A/N: This is a story I thought about while thinking how to write the sequel to "A New Home". You'll have to wait a little longer for that one, so in the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy this one, instead. Thanks in advance for reading!

Summary: AU. Luke and Noah meet on a plane to Paris. What follows is intrigue, secrets, and a forbidden affair.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Noah sat in 32B next to the window of the Air Europa Boeing 767. He looked out at the tarmac of LaGuardia and surmised that it might as well have been a wicker basket he was traveling in, comfy seats or no comfy seats. It was coach but it was comfortable, a good sign, he guessed, for someone who had never flown before. And yet it all felt so flimsy, so horribly unstable with the thought of just the plate of glass soon to be separating him from the clouds 30,000 feet up. He closed the shade on the window and watched as more people began filing into the aircraft. Seven hours. He could stand seven hours with complete strangers and a potentially turbulent ride. Winds over the Atlantic, nothing but ocean below them for thousands of miles, nothing but clouds to separate the earth and the sky—

"Excuse me, sir?"

Noah jumped and looked up. He realized he had been grasping the seatbelt looped tightly around his waist, hard enough for his knuckles to turn white. He looked up at the young man staring down at him with an amused grin.

"Could you help me put my carry-on in the thing here?"

Noah blinked. Just a moment ago all he could think about was twisting steel and the boom of the engine as the plane went down, down, down over endless miles of water. Now, looking at this stranger with the striped shirt and blond hair, he couldn't remember his own last name.

"Parlez-vous anglais?" the man laughed.

Noah shook his head and unbuckled his seatbelt. He ducked to move out of his row and stumbled into the aisle. "Right," he said, "sorry." He took the other end of the man's duffle bag and helped him stuff it in the overhead compartment.

"Thanks," the man said. He looked over his shoulder to see more people coming in behind him. Noah sat at his window again and the man sat next to him in the aisle seat. "Well," said the blond stranger, "guess this means we're stuck together for seven hours."

Noah put his seatbelt on again and let out a nervous chuckle. "Yeah," he said.

The man looked over at him. "Don't sound so enthused—"

"No, it's not that. I'm sorry, I'm just not a very good flyer."

The man nodded slowly. "Oh."

Noah laughed again. "Aren't you lucky you're with me?"

The blonde stranger looked at him with an eyebrow raised and a reassuring smile. "I'm Luke," he said, extending his hand.

Noah shook it, worried that his palm must have been cold and sweaty. "I'm Noah," he said. "Don't worry, I'll try not to puke on you." He felt his face become flush the instant he said it, mortified beyond all control that he was not only the most nervous person on the planet, but also the dumbest.

Luke laughed, hinting a set of straight-rowed pearls in his mouth. "You'll be fine," he said.

An awkward silence sliced between them. Luke picked up a magazine from the pouch of the seat in front of him and began flipping through SkyMall at the overpriced gadgets and useless household items. As the last passenger sat down in his seat, Noah tensed when he saw the flight attendants closing the doors of the aircraft.

"Business or pleasure?"

Noah released his grip on the lap belt and looked at Luke. "What?"

"Are you going to Paris for business or for pleasure?" Luke elaborated.

"Oh," Noah said, raising his eyebrows. "Neither, really. I'm meeting my father for a week. He's a, uh, military man—sort of like father-son bonding thing." Noah realized he was rambling, paused and leaned to his neighbor. "What about you?"

"I'm studying abroad for the month. French class at NYU."

Noah raised a brow and turned to him. "Really? I applied at NYU."

"No kidding!" Luke exclaimed, turning closer and smiling. "Where do you go?"

"Well, I just moved to New York this summer. I'm studying at The New School for Drama. I, uh," he smiled and chuckled to himself, "I'm studying to be a director."

"That's great!" Luke said.

Noah smiled, surprised at this man's genuine enthusiasm for a near stranger. He had almost forgotten where he was until the plane made a noise and a flight attendant made an announcement over the speaker.

"Ladies and gentleman, thank you for traveling Air Europa, non-stop from LaGuardia to Paris. We are second in line for takeoff and we'll be in the air shortly."

Another flight attendant repeated the message in French and Noah felt his guts drop to his knees. He held onto his lap belt as if keeping it in place and sat straight ahead. He swallowed hard as he felt the plane steer away from the terminal and out onto the tarmac, his heart beating wildly in the paper box of his chest.

"Are you, uh . . ." Noah swallowed and tried to focus on the question he was asking, tried to take his mind off of their impending departure. "Are you a native of New York?"

Luke continued flipping through the magazine and shook his head. "Nope, I'm from a little town in Illinois—Oakdale."

Noah nodded and pushed his head up against the seat as the flight attendants began going through procedure for takeoff and in the case of emergencies. Noah watched as the attendants held up the safety manuals and life jackets.

"In the case of a water landing . . ."

"Dans le cas d'un atterrissage de l'eau . . ."

Noah breathed heavily and cast his eyes downward.

"Where are you from?" Luke asked, putting the magazine back in the front seat's pouch.

Noah snapped his eyes at him, barely hearing the question over the blood pumping in his ears. "Uh, all over. My dad and I moved around a lot."

"And you're just now taking your first flight?" Luke laughed.

Noah shrugged. "First time for everything, I guess." He closed his eyes to steady his breathing, unaware that Luke was smiling at him.

Minutes, hours, millenniums passed before the captain's voice came on over the intercom and announced their departure. "Flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff."

Noah sucked in a deep breath as he felt the engines of the plane charging up to leave the runway. "Oh, God," he said. He gripped the armrests as the plane moved faster down the runway, building speed for a spectacular takeoff.

"I don't mean to be personal," Luke said beside him, "but I feel like I've seen you before."

Noah opened his eyes and looked at a very curious Luke. "What?" he asked.

Luke shook his head. "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's just one of those things, like you have a really familiar face."

Noah continued to stare at the seat ahead of him and tightened his lap belt. "I guess I kind of just blend into the crowd." He closed his eyes and tried to think about what they were even talking about amongst his jitters. He knew that in any other time, this kind of conversation would have annoyed him, but now that the plane was most definitely picking up speed and the engines were making all kinds of noises, he wanted more than anything for this man to keep talking, if only to distract his troubled mind.

"Anyway," Luke said, crossing his legs nonchalantly. "What do you like to direct?"

Noah closed his eyes and focused on the man's voice over the acceleration of the aircraft. "Uh, anything, really. Anything they assign us. At the end of the semester, I'm hoping to, uh—" Noah swallowed painfully, his heart beating like a rubber ball on a paddle. "I'm hoping to direct a short film. Black and white, no sound. Very artsy."

"Sounds awesome. What does your girlfriend think of all that?"

Noah shook his head, his eyes still closed and his mouth going dry as the plane rattled and sped up faster and faster. "I don't have a girlfriend," he said, putting his hands in his lap. "You?"

Luke laughed. "No, not exactly."

Noah opened his eyes and looked at Luke, curious at the tone of his voice. Suddenly, the plane's front end lifted off the runway and one, two, three heartbeats later the back end followed and the plane was suspended in the air. Noah choked on his own breath and gripped the armrests again, unaware that Luke's hand was resting on the right one and he was now grabbing his neighbor's hand. He looked at Luke and removed it instantly.

"Sorry," he said.

Luke smiled at him, a hint of amusement in his eyes along with another soft emotion Noah couldn't pin down. "It's okay," he said.

Noah looked at Luke and felt his stomach doing cartwheels, rising and dropping as the plane climbed higher and higher into the sky. He felt elated for a moment as the plane sunk in the thermos of the sky, like he was on a rollercoaster instead of a flight to Paris where this stranger with blond hair had an intriguing quality about him Noah just couldn't figure out.

Luke surprised Noah by leaning closer and reaching over him. Noah's heart stopped for a moment as the man came closer, his sweet, musky smell wafting in Noah's face. Luke reached out and opened the shade of the window, revealing a miniature version of New York as they circled the city and steered towards the ocean. Noah took his eyes off of Luke as his neighbor sat back, and turned to the window to admire the scenery before them.

"Wow," he breathed.

"See?" Luke said. "That wasn't so bad."

To be continued.