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How They Fell in Love

By the time she was 8, Jamie Elizabeth Anderson thought she knew what a crush was and thought she had a crush on the blue-eyed blonde from her third-grade class. By the time she was 12, she thought she had a boyfriend who said nice things to her and held her hand. By the time she was 16 she thought she knew what being in love was and thought she was in love with her boyfriend. By the time she was in college and pinning for an invitation to the farm, she'd thought she had finally figured it all out: love was a myth, no matter how well her parents played it off. The kind of crazy chemistry love young girls saw in movies was nothing more than a fairytale. After all, her parents acted a lot more like partners than a lovey dovey couple.

Jamie smiled wide and felt a warm and bubbly laugh in her lungs waiting to make another reappearance. "So are you a photographer, or do you work for a photographer?"

"I'm a freelance photographer who makes most of his paychecks from small companies that hire me and one of the people who plan the festival hired me to photograph some bands that are playing tomorrow. Today I was setting up tripods I'll use tomorrow." The two had somehow migrated over to a bar over the past few hours and were now happily nursing their second and third beers. "You know," he smiled, lifting his beer for another drink. "Like the one you toppled."

Jamie let out an over exaggerated sound of desperation and Ben laughed out in a way that sounded almost sweet to her ears. "I am so sorry about that," she said again, only partially serious knowing full well he was teasing her and she was more than happy to play along. "I am usually a lot more graceful with my footing."

"Ah, no worries," his smile was sincere. "What do you do?"

She perked right up. "I'm a flight attendant for a private airline." She watched him closely for a moment for any indication that the cover wasn't holding. "What about your family?"

He took another swig of his beer before speaking. "Mother, father died when I was a tot, three sisters, all older than me, one nephew and another on the way." Jamie was trying not to stare at his lips as he spoke but when the Australian native met eyes with her she knew she'd been caught. "And you?" he asked after a moment of heated silence.

"Well," she contemplated for a moment how much to share. She didn't have any reason to believe this young and handsome man was a threat to her. If she were lucky, he would spend one good night with this man and 24 hours from be somewhere in the middle of the ocean and never see that glorious body or hear that magnificent accent ever again. "Mom and dad both still alive and together, dad's blind, one older brother, a sister-in-law and two nieces and a nephew." Jamie watched him to see if he'd comment or question any of the information she'd just given him but he just nodded in acceptance.

"So, Ben," Jamie started much more quietly after a pause in their more questioning conversation. "Do you get girls to trip over your equipment…" the young woman regretted the words the instant she said them and a smirk lit up the young man's face. "...as a way of picking up dates often?"

He smiled again and Jamie felt the strangest sensation of swelling in her lungs. "I never said this was a date?" There was a twinkle in his eye. "Do you tell every poor man you trip over that you're a flight attendant so they don't come looking for you when you disappear the next day?"

She smiled but there was a pause in her train of thought. "Who told you I wasn't really a flight attendant?" The look in his eyes was unmistakable. Part of the young woman wanted to laugh that he had called her out on her bluff, but the other part of her felt her muscles stiffen.

"Well I've traveled once or twice and I never heard of an airline who doesn't put their young and beautiful attendants up in hotels," there was that damn twinkle again. "Especially in such a fantastic city."

She wanted to blush when the compliment slid so smoothly into his conversation but resisted the urge.

"I told you," she tried to keep up the charade. "I like to explore on my own." He eyed her suspiciously but the young operative was skilled at these games and never gave him even the faintest reason to not believe her lie. She was surprised at how easily he caught her bluff but even more so by the way she didn't feel any threat from him. In fact, she didn't feel any kind of pressure from him at all, and there was something undeniably natural and comfortable in their conversation. While borderline interrogative, their conversation was progressing so smoothly it was like she was sitting with Alex at a bar after a day at work.

"Ok," he started finally after she didn't waver. "I can pretend I believe you. Ever been married?"

She almost choked mid-swallow. "Married? Hell no. I'm not really a fan of the whole institution of long term relationships."

He made a face but didn't comment.

"You?" She returned the unexpected question. "Is there a Mrs. Ryan somewhere I should be dodging?"

"Not yet." He answered without hesitation. "But I am a fan of the idea." He was quiet for a moment. "Would it bother you if I asked why you don't like relationships?" With that the entire tone of the conversation took a sudden shift. It was as if the room went down by ten degrees. Jamie kept up her facade, her face never faltering, eye contact never braking as she simply slowly shrugged.

"In my experience relationships just make things much more complicated." His eyes were focused on her, and unlike her stationary expression, his entire body language did change.

"You don't believe in love?" It wasn't a question and for a moment the small sentence caught the young woman by such surprise, she finally dropped her eyes.

"I haven't had a relationship that ever made me want to believe in love," she finally stated. "In my experience, sex is much easier. It's fun and there's no strings attached and no need to worry about a man trying to change me into something I'm not after he gets fed up with my rules."

There was a silence then. The room kept on chattering, a mix of dialects and the rare foreign accent continuing on unaware of the cold chill that loomed over the table. Neither of the pair wanted to be the first to break the uncomfortable turn their conversation had taken and neither daring to look at the other for fear of what their eyes would reveal. In her pocket, Jamie's phone began to buzz but she only glanced at the message on the dimly lit screen for a second.

"I think I've overstayed my welcome," Ben finally spoke up as he started to stand. Something inside Jamie's chest pulled at her t stop him, to tell him to stay and not leave her so early. Despite the fact that when she had suggested they go out for drinks she had intended for them to end up in some bedsides that night, there was something else that made her want to call him back. But she didn't. Jamie Anderson watched as the handsome Benjamin Ryan stood, paid his bill, and after a gentlemanly goodbye, made his way out the door and into the street. She watched him leave and she felt the strangest ache deep in her chest she hadn't felt in a very long while.

Her phone buzzed again, and this time she answered.

"Where the hell are you?" His rough voice battered her ears. "I've been sitting here waiting for confirmation that you made it to the safe house and you won't even answer a text or call?"

"Sorry," she started low but he didn't let her get farther.

"Do you have any fucking idea what hour it is here? The hell, Jamie, I have a wife at home who is eight months pregnant and I can't be with her because I'm waiting to make sure you're safe or if I have to send out someone to come get you."

She did something spontaneously then.

"Hey Alex," finally he stopped his angry and fuming rant. She knew by the biting tone of his voice that he was angry and horribly sleep deprived. "I'm fine. Go home. I have something I need to do for myself. See if we can get another meet with Morrison and I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Ben!" He turned as soon as his name was called and when he saw her coming his way the unmistakable smile spread his handsome face.

"Something the matter?"

"I…" She opened her mouth to say something, but as she stared at his warm eyes and felt a blush warm her face the words sank down into her toes. He smiled at her, clearly feeling her distress and an anxious laugh escaped her mouth. "I'm sorry," she finally confessed. "I don't usually meet the kind of guys who ask about love and relationships before we even have a first date."

His smile brightened further and she felt her breath swell in her lungs. "Does this mean you're asking me on a date?"

Her smile was unmistakable. "If I were, could it be tonight? I do actually have to leave sometime within the next day or two."

He hesitated in an exaggerated display of thinking for a moment. "That all depends."

She resisted frowning. "Depends on what exactly?"

"I have a lot of strings."

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Five weeks later...

She felt the unmistakable urge to whistle. Every time she thought of those three long days she spent down under, all she could do was smile so wide her skin almost ached from the stretch and she tried to do whatever she could from giggling out loudly from the fluttering in her gut. It was such a strange and freakishly foreign sensation to the young woman, but it was exciting, energizing, exhilarating and she was absolutely, positively, without a doubt loving every single moment of it.

She'd been restless the entire way there. The 23 hours it took her to fly in two planes from D.C. to her final destination should have been long, hard, and tiring, but there was an intense energy radiating in her that made her want to smile the entire duration of her trip.

Three weeks. She was going to get three long and luxurious weeks carefree in the land down under with a man she couldn't ever find enough words to describe properly.

She knew it was reckless, and she knew too well this had a higher than average possibility of ending really bad for both parties involved, but somehow just thinking about that man she met five weeks ago and spent three hot days with made everything else just seem a little less important. The moment she knew she had an opportunity to take vacation time she booked the fastest flight to Australia she could before she even remembered to tell her superiors she was going overseas for three weeks. Three weeks with Ben.

She thought about the smooth and warm silkiness of his lips against hers the entire flight back. She reminisced over the feel of his skin and the way his muscles stretched and flexed over her as they rolled between positions in bed. She daydreamed of the sound of his moans and groans, pants and soft whimpers of adoration and sensual compliments the entire trek through the airport. Her mind swarmed with the way her body reacted to his, the way it felt, the way it warmed and the way she came for him so effortlessly like they were biologically made for one another as she passed through customs.

She was completely absorbed in every single memory she had of him, and she could barely give her surroundings enough attention as she focused on the idea of all the memories she was going to make in the next three weeks with Ben.

Her legs fidgeted the entire slow progression down the escalator, bright brown eyes scanning frantically through crowd for that one person who had plagued his mind like no one else ever could. Her heart was pounding, ears buzzing, blood simmering in her veins...she couldn't wait.

Suddenly her eyes caught the light brown of that too familiar head and that tall bronzed body she knew so well holding a sign with just a simple heart on it and waiting for her.

"Ben!" The instant she caught sight of him his name was shouted into the air like a proclamation of love, and almost instantly the tall man spun in his spot and upon finally connecting eyes with the petite woman, his entire face lit up with an unmistakable glow. Jamie didn't even think as she dashed through the crowd of arrivals all, bumping roughly through the crowd, dodging elbows and luggage, her attention fully focused on the beautiful man in front of her. Ben lowered the sign he had prepared and opened his arms, and not a second later the small brunette crashed powerfully into his arms.

"I thought you'd never..." He was halfway through his sentence when she crashed her lips into his. She melted all the emotion she had into the kiss and he was more than

"I missed you too," he chuckled while their lips still lingered against each other. Jamie let out a warm and happy laugh just before he pulled her back into him for another kiss, this time much softer and sweeter than before and when they finally parted from that kiss they were both so absorbed in each other there was a moment of hesitation and silence in which they both kept their eyes closed feeling the other's breath mix with their own, lips brushing just barely against each other as the took long and heavy breaths. It was like moment in a movie when everything around the main couple disappears; the world stops spinning for a moment, the people around them stop in their tracks like frozen dancers*, and everything went mute except for him and her.

Author's Note:

Hello again lovelies! First of all, I just want to say a BIG thank you to everyone who's been reviewing. I know that this fic barely even fits into a fanfiction and original characters are really hard to get taken seriously, so it really means a whole lot to me that anyone at all is reading about Jamie and Ben. (And even more so that you see glimpses and Annie and Auggie in there. The whole opening scene to chapter 2 just made me think of when Auggie went to Istanbul for that Jazz episode and got the flight attendant to basically being his eyes the whole time.)

Brief note: I'm doing some rearranging of chapter titles but not the actual titles so forgive the conflicting titles for right now. Also, sorry about flipping back and fourth between rating this T and M. Some people said its a high T rating, some said it should be M, who knows? I'll end up staying with M for safe keeping.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this bit here. Basically the whole focus of this chapter was how they fell in love. The next chapter may have one or two twists in the so far happy story.

Leave me love!

- Liz