golden blonde¹

it's been a long time coming

late april 2023
victoria pelova is a tattle-tale. elena fernandez is sure of it.

the spaniard was in a bad mood for their next training session, for good reason, and uncharacteristically quiet when hanging out with the girls. victoria noticed.

of course she would notice, elena should not have doubted that.

she did not however, calculate how meddlesome her new best friend could truly be.

"you should talk to someone, if not me, someone else," victoria had said out of the blue. elena grunted as she juggled a football. they were to play wolfsburg tomorrow.

"how's your sister?" elena instead questioned. she was desperate to move the conversation elsewhere, and victoria was always keen to talk about her sister.

she was right, victoria's face lit up, becoming easily distracted with the mention of her younger sister who she adored. "you know, i was just talking to her this morning and she said she could come to the emirates!"

when elena only nodded in response, victoria tried to continue the conversation.

"do you think jana will come to support you or will she come to support jill?" she had asked with a teasing smile on her face.

elena snorted, "jana's coming to support me, she's going to root for the winner, obviously."

jana had not truly said who she would be supporting, but she had told both jill and elena that she planned to attend their match in london because barcelona would be playing chelsea just the day prior.

victoria hadn't said anything back, but she was planning something, elena just didn't know what.

she figured out what exactly victoria had done when she was getting ready to sleep. jana called her at ten o'clock. she ignored the first call, hopeful that her sister would give up and assume that she was already asleep.

unfortunately, the calls kept on coming and elena was left no choice but to feign sleepiness when she picked up the call.

"jana? why are you calling me so late?" elena groaned, adding a bit of drowsiness to her tone.

"jill called me," her sister said plainly. elena could tell she wasn't in the mood for any games, but she also wasn't really in the mood to tell anyone what happened yet.

"is she nervous about our game tomorrow, because if she is she could have called me—" elena started with an airy laugh.

"she said that victoria told her that something was wrong with you, that you were acting weirder than usual," jana cut her off, her tone deadly serious.

"vic told you that? i thought you hated her, can she really be a reliable source?" she was grasping at straws, but something had to be said to avoid this conversation.

she could hear jana sigh, "for the last time, i never have and currently do not hate victoria and—"

"are you sure about that?" elena was the one who cut her off this time.

"AND, that is all i will be saying on that matter," jana said with finality.

no one said anything for a couple of moments. jana was hoping that elena would speak up, and elena was hoping that jana would give up on the matter. she should have known that her sister was very stubborn when she wanted to be.

"call it sisters intuition or whatever, but now i know something is really wrong. if you can't talk to anyone about it, you should be able to talk to me about it. there should be no secrets between us, wherever we are in the world, i will always be your sister before anything else."