's not a secret in public, but I let her do what she wants for the time being while I wait for my mother to arrange her trip to Barcelona. "Maybe you should only have to do half an hour, if you're so advanced!"

"Keira, why is it bothering you so much?"

Her explanation is lengthy and reaches its end when we return to the changing room after the training session is finished. Most of the girls are eager to get to lunch, so fifteen or so flurries sweep through the room before we even begin to think about taking our boots off, leaving us with Mapi, Alexia, and Irene.

The trio are deep in conversation; it looks serious enough to have Mapi frowning.

"Anyway, I think you should just be given harder lessons, right? It's not like you are fluent in the language so you are still going to benefit from them."

"You're only saying this because Esmee has surpassed you," I point out. Alexia can speak English but she doesn't to me. Esmee is learning via immersion, whether she likes it or not.

"Ingrid," speaks a voice which could only belong to Mapi, "doesn't have lessons anymore." I nod at her helpful contribution, even if it seems like she is praising her girlfriend in disguise. "Since we started dating, I have taught her. We speak together."

Keira decodes what Mapi means quicker than I have ever seen her mind work, and her grin is shit-eating. "So Fleur has a Spanish girlfriend?"

Suddenly, there is a loud sigh as Alexia storms out of the room, staring at her phone. Her agent must have texted her something she didn't want to be told, but Keira Walsh is vibrating with deductions and assumes otherwise.

"Someone's jealous," says Keira. "She's got a massive crush on you, you know. I've been waiting for you to notice." She hums in thought as I squint at her, hoping she doesn't notice the blush that'll give me away. "Maybe it's for the best that you hadn't noticed, though, 'cause I really don't want you to start a second war with her. I've only just recovered from last season's tension."

Mapi snorts, but she and Irene leave before I can say anything in my defence. No one wants to hear it, so I steer the conversation down an emergency escape route: the WSL. It gets Keira into another monologue, and she is so caught up in it that she doesn't realise Alexia has joined our group to walk to lunch with me.

This is what most days at the training ground look like, except my schedule has stretched out longer considering the tidal wave of media duties that has washed over me.

I urge Alexia not to stick around, but that just means we see each other less.

It's hard to juggle something so new, so fragile, with the interviews and relentless hounding from people in every direction. I desperately try to search for a moment to spare her, but a week goes by and we haven't spent more than an hour alone together. Alexia, being Alexia, won't say anything; if not because she doesn't want to admit to missing me then because she understands that bringing it up will only add to the stress piling on top of me.

I'm checking my calendar when I get an interesting text.

Talia and I talk a lot but mainly over the phone (the complete opposite to Alexia). She likes to update me on her life without judgement being thrown back at her. I have promised not to tell anyone that she asks me, quite regularly, about how Pina is getting on; whether she's over it yet, whether she looks happy.

I don't think Talia wants the poor girl to suffer, contrary to Alexia's point of view. I also don't think she's as irresponsible as she seems.

Anyway, the text is interesting because Talia is so fed up that she is talking in her native language.

She begs me to take Alexia on a date because she can no longer put up with her.

My eyes instinctively drift to the ceiling of my bedroom, and it is only my exhaustion that prevents me from scaling the stairs – the lift is broken and will be fixed tomorrow – to get to my girlfriend's floor.

And because I don't feel like climbing what seems like Mount Everest, I expend a lot less energy using my thumbs to clear my schedule for Saturday.

━━━━━━━

"Is there a reason you're driving my car?" Alexia asks sceptically when she meets me in the carpark of our building. Her arms fold across her chest but she wears the slightest smile, and I know that she isn't that annoyed because the keys are dropped into my waiting palm soon enough.

She moves to put her bag in the boot – packed with all I instructed her to, I'm told – but I stop her with a quick side-step.

That might actually piss her off.

"Maybe I do not want to go on a date with you," she grumbles under her breath as I pull the bag from her grasp and put it in the car myself.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing," she hums. "I did my hair for this, so the swimsuit better be a weird version of foreplay, Fleur."

I shrug. "Who knows."

"It's also winter! It's freezing."

"It is," I agree, and she glares at the tone of my voice. Uninterested in her complaining (more to rile her up than anything else), I pull out of our building, Vilassar de Mar plugged into Google Maps.

I messaged Ona last night, and she reassured me that this is the right time of year.

Surfing is definitely not what Barcelona is known for, but I have been thinking about Alexia in a wetsuit ever since the World Cup. I also really want to share a sort of... guarded part of me, because I never ever talk about Mum and Australia and what half of my life was like before I escaped the custody cycle. And, now that I think about it, I've never introduced anyone I... love to this side of me.

As I drive, I steal glances at Alexia, taking in the sight of her relaxed expression, Alexia's face is all harsh lines until it is examined properly; when everything else that lies between is discovered. She smiles, her head leaning on the side of the car as her fingers tap along to the music coming from the speakers, and, despite her initial hesitation, I can tell she is now excited about what's in store.

"This is very spontaneous," she teases as I turn onto a narrower coastal road that will take us down to the beach. The sound of waves crashing against the shore gets louder, and her eyebrows raise at the emptiness of the sand as if to prove to me that this is not the right location for the current season. "Secluded beaches can be very romantic in summer."

I park the car.

"I'm glad that you've found a place we can visit. In summer."

She watches me get out, the wind whipping my hair across my face as I beckon for her to join me.

Her fingers slowly grasp the door handle. She grimaces as she gets out, shivering dramatically before shuffling her way into my arms with a complaint about being cold. I let her cling on as I nudge us towards the boot, until she is pushed against the shiny metal, her body bracketed by my hands.

We stay like this for a moment.

"Okay. Beach done, shall we find somewhere warmer?"

My laugh isn't enough to stop the tip of her nose from becoming red, and I suppose that it is time to get ourselves sorted.

"I thought we could go surfing," I inform her. Her eyebrows shoot straight up and I bite my lip as I wait for her to bring them back down again. "I like doing it when I'm at my mum's, and, I don't know, I missed you. And it's something I do when I miss people, because spending summers in Australia was definitely a period of time in which I missed people, so obviously I link it to that aspect of my childhood."

"Therapy's been working," Alexia breathes into the space between us, and that is her agreement to get changed into neoprene.

She doesn't ask how to put the wetsuit on, but she does frown at me when I offer no explanation about why I have them. They're not mine, of course, but it turns out one of the trainers at the club loves making trips to the north and I have been graciously lent them.

I take a moment to admire the contouring of Alexia's figure once she has battled through changing in a modest enough manner. She shoots me a questioning look as I run my hand along the edge of one of the surfboards, relaxed by the hardness under my skin, and I feel her eyes continuing to track me as I begin to haul the boards out of the car boot.

The sand is cold and damp under my feet, and the sky is grey, but the thrash of the ways is perfect. They're not high enough to be intimidating or dangerous, but it will still be fun.

As the boards thud to the ground, Alexia steps closer to me, reaching out to take my hand. She is cold, but it isn't a complaint that comes out of her mouth. "Thank you for bringing me." Her fingers intertwine with my own. "But I'm so cold."

"Alright, Ale, let's start with the basics," I announce, clapping my hands together to snap her out of her puddle of misery. She follows my gesture towards the water with a grimace, but I try to remain positive that she will enjoy it. "You'll be less cold if we get moving, so, first, you need to get comfortable on the board."

I lead her out into the shallows, the cool water lapping around our ankles. I demonstrate how to position yourself on the surfboard, lying flat with my stomach on the board, my arms extended out in front of me.

"Okay, now it's your turn," I encourage, standing up and watching as she awkwardly tries to mimic my movements. I'm sure Alexia has done this before at some point, but I don't think she is.

My hands slip around her hips to help her adjust her positioning until she's comfortable, squeezing slightly. "Good girl, that's it." She glares at me over her shoulder. "Now," I say, running my hands down her biceps, the water lapping at my thighs as I walk her board out a bit further, "when a good wave comes, I want you to paddle towards it."

"You'll tell me if it's good, right?" she checks cautiously. Apprehension isn't often felt by Alexia, but it is clear in her voice. "It looks a bit... choppy."

"I've got you," I reassure her.

We wait patiently, scanning the horizon for the perfect wave. When it finally approaches, I give her a nod of encouragement.

A wild excitement builds in her eyes and she seems enthusiastic about heading into the crashing wave.

Of course she's a natural.

Poised and powerful, the wave looks far too easy for her. A muscular leg stretches upwards, and then another, and I am shouting at her to stand before I remember if I taught her that. It's captivating, and my throat goes dry as I watch.

Alexia falls off the board with a thrilled yelp, splashing into the water with laughter louder than the waves.

I start to swim out to her, but she happily paddles over.

"That was so fun!" She pulls herself onto her board once more, sitting upright comfortably. Her hand extends towards me, and I hoist my body next to hers, my own surfboard beached like a whale on the sand while I make sure my girlfriend doesn't drown. Arms wrap around me, and a kiss is pressed against my cheek. "You're going to have to show me how to do cooler stuff than just standing up."

We bob back to shore.

"Now that you can surf, you're ready to meet my mum. She's coming to watch El Clásico." 

notes: 

sorry for the wait (lazy hiatus) - i've been studying and on tumblr x

while i'm still busy with studying, the good news is that i'm sick of tumblr again so i'm back 😘

oh also not mentioned in the chapter but fleur gets a mural of herself in amsterdam 

it's baby fleur and it fleur signs the wall with 'ik kom terug, ajax' (i'll be back) 

fun fact: jaimie tells fleur that they painted the mural before she won the ballon d'or but left the face blank just in case she didn't win

this will feature in the next chapter but i'm too impatient to hold it in until then

much love and thanks for reading!