Dedicated to the beautiful Anastasia, after whom the lovely girl in this story is named.

(For the record, I don't speak French and used mostly Google Translate to get these phrases. If you have corrections for me, kindly leave them in the comments so I can fix it. Thank you!)

Enjoy.

-

Luke Hemmings is something of a cliché.

He doesn't want to be a cliché. He doesn't want to be that blond haired, blue eyed guy, but unfortunately, that really wasn't his choice.

But the worst part is, even with the stuff he can control, he's starting to look a little bit cookie cutter. He's a year eleven student with decent grades, a habit for hanging around town with his friend Calum, and not enough tanktops to rotate throughout a week. He wears flip flops and sunglasses and he hates feeling like he's living out a life he's seen someone else go through. He feels like every blond haired, blue eyed protagonist that ever existed.

He hates it.

So when the opportunity comes around for him to travel to another country and research, well. He's not going to pass that up, is he?

He kisses him mum goodbye, says bye to his mates, throws everything he thinks he'll need for the next two months into a suitcase and a backpack and gets onto a plane. And when the plane's wheels leave the ground, Luke feels like he's finally getting unstuck, like he's getting peeled off his mundane boring life and actually going somewhere.

-

America, Luke decides, is hell disguised as heaven.

It's got good tasting things dripping in oil and signs that are flashing bright enough to blind a man and too many people speaking too many languages and it smells like a million different things at once and Luke just wants to breathe it all in because he's finally somewhere new.

A tourism brochure was shoved into his hand the second he walked out of the terminal and now he's standing in the pleasant warmth on the sidewalk right outside of LAX, cringing as he goes through the tourism section. He's already promised himself he's never ever going to buy anything with a palm tree on it. He doesn't want to bash on the culture, but also, he doesn't want to sink into it, either. He didn't extract himself from Australia just to get stuck in America.

Besides, he's not here to tour. He's here to research.

He finds a taxi (which are surprisingly sparse; after seeing photos of New York, he'd assumed all of America looked like that, but apparently not) and manages to navigate his way to his school. He grits his teeth when his taxi driver asks him about shrimp on the barby after detecting his accent; another cutting reminder that he's just a cliché, this time an Australian. He ignores the jibe, grabs his suitcase, and slings his backpack over his shoulder, walking out into the warm California sunshine.

The school's not exactly what he was expecting, which is a relief; he's done with his expectations being met. He almost wishes he didn't have expectations just so that he could feel satisfied for once. Because there's something disappointing about expectations being met; satisfaction comes from having expectations exceeded.

"Hey there!"

Luke jumps, startled, and promptly drops his suitcase. Great, he thinks, moaning internally. Be a klutz.

He scrambles to recover his bag and looks to the source of the greeting that caused him to lose his bearings. Standing beside him on the gravel path to the school is a small girl with long brown hair and big green eyes. She has wild streaks of color in her hair; green and blue and pink and orange. Her skinny arms are littered with tattoos, and her fingers glitter with rings.

She smiles, and he notices there's a shiny lip ring perched on her lip. "What's your name?" she asks, cocking her head to the side, looking vaguely like a puppy. A puppy with a plethora of hair colors, tattoos, and jewelry.

"Luke," he says, and she grins wider.

"I'm Alexia," she says, tucking her hair behind her ear, and wow she's got a ton of piercings on her ear.

Luke thinks he likes her already. She's just so... so different from what he was expecting, from what he's used to. She's refreshing, that's what she is, and Luke's been in a desert for what feels like all of his life.

"Do you know who your roommate is?" Alexia asks as they walk towards the school.

Luke shrugs. "Some guy named Michael Clifford."

Alexia's eyes light up, and a delighted peal of laughter escapes her dark red lips. "That's my cousin!" she says, and Luke thinks that he could get an electric shock from the amount of energy radiating off of her. "He's coming in later today, because his flight got delayed. At least, that's what he said. Personally, I think he fucked around and got another piercing and missed his flight and had to catch another. He has been talking about an eyebrow piercing."

If Michael is anything like Alexia, Luke decides he's going to love his roommate.

"What building are you in?" Alexia suddenly asks, and that's when Luke realizes that they were nearly at the dorm buildings.

Luke shoves his hand into the pocket of his shorts and digs out his crumpled schedule. "Er, Building A," he says, peering at the paper, and Alexia swears under her breath.

"Building C," she says when he raises an eyebrow at her. "I was hoping I'd be in the same building as Michael, but of course not. Stupid co-ed dorm rules." She sighs and flips her hair over her shoulder in a blur of color. The strong smell of pomegranates crashes over Luke like a wave, and he inhales it, soaks it in like he needs it to breathe, and it feels like the first breath he's taken properly in ages.

"It's close enough," Luke says. "Just across the way."

Alexia wrinkles her nose and says, "I suppose. Well, this is where we split. I expect I'll be seeing a lot of you. Don't forget my name, but don't be offended if I forget yours. I'm not good with people. I called Michael 'Matthew' for the first two months. I might call you Lorenzo or something. Anyways, toodles!"

Luke hates the word toodles, but when Alexia says it and waggles her fingers, he considers changing his mind.

He locates his room and finds it empty. There are two beds, each with their own nightstand, a closet and a dresser. The blinds are drawn, and when Luke flips on the light, the lamps give the room a homey orange glow.

Luke claims the left bed by flopping down onto it, arms and legs spread out. A little laugh bubbles past his lips, and he grins up at the ceiling stupidly.

He's so in love with everything. The dingy carpet, the bedspread, which is a disgusting yellow color, the pillows, which look hard enough to use as chopping boards, and the sound of other boys in the dorm yelling and bumping into things, slamming against walls. He loves that California has really great weather and that everything looks ridiculously fake and that people like Alexia, a girl with fifteen colors in her hair and skin covered in tattoos and piercings, can come to a university and research.

He's in love with his new lifestyle.

He calls his mum, and then Calum, and he's just hung up when his door bursts open and someone shouts, "I'VE ARRIVED."

Stupidly, a giant smile spreads across Luke's face, and he sees who he presumes to be Michael grin back at him. "Well look at you, my roomie!" the boy says, and Luke's surprised to hear a familiar twang to his words.

"You're an Aussie?"

Michael grins. "Is it obvious, mate? You want some shrimp on the barby? Let's go ride a kangaroo and play with our boomerangs and hug koalas."

Luke rolls his eyes. "Gross."

"I'm glad we're on the same wavelength," Michael says, jumping onto his bed and studying Luke, his head cocking to the side the same way Alexia's had earlier. "I'm Michael, by the way."

"I know," Luke says, and Michael raises a (pierced) eyebrow at him.

"Oh did you?" he asks, and Luke notices his hair. It's a bright, unnatural red, but it suits Michael brilliantly.

"Yeah, it's on our rooming assignments," Luke says, barely stifling a smile as he holds up the wrinkled piece of paper.

Michael scoffs, scratching one tattooed arm. He and Alexia are definitely related. "You actually read that?"

Luke just wants to absorb Michael's carefree attitude. If he can go back home just a little more like Michael, he'll consider the trip a success.

It doesn't even have to be more like Michael. Just... less like himself.

Michael glances over Luke and huffs. "Blank slate."

"Huh?"

"Completely blank. No piercings, no tattoos, nothing. I hope you're not planning on staying that way."

Luke shakes his head. "God, no. I hope I don't."

Michael grins. "Hell yes. I love you already."

Their door bursts open, and Alexia stands there. "Michael," she says, eyes sparkling again. "My roommate is killer. You have to come meet her."

"So's mine. This is--"

"Luke, I know, we already met, you're late, idiot," Alexia interrupts, grinning at Luke. "Bienvenue, etcetera, etcetera. Enjoy putting up with my cousin for a roommate."

Luke gives her a blank look, and Michael cackles, "Hey, doofus, not everyone is bilingual, can you translate?"

"Bienvenue means welcome," Alexia supplies. "Now come on, we have a roommate of mine to meet."

And that's how Luke finds himself running through a building, dodging flying footballs and ducking under freshly installed pull up bars out into a girl's dorm, where the air smells like seventy different perfumes cooked into a concoction so overwhelming it's almost noxious. But Luke eagerly soaks it in because he's been dying for this, for something new and different.

Alexia practically squeals as she opens her door.

Their room isn't very different from Luke and Michael's; the only notable difference is that their blankets are red and not yellow (which, honestly, Luke is incredibly butthurt about).

And then Luke sees her, and he swears he's never seen anyone like her.

She's got long blonde hair and big eyes that he can't look away from and a smile that could give Mona Lisa a run for her money and god she's just kind of perfect. Luke thinks he could write songs about just the color of her hair, and another about her eyes.

"This is Anastasia," Alexia chirps. "Anastasia, this is Luke, and that's my cousin Michael, his roommate."

"Way to introduce me second, Lex," Michael grumbles, but puts on a smile and goes to shake Anastasia's hand. "Hey."

"Hi," she says, and then smiles at Luke. "Hi, Luke."

Luke thinks he makes some kind of noise but he can't be entirely sure. He's just completely mesmerized and he wishes he had words to describe her but she's just something beyond words.

But at the same time, he feels like he needs to shake himself out of this weird reverie that he's in because he refuses to be a cliché, and this whole "love at first sight" business is revoltingly stereotypical.

"Alexia, we have so many blank canvases," Mikey says, looking between Luke and Anastasia, shaking his head.

Alexia grins. "I like that."

-

Luke is 99% sure that his mum is going to absolutely murder him when he gets home.

His tongue runs over his new lip ring for what must be the millionth time that day. Alexia is surprisingly skilled at piercing; it was practically painless, aside from the rod going through his lip. But an ice pack later, Luke was good to go.

Michael actually teared up when Luke emerged from Alexia's room sporting the metal ring. "I'm so proud of you," he said, throwing his arms around Luke and pulling him into a crushing hug.

As great as Michael and Alexia are, Luke finds himself the most wrapped up in Anastasia. Because despite looking the most plain out of Luke's three new acquaintances, her mind is the most incredible thing Luke has ever experienced.

Often, after a long day of peering into microscopes and working centrifuges and hot baths for test tubes, Luke and Anastasia found a place somewhere on the lawn under the endless California sky, and he listened to Anastasia talk.

She could talk about anything and everything and make it sound interesting. Luke never thought he'd care much about seasons changing, but he was riveted by every word Anastasia said. She just had a way with words. She made everything sound like magic, like he was hearing things for the first time.

"What do you think about fate?" Luke asks one night as they watch the stars make their way across the dark velvet night sky.

Anastasia shrugs, her hair turned silver in the moonlight. "I don't think about fate much at all, because I really don't think I have to," she says. "If fate is actually a controlling force in our life... I guess I just have to let it do it's thing, huh?"

"I guess so," Luke says. "What about, like, destiny?"

"Destiny?"

Luke nods as best as he can while lying down. "Destiny. Do you believe in that?"

"Well, I happen to have a friend named Destiny," Anastasia teases, and Luke bumps his shoulder against hers, and they laugh for a while, their sides pressed together. Luke wonders vaguely if she can feel the electricity he feels running through him. He's so overwhelmed by her presence. There's not enough of him to soak up all that she has to offer.

Anastasia sighs and looks straight up into the sky. "Destiny exists," she says finally, closing her eyes. "So fate does too, I guess. But destiny is like, the lord of fate. Fate can figure out the journey, but destiny is the destination. So regardless of what fate does, it ends up bending to destiny's will anyways."

"I think this was fate."

Anastasia opens her eyes and looks at Luke. "What's fate? You coming to California?" she asks.

He shakes his head a little bit and closes his eyes. He can feel grass tickling his ear, but he doesn't want to move and ruin the moment he's in. "All of this."

"Whenever you come up for a definition for 'all of this,' do me a favor and let me know."

-

He's gotten a tattoo, but not where anyone would notice. It was risky, sneaking off campus and finding a ride into the college town, and it was even riskier slipping into the sketchy tattoo parlor and getting an actual tattoo.

Michael is suave about it, chuckling when Luke jumped at every noise. "Don't worry too much, man," Michael says, grinning. "We're gonna be okay."

And now Luke has a tiny inscription on his ankle, and while it isn't exactly a drunken tattoo, it kind of is. He's high on life; another cliché, but God it is so much better than the old cliché. He likes doing things the old him back in Australia never would have done. He likes getting his lip pierced and sneaking drinks with Michael. He likes getting little tattoos inspired by moonlight talks with pretty girls.

Anastasia, of course, notices the tattoo right away. She's ridiculously observant; he doesn't know how she hasn't picked up his enormous crush on her.

Or maybe she has, and she's just staying quiet about it.

She reads the tattoo and smiles a little bit. "Alexia been teaching you French?" is all she says about it, so Luke figures that it wasn't a horrible choice. At least she didn't raise any eyebrows.

Alexia catches a glimpse of his tattoo and gives him a toothy grin. "Il est un superbe tatouage," she says, and Luke just smiles and hopes that it means something good.

"Oui," he mumbles, and Alexia grins widely.

"Votre français amélioré," she says with an impressed smile, and Luke shrugs. Something about his French. He doesn't understand what Alexia says half the time, but he likes that about her. He never really knows what's going on, and that keeps things interesting.

"Luke est en amour avec moi," Anastasia comments lazily, and Alexia giggles.

"Oui, oui. Désespérément," Alexia says, seeming to agree with Anastasia, and Michael rolls his eyes.

"We're in California, not France, so if you could kindly speak the language of Americans, that'd be great," Michael drawls, and Alexia throws a pillow at him.

"You're not even American," Alexia says, and Michael shrugs, taking a swig of beer. Luke doesn't exactly know where Michael gets all the beer, but he's grateful for it. After a lifetime of apple juice and maybe a fizzy here and there, beer is exciting, beer's new. It's the solvent that's unsticking the glue that holds him into his cookie cutter life. He loves it.

He's also drunk texted Calum a few times, which Calum thinks is hilarious, because Luke's drunk texts are all about malfunctioning lab equipment and Anastasia and fate and destiny and occasionally, turtles.

Luke realizes one night, as he's opening his second bottle of beer, how different he is from his old self. The old Luke wouldn't have gotten a lip piercing or had beers or stayed out until two in the morning talking with a girl about the implications behind human charity.

And the old Luke definitely wouldn't have tried speaking French half as much as he tries now.

-

The last week of their stay at the university creeps up faster than he realized, because one day he comes back to his dorm room to find a move out notice taped to the door.

And he realizes he still hasn't said anything to Anastasia. Nothing.

Still, he doesn't say anything, even as they lay there on their last night, sides pressed together, a gentle breeze whispering in the background of their conversation.

It's approaching one in the morning when Luke says, "What do you think about love?"

Anastasia looks him straight in the eye and says, "What do you think about it?"

Luke shrugs, suddenly nervous. He feels like he's on fire; he's hot and burning but he's also paralyzed, nervousness making him jumpy but also freezing him with terror. He's locked in a silent war with himself for a while until he finally manages, "I think a lot about it."

Anastasia sits up, and Luke follows suit. "What about it?" she asks again.

Luke purses his lips and thinks for a moment. "I think love is one of those abstract concepts that we as people have to put into the concrete," he says, brushing his fingers through his hair. "Like, I don't know love aside from the physical, even though love itself is a purely mental abstraction."

"What do you mean by that?"

Luke takes a deep breath, and he kind of wishes he has a drink because it'd be so much less nerve wracking if he was slightly tipsy, but he knows he needs to do this sober. "I mean, like, when you feel your heart beat faster, or when your chest gets tight or your stomach gets all tense and nervous and when your palms sweat and you can just feel the love. Or like, a hug," he finishes lamely, unsure where to go.

"Or like a kiss?" Anastasia asks, and Luke thinks oh my god she's giving me an opening.

Luke hesitates, though, his tongue toying with his lip ring, and she chuckles, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "S'il vous plaît embrassez-moi," she whispers, leaning close and Luke knows enough French for that one.

And when they kiss, Luke feels everything he was looking for the moment he decided that he was coming to California.

-

Luke doesn't get Anastasia's number, nor her email. He does, however, get Michael's; turns out Michael only lived a few cities over. They met up a few times, Calum tagging along because he was curious, and they all got along swimmingly. While Luke was gone, Calum made friends with a guy named Ashton, and before Luke knows what's happened, a year has passed and the four of them are touring the world and playing shows because he's suddenly in a band.

And yeah, old Luke wouldn't have done that. Old Luke would have been scared to sing in front of anyone.

They come out with an album, and Luke couldn't be more proud of it.

And if a few songs are about a certain blonde, nobody needs to know.

One day, they're backstage, and Michael casually comments, "Alexia's coming to the show tonight."

Luke's heart jumps, because Alexia reminds him of Anastasia. Also because Alexia herself is amazing, but mostly because of Anastasia.

He rubs his ankle subconsciously, running his fingers over the tattoo. Amour de minuit. "She should come backstage," he says, and Michael nods.

"Even if we didn't let her back here, she'd find a way. You know she's studying to be a lawyer?"

"Really?" Luke asks, and giggles a bit at the idea of Alexia being a lawyer. Although the image of a tattooed, piercing-covered girl with rainbow colored hair in a suit standing at the front of a courtroom seems like it should be wrong, it fits her perfectly. "I'm hiring her if I get into any legal trouble."

Michael laughs, and then it's showtime, and they're out to play in front of thousands of screaming fans.

After the show, a familiar voice screams, "LUKE!" and suddenly he's being barreled into, and he laughs, wrapping his arms around tiny little Alexia. He's gotten taller since he last saw her, while she hasn't changed a bit, besides a few additions to her arm art and a few adjustments to her hair color.

"Je ne vous ai pas vu depuis une éternité," she says, reaching up to pat his cheek and smiling. "How are you?"

"I'm good, fantastic, actually," Luke says, beaming down at her.

"Hi, I'm Calum," Cal says, and Alexia's eyes widen.

"See, Michael told me his bandmates were hot, but he never said how great they looked up close," she says, winking at Mikey before going to sit next to Calum on the couch, the two of them beginning to chatter immediately.

It takes a few minutes for Luke to get Alexia to pay attention to him long enough for him to ask about Anastasia.

Alexia shakes her head, looking sad. "She never gave me her number after that summer a year ago," she says. "I wish I'd gotten it, but I haven't heard from her since the last day of university research. I'm guessing you haven't either?"

"Nope."

At least Alexia knows she's real. Sometimes Luke thinks he dreamed Anastasia up. She was too incredible, too fantastic to be real.

But then again, Luke's imagination isn't inventive enough to conjure up a figure as magnificent as Anastasia.

-

It's another year before he sees her.

She's sitting in a cafe by herself, holed up in a corner, holding a book open with one hand, holding her steaming drink with another. Her blonde hair is dangerously close to dipping into her cup, and without thinking Luke calls, "Anastasia!"

Her head whips up, and he feels that entire year eleven summer rush back over him in a tidal wave when their eyes meet. Every conversation roars in his ears in a chorus of hushed whispers, every touch zings his fingertips, and every look heats the flame in his chest until he's suddenly at her table and sitting across from her.

She looks surprised to see him. "Luke," she whispers, and then smiles.

He grins. "Still a believer in fate, then?"

"I've had too many run ins with that particular friend to not believe," she says, her voice sour, but she's smiling anyways. "You?"

"I'm here with you, aren't I?"

She smiles and nods. "I guess you are."

They chat for a moment, until Calum comes over, gives Anastasia a fleeting greeting before grabbing Luke's arm and tugging on it, insisting, "We gotta go."

Luke looks desperately at her. "Don't let me lose you again," he pleads, and she pulls out her cell phone.

"Number?" she asks, and he rattles it off twice before Calum's dragging him out the door.

"Let me get to you," she says, and he nods, trying to memorize her face before she's gone for God knows how long. She looks picturesque; her long hair curling gently around her face, eyes sparkling, lips curved up into a gentle smile, surrounded by the dark wood wall.

She might not look it, but she is, by far, the most interesting person Luke has ever met.

-

It takes her fourteen days, seventeen hours and forty three minutes to talk to Luke. Not that he's counting.

Hey.

Luke stares at the message for an eternity and a half before finally replying to her.

Cela fait longtemps.

If he closes his eyes he can see her smiling, rolling her eyes but laughing at Luke.

He misses her like crazy.

His phone dings, and he checks it.

You're famous now, huh? Fate did you some favors.

He grins.

The biggest favor was reuniting me with you.

Her reply makes him laugh out loud.

Ce fut tellement boiteux.

He can't deny that fact.

I figured out a definition for "all of that"

He holds his breath as he hits send, hopes that she remembers.

Care to share?

She does.

You. You're all of that. You're everything I was looking for, flying from Australia to California. You were everything I was looking for.

It takes her a moment to respond.

Minuits

And Luke could just laugh at it all, at how insane everything is, how different his life is. He's nineteen years old and he's touring the world and he's so, so in love with this girl that he met during a university research trip while he was trying to un-become a cliché.

He loves it.

End.