Chapter 10 - Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

"A mermaid?!" Anna exclaimed, trying to downplay the situation. "Cass, what possible reason could you have for thinking Elsa's a mermaid?"

"I saw her, Anna," Cass insisted. "Stop playing dumb with me and just admit the truth."

"Elsa isn't a mermaid!" Anna snapped. "I mean, look at her! She's human!"

"She's right," Elsa put in. "I'm not a mermaid, Cassandra. I do go swimming around the island often, yes, but I don't have scales."

Cass glared at her. "Stay out of this, monster!"

Anna scowled. "Take that back! NOW!"

"Cass!" Rapunzel scolded her girlfriend. "You said you wouldn't go accusing Elsa!"

"You haven't heard the stories, Raps!" Cass snapped. "Mermaids lure humans in with their songs, then they kill them and eat them!"

"No," Elsa murmured. "You're wrong."

Cass looked at Elsa. "Oh, am I? And how would you know?"

Elsa sighed. "Fine," she said in defeat. "I admit it, Cass: I'm a mermaid. But I don't eat humans. The creatures who do that are called sirens."

"Elsa, what are you doing?" Anna asked in fright.

"I'm doing what's right," Elsa told her.

Cass looked confused. "Wait, wait, wait. So there's...two kinds of merpeople?"

Elsa nodded. "Essentially, yes. And the blood of both flows through my veins. I'm a hybrid: my father was a merman, and my mother was a siren." She sighed.

"So you are one of the kinds that eat people," Cass assumed.

"I've learned to suppress that side of myself," Elsa answered. "I'm not a monster, Cass."

"How do we know you haven't bewitched Anna or something?!"

"Oh, now you're accusing me?!" Anna butted in. "Cass, Punzie, I thought we were friends."

"We are," Cass said. "That's why we came here. We're worried about you, Anna. We want you to be safe."

"Oh, sure, by calling my girlfriend a monster!" Anna sarcastically retorted.

"Just shut up, the pair of you!" Rapunzel scolded them both. "Anna, you're an adult, and Cass, you're older than all of us. Yet here you are, bickering like children!"

Anna sighed. "Just...Elsa's not a monster. She's beautiful and caring, and kind, and…I love her."

"I know that!" Rapunzel told her. "I'm on your side here, Anna!"

"You're the one who came here with her!" Anna argued.

"Stop it! All of you, STOP IT!" Elsa screamed, running out of the condo.

"Elsa!" Anna called to her.

But it was too late. Elsa dove into the ocean and swam away.

Anna scowled. "NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" she shouted at Cass and Rapunzel.

Cass looked down, a wave of guilt rolling over her. "Anna...I-"

"Shut up," Anna snapped. "And get the fuck out of my house."

Cass and Rapunzel walked outside and Anna stormed back in, slamming the door behind her.

Rapunzel looked at Cass with disappointment. "Well done, Cassandra. Well done."

"Raps..." Cassandra looked away. "I only wanted to protect her."

"Well you sure did a bang-up job at that," Rapunzel remarked sarcastically.

Cass sighed. "I...I didn't...mean to..."

Rapunzel groaned. "I don't know what I ever saw in you."

Cass started to reach for her, but stopped. "I don't know what you saw in me either." She handed Rapunzel the car keys. "Go home, Rapunzel. I've done enough damage to you."

Rapunzel sighed. "No, you haven't damaged me. You never did. But you have hurt our friends."

"I know," the brunette replied. "And I've never hated myself more than I do right now." She sat down on the ground.

"Well, I'm gonna go take care of Anna," Rapunzel said. "You stay out here."

Rapunzel walked back into Anna's condo, and saw her friend lying on the couch, sobbing. "Elsa...please come back..."

Rapunzel looked down and sat on the couch opposite her. "Hey."

Anna looked at Rapunzel, tears in her eyes. "What do you want?"

"I... I'm sorry for what happened, Anna," Rapunzel apologised. "It's my fault: I brought Cass here. I should've had us keep quiet about it, because I know how much Elsa meant to you."

"You were right," Anna said. "I found my soulmate on this trip. And it was Elsa."

"And I screwed it up," Rapunzel admitted.

Anna sighed. "I'm going back home. There's no point in staying here anymore."

"No...give it time, Anna. Elsa might come back," Rapunzel assured her. "You wanna come over to my place for a while?"

"No," Anna replied. "If she does come back...I wanna be here."

Rapunzel looked at her. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you and Elsa got together. You were made for one another. She will come back, Anna. All you have to do is believe."

Anna sighed. "But what if she doesn't? What if I never see her again...?"

"A girl like that never goes away," Rapunzel told her. "Did I ever tell you how Cass and I met?"

"You met online, right?" Anna assumed.

Rapunzel nodded. "Yeah, exactly. On Tinder, if you can believe that. I honestly thought it would just be a one-night stand, but when I actually met her face-to-face...something inside me just clicked, and I knew she was the one."

"What are you getting at?" Anna asked.

"If you truly love someone," Rapunzel told her, "if that person is your soulmate, then no matter what...you'll always be together."

Anna sighed, looking out at the ocean. "I guess I'm not surprised. I finally meet the girl of my dreams, and she's a fucking fish."

Rapunzel looked out of the window, seeing the sun start to set. "Hey, I better go get Cass home. I'll call you in the morning, okay?"

"Wait," Anna said, standing up. "I wanna talk to Cass."

"You sure?" Rapunzel asked.

Anna nodded and said, "Yeah." She walked outside, seeing Cass still sitting on the ground near the door. "Cass...?"

Cass looked up at her. "Oh," she said glumly. "It's you."

Anna sighed. "Cass...I'm sorry for getting angry."

"No," Cass replied, shaking her head. "I'm the one who should be sorry. If I hadn't started calling Elsa names...none of this would've happened."

"You were trying to protect me," Anna reminded her.

"And I drove away your girlfriend in the process."

Anna sighed. "That too."

Cass looked up at Anna. "I was never going to tell anyone else about her," she said. "I swear."

"I knew you weren't going to," Anna stated. "You were more concerned about me."

"And I screwed it all up." Cass sighed. "I guess what I'm trying to say is...can you forgive me?"

Anna looked at her friend and held her hand. "I can forgive you, Cass. You were only doing what you thought was best."

"Thank you," Cass replied, smiling. "So... where do you think Elsa went?"

"I haven't a clue," Anna admitted. "She could be anywhere by now."

Cass sighed, standing up. "If I see her again, I'll let you know."

"Thanks, Cass," Anna acknowledged.

Cass walked up to the front of the condo. "Raps! We're going!"

Rapunzel walked out of the condo, taking Cass's hand.

"Oh, and one more thing," Cass said to Anna. "If Elsa comes back...tell her I was wrong to say those things about her."

"I'll tell her," Anna replied. "I promise."

As Cass and Rapunzel walked away, Rapunzel smiled a bit. "Now I know what I saw in you."

"Come on," Cass told her. "Let's give this girl some time to herself."

Anna walked out onto the beach, sitting down at the secret spot. She looked out over the ocean, tears in her eyes. "Please, Elsa," she pleaded in a soft voice. "If you can hear me...please come home." She then curled up and started to cry once more, her broken heart filled with anguish and misery.

xXx

Down under the ocean, Elsa was swimming away from Motunui Island as fast as her fins could carry her. She didn't care where she was going. She just needed to be somewhere safe.

"I'm sorry, Anna," she said to herself. "I'm so sorry."

She eventually came to rest by a nearby coral reef, sitting on the sea bed to relax her fins.

She looked up at the sky through the water's surface, tears in her eyes. It was all her fault. Because of her, Anna had lost her friends. And now she had to run away, or else Anna would suffer the same fate as Elsa's parents.

She watched as the tears flowed from her eyes and out into the open water, sobbing heavily. "I'm sorry, Mama. I'm sorry, Papa. I'm sorry, Anna," she started to say over and over again, trying to cleanse herself of her sins.

"It's all my fault!" she sobbed. "I ruined everything."

Elsa then looked in her hands, seeing the shell she had wanted to give to Anna earlier. "No... I haven't ruined everything," she told herself. "But I can't go back to you, Anna. Not now, anyway."

She sighed. "I'll miss you, Anna. My sweet angelfish."

And with those parting words, she swam off into the blue unknown.

xXx

Author's note: Again, sorry for the short chapter, but don't fret. The next two will be nice and long... and wrap up the whole fic in a nice little bow.
See you then!