Disclaimer: Skins isn't mine...now let's get on with it...

Author Notes: I needed a bit of a break from intense drama, so hoping this one will be lighter than my recent fics. Enjoy.

Wish You Weren't Here

At five minutes to seven the plane touched down, only it wasn't seven, it was eight, according to European time. The cabin quickly overheated from the rush of passengers filing through overhead lockers and throwing books, toys and God knows what else into holdalls and rucksacks. Emily sat on an end seat. She didn't participate in the crazy rush for the door, there was simply no need. She'd arrived for a holiday, a chance to relax with her friends and not speed right through it. She cracked open her book and began to read, getting through half a paragraph before the passenger beside her asked her to 'hurry the fuck up'. She closed the book again and with a small eye roll, clambered to her feet in the smallest gap possible between the rows.

'What are you waiting for Ems?' her neighbour groaned again, her manner unexpectedly different for someone who looked her identical.

'I'm going as fast as I can; as soon as the doors have opened we'll have more space.'

She stayed calm, if only to ease her own panics about being squashed into a tiny space. She stared in Katie's direction, knew she had the same qualms. They stared at each other until the people surrounding her had gone, leaving a half empty aisle.

'Fucking move then,' Katie demanded in the very same moment that Emily stepped towards the line of passengers headed for the exit.

On the outside, the air was hot and sticky, suffocating in its intensity for a few short moments, until her airways had become used to the change in atmosphere.

'Way better than being at home,' Katie announced to a Spaniard who pointed across the tarmac towards the entrance to the airport. Emily doubted he really understood what she had said, instead had been hired to ferry passengers in the correct direction. It wasn't a difficult job with plane to passport control being the only route possible. When a passenger strayed off course and lit up a cigarette, the man started shouting at him in Spanish, holding his arms out towards the entrance.

'Fucking Spanish,' the man groaned, addressing him with an obnoxious, slow voice. 'Thought you people let us smoke anywhere.'

'(Something something comprende i dont understand in spanish)'

To Emily's dismay, the obnoxious man's family were waiting for him at passport control. A family of eight. Unluckily, somehow the passports had gone missing from their belongings, leading to an even longer wait behind them.

'Finally,' Katie snapped, handing over two passports to a young, Spanish man. 'I'm Katie, that's Emily.'

Emily rolled her eyes at her sister's attempt to flirt with him. They'd barely got off the plane and she was already on the pull. Emily smiled weakly at him before continuing along the corridor towards baggage claim.

'Over 'ere,' a voice shouted and several people pushed past them in order to reach for a suitcase. Emily stared at the back of the obnoxious smoker, waiting for him to move out of the way once more. He didn't. He stayed until half a dozen bags had been collected. If Katie hadn't been too busy chatting up his eldest son, their bags wouldn't have gone round four times. Finally the man disappeared, with his gaggle of geese following. Katie handed a mobile phone back to the tall, dark haired man. He wasn't even that attractive, by Katie's standards.

'Got our bags then?' she asked with a hand on her hip, her handbag hooked over her elbow.

'Think they're coming round now,' she mumbled, moving along the side of the empty baggage claim and retrieving one of their cases.

'Hurry up, yeah?' Katie demanded, searching the crowds. 'Panda and Effy are probably halfway to the hotel by now.'

'I doubt that since we're booked on the same coach,' Emily muttered, her voice trailing off as Katie had already pulled her suitcase from the conveyor belt and had set off across the large room, to the exit.

The coach was a welcomed rest from her sister's incessant talking and the constant demands. Luckily for Emily, Effy offered her the seat by the window on the opposite side to Katie. She complained, of course, but Effy had a way of persuading people about almost anything.

'And he looked at me with these amazing, dark eyes,' Katie gossiped to Pandora, who waited on every word she said, oohing and ahhing as often as possible.

Emily turned to face out the window, watching as the dry land passed by. A far cry from the green, lush scenes of the English countryside she was so used to. After a while she looked around the coach, trying to decide who would be at their hotel and who would get dropped off at the one after. The irritating man sat further along the coach with his son a few seats ahead, something Katie had yet to realise, she presumed. Behind them, a blonde rolled her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. She looked as far from relaxed as humanly possible with her long legs hanging out into the aisle. Her purple shirt signified her connection to the company they paid to pick them up. She looked as far away from the cheerful, happy photographs on the website as was humanly possible. Emily didn't think she looked very Spanish either, but her pale hair and pale skin could mean she was any number of nationalities.

The man in front of her smelled like cigarettes. Not the cheap, Spanish brands she'd been stuck buying, the proper English makes like (english cigarette make). If the bus wasn't so crammed full of happy people starting their holiday, she'd have moved. But she was stuck there behind him, craving a cigarette, which she couldn't have. On a journey she didn't really want to be on. Why had she moved to Spain in the first place? She couldn't remember anymore. Perhaps she'd taken a fall, banged her head and got amnesia. That would be the only reason she was sat there surrounded by B.O. and six screaming children. She'd counted them on the register, to be prepared. What the register didn't tell her was one child had an ear infection causing her to cry constantly, two of them were under four and one seemed to suffer from some hyperactivity disorder. She'd caught him six times already attempting to run down the bus.

The majority of passengers were families with children or teenagers, who didn't really want to be there but had been forced to join the family on their travels. A couple of older teenage girls sat on the seats to her right; they must have been related because they looked very similar. Yet both of them had headphones plugged to their ears and mobile phones being hammered by overly dressed nails. Once in a while the older of the two would glare at the other girl's phone and roll her eyes. Naomi did the same. Sometimes she wondered why they even hired her to do the job in the first place, she didn't like people and wasn't very good with customers. Then again, the other three applicants spoke broken Spanish. It wouldn't surprise her if her heritage was the only reason she was sat on the bus with the scent of sweat filling her nostrils.

The bus continued down the highway, jumping about every once in a while from the dusty, unkempt road. Trust her to end up on the bumpiest, hottest route. She'd preferred the idea of working in Barcelona in an artistic bar along Las Ramblas, but the firm had sent her to the south, to the one place she promised never to set foot. She wasn't a tourist after sun, sea and sangria; she was a political activist looking for culture and Spanish traditions.

Naomi let out a sigh of relief as the bus made the final trek up the most awkward road; she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, ignoring the panic-stricken look of passengers worrying about the windy, thin, bumpy passage. She'd seen it time and time again. They expected a beautiful hotel in the middle of a beautiful town; that was what they'd paid for. What they hadn't paid for was the somewhat dangerous street leading to said town and hotel. When the bus came to a stop a deadly silence filled the bus until her colleague began to instruct the passengers.

When the man shouted for their party, Katie jumped to her feet and waved a hand in his direction. He wasn't half bad, for a sweaty guy dressed in purple. She led them down the aisle where she accepted the complimentary vouchers and leaflets on their behalf and sent him a dashing smile. He smiled back, his eyes following her down the steps off the bus. She stood by the luggage that had been thrown across a dirty patio, waiting for the rest of the passengers. Emily had already taken up the task of finding their bags. She hadn't asked her to; she hated asking her for things. Usually she just waited because eventually, no matter what, Emily would do it for her anyway.

Eventually they were given their key-cards and an all access wristband. In orange. Whoever told them it was a good choice must have been hit in the head with a rock or something because orange was never popular, not as long as Katie could remember, that's for sure. Didn't they realise it clashed horribly with her brand new bikini? Didn't think it through, did they?

Once Emily had unlocked their hotel room and dropped Katie's suitcase on the floor – she should be more careful, bitch – Katie got changed and requested they go for a drink. They had paid for all inclusive after all, so they were going to get what they paid for. She left Emily still muttering about something as she knocked up Effy and Pandora who shared the room next door.

The bar was quiet, so quiet that Effy had to count the number of people sat on the patio by the pool in order to focus her attention away from the constant drumming in her mind. She ordered and perched on a bar stool. Emily and Pandora had opted to stay in their rooms. Katie talked her ear off to her left about how she hoped Emily wouldn't be a party pooper, Effy switched off when the large family that had been on the plane and the coach arrived in the bar. Katie's attention turned from Effy and onto a tall, reasonably handsome young man. He wasn't Katie's type, but he'd obviously caught her eye. Katie didn't sleep around, she didn't act like she didn't, but Effy knew there was always more to it than sex.

Then again, the Katie she knew had disappeared somewhat since she broke up with Danny the footballer. He was a dick and they all knew it, now Katie did too. But it shook her confidence when she couldn't find someone else to date straight after. Effy watched the young man watching Katie, who watched him right back. There was chemistry, there was eye-flirting, there was a definite chance of something going on.

'He's fucking hot,' Katie muttered, sipping on her cocktail in a seductive way, her body angled in the guy's direction and her breasts hanging out.

Effy's attention was drawn away from the hopefully-happy couple to the purple shirted coach staff that entered the bar. The blonde looked considerably more cheerful away from the bus and with an orangey cocktail in her hands. She downed the first one and accepted a second without another glance. In between Katie's eye-sex and the blonde's surprising smile, Effy found herself wondering what the next couple of weeks would bring. As she focused back on Katie talking to her, she took another glance back at the coach staff. There was something about them, which made Effy wonder, if perhaps they would come to meet more than once that summer.

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