It had been a perfect trip.

Or, at least… it should have felt that way.

Backpacking through Europe had always been one of El's major life goals, and it had finally happened. With a fresh Bachelor's degree in her pocket and a summer of waitressing tips stuffed into her savings account, she had finally done it. Over the course of the last two months, tick by tick, she had crossed off endless experiences on her bucket list. She'd let herself get lost in the London Tube for days, jumping off whenever the mood struck her, doing nothing more than wandering the back alley streets with wide eyes and adventure in her heart. She'd stood as close as she could to Stonehenge, gaping at the intensity of its mysterious history. She'd stumbled upon street buskers in Brussels, their music filling the air with sounds so sweet that they made her feet stop still and her eyes brim with tears. She'd stared out over countless miles of rural rolling hills from the windows of trains, pastoral fields in The Netherlands and sharp mountains in Switzerland, all filling with snow as the final weeks of her trip passed.

Yet, through all of this El had also found something else on her trip. Something that she hadn't been expecting or been prepared for…

Loneliness.

Absolute crippling loneliness.

It's not that she disliked people, not at all. She just didn't know how to approach them, or how to keep the conversation going alone from there. And it wasn't an issue that she'd dwelled on much before, for she actually really liked spending time with herself. She was good at being her own friend, laughing at her own jokes or writing them in her journal as she whiled away her hours. She liked to lose herself in easy music in her headphones as she wandered the streets, each song serving as a soundtrack to heighten what she saw. She liked to wrap herself in a good book at the end of the day, the fictional characters that she met feeling more like potential friends than anyone who passed her on the street.

Yet, those kinds of friendships had their limits, and this trip had laid those limits bare.

It seemed so silly now, but somehow she'd thought that she would just magically become a different person when she landed in Europe. She'd envisioned herself making fast friends with the girl in the bunk above her in whatever hostel she floated through. She fantasized about meeting locals on the trains who pointed her in the direction of hidden gems off the beaten path. She'd pictured chit chats with the cafe waitresses and new friends made easily at bar tops after long days of travel.

And in her deepest wishes, she'd pictured more. Much more. A handsome stranger, maybe traveling on the same path as her. Nights hand in hand walking the canals. Uncontrollable laughter as they ran through the streets. Heads on each other's shoulders as they rode the trains together through the countryside, their legs propped up on their oversized backpacks and their feet intertwined. Holding each other's gazes over candlelight and wine, her skin prickling with sensation and connection and the thrill of it all… Long languid kisses in the park that didn't need to be interrupted for anything in the world…

This was, however, not how her trip had ended up. Not. At. All.

Instead of making friends with the girl in the bunk above her, she'd watched week after week as other girls met each other in the hostel dorms. She marveled at the ease these girls had at becoming fast friends. She averted her eyes sadly as they casually began to plan their days together within a half hour of learning each other's names.

She tried to speak up but couldn't find a way as groups of strangers began to chat in the common rooms, and before she knew it they had run along to pubs or dinner in a mass of jovial laughs and handshakes, leaving her behind as though she hadn't been there at all. In every city, every time.

And handsome strangers? They'd been elusive, or she had been invisible.

After a few weeks El realized that if she was going to have any chance of making any connections at all, she was going to have to change. And she tried. She really did. Unfortunately though, it just became a nerve wracking exercise in making a fool of herself. Anytime she tried to strike up a conversation it fizzled, or worse, it would never take off at all.

As the weeks passed she found herself policing every word that she said, worrying that her thoughts weren't good enough and her stories weren't funny enough. Time and time again she tried and failed to connect with new people. Almost always they zipped off in their own direction and she was left with only herself and a growing sense of anxiety.

How was this easy for some people?

After a few more weeks, the seething loneliness had finally crept under her skin in a way that stuck. It was that issue that had finally made her call her Dad about a week back. Sure, her eyes had just bulged at the shockingly empty bank account staring back at her from the tablet screen, but she could have asked him for cash and he would have begrudgingly helped. Instead, she found herself asking for something different: a new ticket home. Two weeks early.

It was a humbling request that had left her terribly sad. The truth was, though, that she desperately wanted to see her Dad. She ached for her friends at home, too, the few that she had. She wanted to hug every single one of the people that she loved with an intensity that she had never felt before.

And now here, today, finally, she was only minutes away from beginning that final journey home.

Or… maybe not.

People were moving around her in every which way at the airline gate. Hurried feet were dashing to the attendant's desk with a sense that almost felt like a mob, yet El had no idea why. The screen had just shifted and, with an indecipherable speech through the PA speakers, her stomach dropped.

Something was happening. Something significant. Yet, El had no way of knowing what it was.

English had been a predominant language throughout most of her trip, but here in Italy it was a different story. And El, she was lost? Completely unclear as to what was happening.

She stared at the open jet bridge door and moaned. She was so close, but so far away.

Of course this was how it would turn out. Dead broke in a country where she didn't speak the language, completely out of food and money, and in desperate need to just get on the plane. Just one cramped red-eye economy flight with a middle seat in the very back row stood between her and Chicago, where a bit of time freeloading off her step-brother was in order for just a couple of days until her dad had the day off to come and pick her up.

Though Chicago itself was likely to be weird…

"Why Chicago? Can't I just fly back to Indianapolis?"

"Kid, if we fly you into Chicago and I come get you Sunday it'll be $600 cheaper. Just stay with Will for a night."

Who was she to argue with the man who was willing to shell out the money for her to get home? Yet the truth was she hardly knew her step-brother. She'd only met Will twice. Once at Christmas for three hours the year before and once at her their parent's wedding just before she'd left for her trip in Mid-October. He was nice enough. At least she could have a conversation with him… maybe… unlike anyone on this continent.

Until then, though, all she had left to eat were two measly granola bars in her backpack and nothing more.

Oh, and the chocolates.

She was NOT about to break into those. They were a treat for home. Scooped up in Paris on a very decadent day one week before, right before she realized that she'd spent almost every dime that she had. They were something special to savor. A memento to help her remember her favorite parts of the trip. She refused to eat them like an ravenous animal on the scratchy carpet of a foreign airport while trying to discern if she was ever going to be able to leave at all.

Yet, she feared that being trapped in the Rome airport might be her destiny, for if she could decipher the body language from the people around her, something was most definitely wrong.

El cringed and drew breath, her voice shaking nervously as it uttered the only Italian that she knew to the person closest to her.

"M- mi scusi? Parli Ingles?"

A middle aged woman looked up from her seat, but her foul expression seemed to scream a silent 'no', her nose upturned as though El was butchering the beauty of the Italian language with her horrendous accent.

Which honestly? She was.

Wincing, El hiked her backpack higher up onto her back and moved closer to the long line that had formed at the gate desk. She paced the edge, her voice at the tip of her tongue, but over and over she stopped herself from asking anyone for help, too nervous and sensing a lack of welcome from each of the frustrated faces that made up the line.

All the while, the line seemed to grow shockingly longer as a voice spoke in quick Italian over a crackly intercom. She bit back a nervous growl as she continued to walk toward the back, her eyes searching each face for a sense of something that could make her feel comfortable enough to try her horrible Italian again.

That's when she heard it.

"Do you need help?"

El looked up in surprise as an American accent fell upon her ear from just close enough that she thought maybe it was addressing her. Sure enough, two people back in line stood a tall guy about her age, imploring her curiously.

Black hair, rakishly swept. Pale skin, brushed with freckles. Dark eyes, kind…

"Yes!" she sighed, the word coming from her lips with an odd sense of relief. She trotted down the line about just a bit, looking up to him as she reached him. "Do you um… Do you speak Italian?"

"Um, yeah?" The young man scratched his neck, his eyes darting from the front of the line to her and back again, "I mean, enough to figure out what's going on, I guess."

"Oh! Oh, that's great," El breathed a sigh of relief, "Could you tell me what's going on? I um… I have no idea."

The attendant's voice came over the PA once again and the man looked up to listen. Her words were just as undecipherable to El as they had been the last three times.

Mike grimaced as he looked back down at El, "Well, she's definitely saying that our flight is cancelled,"

"Really?" El cringed.

"Yeah, she's telling everyone to get in this line for rebooking," his hand fumbled on his luggage handle, "Yeah, I'm sorry."

El cursed under her breath. Her stomach growled in anger and her heart dropped nervously. "Okay, well, thank you," she looked at her feet as she hiked her backpack higher up onto her shoulders, "I'll just uh… go to the back of the line, then. Thanks."

"Oh," A sense of surprise laced his voice in a way that made El look back up. He looked toward the end of the long line and then back to her. He was hesitant for a moment before he smiled in an unexpected way. Sheepish. Almost shy…"Do you uh… want to cut here?"

El let out a quiet gasp, "You'll let me cut the line?"

"Yeah! I mean uh, sure!"

El's face lit up brighter than it had in days.

The man wrenched his duffle bag from the ground and stacked it on his suitcase in a hasty fashion to make space for her to stand. El caught a gloriously dirty look from the woman standing behind her new savior, but she tried not to pay attention.

"Thank you so much," she said intently as she stepped into place beside him in the line, "I really appreciate it."

"Oh, yeah. I mean um… no problem. Sure," he stuttered. He gave her a nervous smile once again.

And she returned one, just as nervous. Just as hesitant.

And then… things fell silent.

It was almost instant, the all too familiar creeping insecurity that crawled up her spine. It had become her constant companion over the past couple of months, popping into her mind any time that she found herself in a situation such as this. El chewed on her lip as her fingers shuffled her backpack strap. She watched the man's fingers fumble again against the handle of his silver roller bag.

Her mind replayed all of the ways in which this conversation could die an awkwardly agonizing death.

…But something in her didn't want that, not at all…

"I'm um… I'm El, by the way!" Her voice jumped in pitch as she held out her hand to him with an intense jut.

The young man looked back down to her, blinking fast. "I'm uh… I'm Mike," he took her hand. His grip felt warm, firm, safe. "Nice to meet you."

"You too," she said gratefully.

Mike smiled softly, looking her up and down before he dropped her hand, "So you uh… how did you like Italy? Unless I mean, you caught a connection here? Maybe you didn't travel through Italy at all. That was presumptuous. Sorry, I didn't mean to assume. I just, you know, you're here and you - you have this backpack and — "

It was curious, the way that Mike began to ramble. His words seemed to come faster than his thoughts, each phrase seeming to require his constant revision.

He seemed… nervous.

Just like her…

The similarity served to put El just a bit at ease, and she was surprised to hear an easy laugh come from her mouth. "No, I was here in Italy, you were right," she reassured him, "I've been traveling through Europe for the last couple of months. Just got to Rome a couple of days ago."

"Oh, cool! Right, that's cool." He ran his fingers through his hair and looked away for a split second before he looked back, "Have you uh - been traveling alone this whole time?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. That's… that's really cool."

"Thanks," El felt a soft blush rise in her cheeks. She swallowed it down. "What were you here for? In Rome?"

Mike seemed to avert his eyes at the question, "Oh, I uh, I was here for, well, I guess you could say I was here for school."

"Oh, that's cool! What do you study?"

Look at her! She was doing it! She was making small talk! And weirdly, this time, it didn't feel that hard!

"Well," Mike replied, pausing for a moment before this worse spun back up, "It's a long story. I was here for this program that was a semester long, but I could apply it to an Applied Sciences Master's degree if, you know, if I wanted to?" he shrugged, "I got my bachelor's in English but I can't do much with that, obviously, so I thought I'd try to go after the other thing I'm good at."

"How did you like the school?"

"It was… I don't know," he said, scratching the back of his neck again, "Big decision, I guess? You know, relocating from Chicago to Rome. It's been," he ventured a glance at her before his eyes dropped back onto the line in front of him. Only then did he finish his sentence, "Going to school where you don't know anyone and you don't speak the language can make for a lot of… well, a lot of nights alone."

The words made El freeze for a split second. She looked up, wide eyed. And after a moment, Mike looked back, "I get it," El said, her voice evening out to something more natural, more real, than before, "Traveling alone has been the same."

It was odd, the sense that traced through her as she said it so plainly, but it was comforting to admit it, however vaguely. And Mike seemed to understand, and this time he hadn't looked away. It was slightly disarming to look at him in such a way, straight on for the first time. She tried not to focus on the fact that he had beautiful eyes… deep and brown… like a warm blanket to fall into on a cold winter's day…

"Where else were you?" Mike blurted suddenly, his voice loud, "Other than, you know… here? Um," He shook his head in a sudden movement and let out a tight laugh, "Rome. Sorry, I forgot where I was for a second."

"It's okay, I don't think I've been sure of where I've been for at least a month," El said with a laugh, and then, so easily that she could have been talking to an old friend, she found herself speaking. Over the course of the next twenty minutes El shared some of the highlights of her trip with this stranger named Mike. She told him about beautiful cities of Europe, and the sometimes harrowing disgust of the hostels. She mentioned the one too many loaves of bread that she'd eaten and wasteful emptiness of her bank account.

Mike seemed interested in what she had to say, too, which felt so very nice. He asked questions more and more as she continued. He seemed curious about what it was like to live out of a backpack, and how she had planned the entire trip. Together they shuffled forward through the line as they talked, and much faster than either of them had anticipated, they had made it to front of the line.

"Passaporto e biglietto?"

El jumped in surprise as the voice of the attendant sounded off behind her ear. "Oh!" El gasped, whipping around. She pulled her passport out of her backpack and handed it to the woman.

"Biglietto?" the woman repeated, her eyes dull and annoyed.

"I - "

"She wants your ticket," Mike offered helpfully behind her.

"Oh!" El exclaimed, digging it out of her bag, her face turning red as she did so, "Sorry. Here you go."

"Parli italiano?" the woman asked. El shook her head. The woman then turned to Mike.

"State viaggiando insieme?" she asked him.

"Um…" he replied, his eyes going wide. "Uh… si?"

The gate attendant held her hand out for his papers, which he handed over. The woman nodded and began to rattle off a whole host of words that El never in a million years would have understood, but it seemed that Mike was taking care of the situation for her as well as for himself. The attendant continued to ask questions as she looked over both El and Mike's passports.

This American man with broken yet ever so slightly manageable Italian was arranging her rescheduling for her, and oddly, she found herself trusting him to do it. She clearly needed more sleep and she definitely needed to eat, because that decision on her part was absolutely insane. His Italian seemed middling at best, judging by the creases in his eyebrows whenever the woman sped through a new set of words, and the two word replies that he kept giving her seemed too minimal for the topic at hand. Yet, it seemed to have worked, because before she knew it the machine behind the counter was making loud printing noises and El had her passport back in her hand.

"Um… so, what just happened?" she asked in a whisper as they stepped away from the gate.

"Um…" Mike eyes were glued intently to his new paperwork. "So, there's a malfunction with the plane, I think? But there's a storm rolling in and they won't get it fixed in time. So it's cancelled for the night."

"Shit…" El breathed. Her stomach growled in protest and with it little bit of fear slipped in, "I - "

"No, it's okay!" Mike cut in with a reassuring manner. He leaned in close to her and pointed to the bottom half of her paperwork with lean fingers. "Yeah, see? Since it was a plane malfunction they have to legally put everyone up in a hotel. And then the flight is scheduled for 11am tomorrow morning."

A little bit of El's panic wore off at Mike's explanation, but only a little. El bit her lip as she tried to decipher the paperwork in her hands, "So, are we just supposed to… walk to this hotel?"

"I mean, I… I didn't catch that part, shit," Mike turned back around to the desk but the woman was already helping someone else. She refused to give him another glance. He worried his lip and raked his fingers through his hair, "Would you um… Would you be open to sharing a cab, maybe? We're at the same hotel."

"I mean, technically?" El sighed, "But I can't."

That got a look of surprise from Mike, "What do you mean you can't?"

"I can't afford it." she conceded, "I'm uh… my money ran out yesterday so I'm kind of screwed until I get back to Chicago."

"Oh, shit. Well, hey. It's no worry. I'll get the cab. No big deal."

El looked up in an instant, unable to hide her shock, "I uh… I really don't want to freeload."

"Please, it's fine," he waved off her worry with a sweep of his hand, "I'd have to get a cab anyway. You'll uh… you can just be my stowaway."

The laugh that emitted from El's lips was unexpected and high pitched, and it took both of them by surprise. The tiniest nervous flush bit at her cheeks, but this time it felt almost… welcome. "Okay, I'll be your stowaway. Thank you. Really, you're saving me today."

She wouldn't have admitted it then, but the smile that Mike gave her when she thanked him made it all worth it…

"Okay," he said with a hurried stutter, looking away in an instant, his eyes scanning the signs, "I think this is the way to the taxi line."

And just like that, after two whole months, in the literal last moments of her trip, El Hopper had finally found herself embarking on an adventure with someone other than herself.

And this stranger? He was… so. painfully. cute.

El bit back another smile as she followed Mike out of the airport.

What the hell had Mike gotten himself into?!

He looked at the papers in his hands once again as the cab pulled up to a nondescript building on the very edge of the city in a business park with literally nothing else around. He hoped against all hope that he had gotten even a shred of this correct, but his anxiety was getting the better of him.

Everything about the last three months had gone wrong, of course this had to go wrong, too. Right?

Honestly though, he really didn't want to think about that.

He didn't want to think about almost flunking out of the certificate program. He didn't want to think about the fact that the basic white walls of the classrooms and his dorm room were the main extent of what he had seen of Rome. He didn't want to think about the existential crisis that was brewing within him about his future, this whole trip seeming to do nothing for him other than tell him what he didn't want to do.

If he was honest with himself, he'd only wanted to think about one thing for the last two hours…

and that was the girl who was now sitting next to him in the cab.

He'd noticed her about an hour before he'd learned that her name was El. He'd not been able to take his eyes off of her from the second that he spotted her, even though he'd tried because, well, he didn't want to be a creep. But still, he had become transfixed by her as she read a well worn paperback, her legs curled up below her in her seat, her hair laid out in soft messy braids on either side of her head, tied off with elastics that didn't match, her delicate fingers turning the pages and twisting the strings of her cozy looking light blue hoodie.

She looked serene, easy going, free. There was something about her that seemed to… wake him up.

And given that Mike had felt like he'd been asleep for at least the last month? That sensation was jarring.

Yet he'd never expected to find himself here, alone next to her in the back of a cab, serving as her Italian guide. When he'd seen her pacing down the line, though, a panicked expression on her face, something within him had just jumped, blurting out to her before he could even think.

God, he hoped he was actually helping and not making her travel infinitely worse.

He looked down again, for what felt like the twentieth time, to the papers in his hands. Sure enough, he was able to confirm yet again the address of the hotel and the time of the newly scheduled flight the next day. Hers had looked almost identical, so he tried to take that as a solace that he had done well. Or at least, well enough. For, other than the fact that he'd been able to secure a hotel and new flights, he truly had not known a single other word that the flight attendant had said.

God, he hoped he hadn't missed anything.

Because it wasn't just him who he was responsible for, it was now also her. This gorgeous girl who was trusting him with her arrangements for the entire rest of her trip home.

At least he could get a breather soon. Within twenty minutes he could shut the door on his hotel room and let out the longest nervous sigh. Until then, though, he had to put on a knowing face.

The cab pulled up to the curb just as rain began to patter the windshield from the late afternoon sky. Mike jumped out, and El followed from the other side. The cabby quickly pulled out their bags without a word and tossed them on the ground before peeling away at the speed of light.

"Friendly service…" El grimaced under her breath as she lugged her huge backpack up off of the ground.

Mike snickered as he pulled out the handle of his roller bag and lifted his duffel to his shoulder, "Guess he didn't like Americans?"

"I mean, can you blame him? Americans are awful," El said with wry amusement as she hiked her backpack up on her back and began to walk toward the hotel.

"Two dumb American college kids?" Mike said, deadpan, "The worst."

El laughed in reply and Mike almost stopped in his tracks. It had happened three times now. Three times that he had heard her laugh. Each one had sent a shot of endorphins up his spine that made him dizzy like a madman.

Maybe it was just a lack of practice lately. He honestly couldn't remember having a conversation with even a remotely pretty girl once during his entire three month program.

'Out of practice' was generous, though. Mike knew himself knew better than that… A girl like El was always going to knock him sideways.

He tried not to stare at her she led the way through the double doors.

The line in the nondescript hotel lobby was not too terribly long, but it was significant, and dotted with familiar faces from the line at the airport. It began to move fast, though, and before they knew it, Mike and El were next in line.

"Hey, really um… thank you for your help today," El said, breaking a short silence that had stretched longer than Mike had wanted. "I don't know what I would've done without you."

"Yeah, of course. I mean, anytime."

"I'll be sure to call you the next time I need an Italian guide," she said with a sly smile.

Oh how Mike wished that could be true. Something in him begged him to pick up the breadcrumb and offer his number, but it just felt so weird given the circumstances. The bravery died on his tongue.

He was saved when the hotel attendant waved him forward.

"Hi," he said, handing her his papers.

To his relief, this woman spoke English. She looked over the paperwork he had been given at the airport and nodded, pulling out two key cards and slipping them into a thin paper sheath. "For Wheeler and Hopper," she said casually as she handed them over, "Room 353. Elevator is on the left."

"Thanks," Mike said, taking the key before freezing in confusion. "Wait. Did you say Wheeler and - "

"-Hopper?" El's voice perked up behind him, finishing his sentence. She addressed the hotel attendant directly. "Does he have… my key too, then?"

The attendant looked between Mike and El with confusion for a moment. "Yes, I should hope so, as it's for the same room?"

"What?!"

"Oh…hmm…" the attendant said, looking back at the paperwork, "Yes, it's stated right here from the airline," she held up a printed rubric of room numbers and names and pointed to the middle of the page, "Michael Wheeler and Jane Eleanor Hopper?"

"Yes…" their voices echoed in union.

"Yes," the attendant repeated, her voice returning to cheerful helpfulness, "Yes. You're booked into the same room."

Hello! I always say I won't do this and start another fic, and then I always do it. But when a girl sees a headline that reads "Airline Books Strangers in Same Room With Single Bed" I just CANT HELP MYSELF! This one will go fast and will come out to only 3-4 chapters. My other fics are all also hard at work and new chapters of one of those should be coming in the next week. Let me know your thoughts on this one!