A/N: This is the beginning of what I'm hoping to be a decently sized modern au. This will be cross posted over onto ao3, where it will be put as a whole bunch of shots in one series, and honestly probably be organized a little neater than will be here.

Work title comes from (Un)Lost by The Maine.

Unbeta'd as always, so all mistakes are, of course, mine.

Side note: Never in my life did I think I would see the day where I would go and dig up my old APUSH notes to reference for fanfiction.

Thomas was pretty sure sitting the airport at three in the morning, waiting for a red-eye flight was one of the strangest experiences of his life.

He knew airports, loud, noisy places full of bustling people, but this was oddly surreal. The only interruptions to the silence were the occasional announcement over the speakers or sudden snore from one of the roughly dozen people attempting to sleep in the uncomfortable looking chairs that dotted the terminal. Lights in stores and 24 hour cafes stayed lit bright against the inky blackness outside, as if to lure in bleary travelers like moths, the clerks within them seeming to be about as awake as those they hoped to tempt.

"The only good thing about red-eye flights is that there's no line for coffee."

Thomas very nearly leapt out of his own skin when a man dropped unceremoniously into a chair across from him.

Instead of answering, he regarded the man carefully, wondering almost idly if he should seek security.

There were dark bags beneath deep brown eyes betrayed that tonight was hardly the first he'd ever spent not sleeping, though there was a brightness in his expression that made Thomas think he was excited for wherever he was going. Or for whoever he was picking up. No, there was a large tan duffel bag dropped into the seat beside him, he was definitely catching a flight out.

Long brown hair was pulled into a messy knot at the back of his head, and the slender fingers of one hand pulled lightly at the fraying ends of the sleeve of what was clearly a well loved and worn forest green hoodie while the other clutched at a cardboard cup from one of the dozens of shops.

Thomas found his gaze drawn to the stranger's free hand as it began to tap a rapid beat against a jean-clad knee, looking almost like it was doing it of it's own accord. He arched a brow, "You've clearly been takin' advantage of that perk."

The man - boy really, he looked a few years younger than Thomas, eighteen, nineteen maybe - smiled almost sheepishly at him, though he made no attempt to stop the tapping.

"What can I say? I'm excited." His nose wrinkled before Thomas could reply, a thought clearly occurring, "And a little terrified, but I guess that's to be expected."

His head tilted as he examined the stranger's voice. There was just enough of a drawl in it that he wasn't a tourist, wasn't headed home after a week's stay in the mountains, but the accent wasn't quite strong enough for him to be a native either, there was something else just below it that Thomas couldn't place.

When it didn't seem like the stranger was going to continue, Thomas huffed, waving his hand in a small circle. "Where are you headed, then?"

He startled, like he hadn't expected the question, shaking his head quickly to clear it and tapping the nearby duffel bag. "South Carolina. Fort Jackson, actually." He explained, "Basic training starts tomorrow."

So he was a soldier, or at least, would be soon enough. Huh. Army, if he was remembering his bases correctly. (He was.)

Thomas found his mind wandering back to an art gallery benefit he'd attended just a few weeks ago at his mother's behest. There'd been a photo of a soldier, uniform ripped to shreds, face smeared with blood and dirt, his expression blank and eyes hollow. It'd apparently been taken an the moments after the declared end of the WWI, meant to symbolize something about the pointlessness of war when it so broke a man that he couldn't even revel in its end.

He tried to imagine the young man before him in that soldier's place - bloodied and hardened and lost looking - and found the task nearly impossible.

Maybe it had something to do with his size. The stranger was easily a head and a half shorter than himself, and though he couldn't see much through the hoodie and jeans, it was an easy assumption that he wasn't exactly built. Regardless of the reason why, he didn't exactly give off the whole 'stand-on-the-wall, protective-sentinel' vibe.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when he realized the man was speaking, asking him something. The confusion must've shown on his face, because he only rolled his eyes, as if he were used to being tuned out, and repeated himself.

"Where are you going?"

"Paris." Thomas couldn't help the way just saying the name brought the touches of a smile to his face automatically. He'd spent summers in France as a child while tagging along on his father's business trips, and had always harbored a deep affinity for the culture. He'd eagerly leapt at the chance to study abroad when it'd been given to him.

"Ville de Lumière!" The stranger exclaimed brightly, and while Thomas' reflexive response was pleased surprise, his second reaction was subtle curiosity that, despite the fact that his fluidity indicated that he was fluent, there was the slightest touch of an accent he couldn't quite identify, though it was faint and barely there.

"Tu parle français?" In hindsight, the question was redundant, what with the aforementioned fluidity, and Jefferson felt himself flush awkwardly as he nearly stumbled over his own pronunciation.

"Oui!" He chuckled, shaking his head. "I learned when I was young, and a good friend of mine has refused to let me get rusty."

Suddenly, as thought it were an afterthought, he cocked his head to the side, eyes going wide in a way that reminded Thomas of a small child's, as he wedged his coffee precariously between his knee and the arm of the seat and put out a hand to shake.

"Alexander Hamilton." He introduced himself.

Thomas stared at the hand for a moment before shifting forward to shake it briefly. "Thomas Jefferson."

They talked amicably for awhile. How long, Thomas lost track. Alexander told him about how his mother ('well, adoptive mother, but she's... really great. both my parents are.' he'd added fondly, while Thomas simply nodded) had insisted he stay for one last dinner and he'd ended up stuck in traffic after a wreck, making him miss his flight and have to reschedule for the four AM.

Thomas explained how he'd chosen his flight early intentionally, doing his best to avoid as much jet-lag as possible after crossing time zones.

It wasn't until the topic of conversation had circled back to airport coffee that things went awry.

Alexander jokingly mentioned how he was sure he'd accidentally miscalculate sales tax when he got to South Carolina, just by virtue of the 1 percent difference, and Thomas nodded in understanding.

"Well I don't think they ought to be charging tax anyway."

"Wait... what!?" The man's voice piqued in both volume and pitch, startling a few sleeping people nearby in the terminal. Thomas probably would've laughed if Hamilton's face hadn't turned to one of offended outrage. As it was, he could see the fight brewing in the man's expression, and instead kept his own face schooled.

"You don't find it odd that there's a tax on everything when the cause of the Revolutionary War that made our country in the first place was excess taxes on everyday items?" It was a well worded and practiced argument, one that Thomas wasn't actually used to anyone refuting. Alexander seemed to have other plans though, as a beat barely passed before he was retorting.

"The Revolution wasn't sparked by the taxes!" He snapped, before Thomas could so much as brace himself. Every ounce of the stranger seemed to thrum with a new sort of energy, and Thomas wouldn't have been surprised if he'd stood and began to pace. "The people were outraged over lack of representation in British Parliament, not a few pence on tea!"

It astounded Thomas how completely sure he was about that, like he was there, and he was more vehement than he really ought to have been after only a few seconds. Nonetheless, he was ready to reply only a moment later.

"Then why the Boston Tea Party and the boycotts of imported goods? Because unnecessary internal taxes are downright oppressive and the people knew it!"

"Those were to protest the fact that they'd had no say in the taxes, not to protest the taxes themselves - god, have you ever even picked up a textbook?"

Thomas bristled then, though he wasn't even entirely certain if it was meant to be derisive - Alexander sounded almost genuinely shocked by the mere existence of an opposing position on the issue. Thomas though, was more than prepared, armed to the teeth in fact, to defend his stance.

"The first thing the new federal government did was impose more taxes on the states without their consent!"

"But that's not what happened!" Alexander shot back, unaware, or perhaps simply uncaring, of the small crowd that'd emerged to observe them curiously. "The people had representation under the Constitution! The people they elected were the ones who voted and decided on the taxes in Congress!"

"Oh, that's right, because they were going to even try to resist when before the people refused a whiskey tax before and the president sent an army to subdue them!"

"Oh my god!" Alexander nearly shouted, "Did you just entirely miss the late 1780's in whatever history class you took!?" He was leaning forward in his seat, gesturing grandly with both hands, coffee left to sit on the chair beside him, forgotten. "The Federal government tried to give states the right to choose their taxes without enforcement under the Articles of Confederation and it failed so badly that the government almost collapsed from lack of funding!

"Under the Constitution, representatives voted together on the whiskey tax, and five hundred men attacked a tax collector! Not only did an end have to be put to the uprising but the president had to prove a point!"

Seeing an opening, Thomas leapt back in: "And he proved his point. Taught everyone a lesson: Allow the federal government to steal your hard earned money or the president will sic the militia on you!"

"That's not-!"

Whatever the fuming man was about to say next was swallowed up by the noise of an announcement coming over the terminal speakers, announcing the last call for the flight to South Carolina. When had they missed the first calls? How long had they been arguing?

Conflict sprang into the frown that tugged at Alexander's mouth, and Thomas could see the mingled desire to keep fighting and arguing and the need to make his flight warring across his face. Finally he huffed, pulling a pen and a receipt from the pocket of his hoodie and scribbling something down.

Thomas stared dumbly at it for a moment when Alexander held it out to him. Absently, he noted that it was a receipt from the very coffee shop that'd started their debate, but that wasn't what held his attention.

No, he was focused solely on the phone number scrawled along the bottom, the name 'Alex' sloppily added beneath. He looked back up to ask what this was about, but Alexander was slinging his bag over his shoulder and pushing past him, almost running.

"Text me if you want to know even more reasons why you're wrong."

A couple people who'd been spectating their argument snickered, and Thomas felt his face heat up as he glared furiously at the man's retreating back.

Eventually the rest of the crowd dispersed, and he tore his eyes from the corner he'd watched Alexander bolt around several minutes before. It was ridiculous, arrogant. No, he certainly wouldn't give the man the satisfaction of a further fight. He crumpled the receipt, shoving it in his pocket when he heard his own flight being called, resigning to throw it away on the plane.

Ten hours, a hellish plane ride, and an immense hatred of jet-lag later, and Thomas found himself glaring at the crumpled receipt again, as though the numbers had personally offended him, which, he supposed, wasn't too far off. Surely Alexander wasn't so close minded as to not see the truth? He could-

No. He wasn't going to dignify the man with another fight.

Absolutely not.

...

Conversation: (new contact - Alexander)

I'm not wrong.

Thomas J.

Conversation: (Alexander)

Yes you are.

A. Ham

Conversation: (Alexander)

[ Alexander is typing ]

So there's chapter one! I'm actually quite proud of everything I have set up for this work so far, which... is saying something. I don't generally plan fics ahead.

As always, follows and favorites are greatly appreciated, and reviews give me actual life.