A/N Another wild AU guys - sorry! The idea bit me in the butt and I ran with it. I blame studying volcanoes in school, a missed trip to Iceland, and a newfound love for writing modern day Maria/Georg. Thank you to TheBeeStings for helping me with research, and I hope you enjoy! (title from a Fall Out Boy song).

Reykjavik to Vienna International, 1822 miles, 3 hours and 57 minutes.

Everything happens so fast that Maria doesn't really have time to process it all. One minute she's waiting around at the fancy coffee shop as they swirl glacier-white thick cream on top of her coffee and the next, all the boards in the departures lounge have turned red. Cancelled, cancelled, cancelled, and cancelled. "You've got be kidding me," she mutters to herself, coffee completely forgotten as she scrambles for the phone in her jacket pocket. "Stupid, idiot, bloody flight!"

"Hazards of Iceland," a voice says from beside her in German. She turns and almost immediately wishes she hadn't. He raises an eyebrow at her and gives her a small smile, and she feels as though the floor has opened beneath her feet and her stomach has dropped right through it. Seriously, though, what are the chances? She shakes her head to try and clear it.

"You have no idea how lovely it is to find someone else who speaks German." The words come rushing out of her mouth before she can stop them. There's a moment of silence, and then she forces herself to try and be more normal. Ask a question, Maria. It isn't that difficult. "Do you know why they're all cancelled? Is it a storm or something?"

"A volcano," he says, shoving his hands nonchalantly into his pockets as though it's completely normal for a war hero to be standing around with an awkward young theology student and not off with a bevy of guards and admirers and staff ready to heed his every command. Maria shifts from foot to foot.

"Volcano? Are we safe?"

It's an idiotic question, and she knows it the second it comes out of her mouth, and she feels the blush burning on her cheeks. He gives her that smile again, and nods. "We'll be fine."

"Ah okay, good. Dying on my first solo trip would not be fun – even if it was from something as exciting as a lava flow."

"Would you call a lava flow exciting?"

"Well, we studied them in school and they're so pretty, especially at night. I'm pleased that there aren't any in Austria, though, that would be scary if you had to live with volcanoes. I'm Maria, by the way."

"Georg." He holds out a hand, and she almost drops her coffee as she tries to sort out her bags, pushing them up her arms. He's almost laughing by the time they eventually get around to shaking. His hand is calloused and warm and comfortingly big around her thin little-girl fingers and after a few seconds she doesn't want to let go. "Shall we find a seat? I feel we'll be here for quite a while."

When travelling by air, he finds, it's far too easy for boredom and lethargy to sneak up behind you and spin silken webs so tight that it's difficult to ever escape. It never helps that airports and airplanes are all the same no matter where you are in the world – check-in, security, hanging around in a faceless lounge with the faceless multitudes thronging around you. In all honesty, he's surprised that he even noticed her. He tells himself it was the cursing in his mother tongue rather than the way the sunlight spilled from her smile.

"So, what's a theology student doing in Iceland?"

She looks at him, twisting her coffee cup around in her hands. He tries to ignore the little bit of froth on her upper lip, and the way he wants to kiss it away. She can't be any more than twenty. It wouldn't be right.

"Just exploring. I'm going to be a nun, but the Reverend Mother wanted me to see the world before I committed."

"A nun? Any particular reason why?"

"I went to school in the convent that I'm going to join and, I don't know." She takes another sip of her coffee. "They're the only real family I have, and I guess I don't want to leave."

It wouldn't be fair to announce to this girl that he's known all of half an hour that he thinks she's too gorgeous to be a nun. Surely they're all old fuddy-duddies – he admires their devotion to God – but he can't see this bright young thing with her supernova smile cloistered in an abbey for the rest of her life.

"Which convent school did you go to?"

"The one at Nonnberg Abbey, in Salzburg."

What are the chances of that? He thinks. She looks at him quizzically and he almost laughs. Of course he managed to say it out loud. That was clever. "My children and I live near Salzburg."

"Cool!" she enthuses. "What a small world we live in."

"Indeed."

"How many children do you have?"

He gives her a glance out of the corner of his eye, and then back out at the rapidly darkening sky. "How about we find something to eat and I'll tell you all about them?"

Her blush is back, and he wishes he could tell her that's it's one of the most endearing things he's ever seen, her blushes and her coltish awkwardness as she leans under the seat to pick up her scruffy bags. It's one of the most refreshing things to be around a real flesh and hot-blooded girl rather than the beautiful poised ice-women back in the crème of Austrian society. "That sounds wonderful."

She's not sure how it happens, but they end up sitting at that restaurant for hours, talking about his children (all seven of them, she can't quite believe it), and the hills around Salzburg and everything else that pops into her brain. His eyes never leave her face all night, and at the end after a sinfully delicious dark chocolate and raspberry mousse, he pockets the bill.

"Aren't I allowed to contribute?" she asks.

"Nope." His smile is devilish, and she can't get the sight of the way his eyes crinkle around the corners out of her head. "My treat, to apologise for the bad manners of Eyjafjallajokull."

"I suppose we should forgive it," she says, dazedly. "It hasn't erupted for nearly two hundred years – it was probably getting a bit bored under all that ice."

His laugh is surprised, as is the way he looks at her, his eyes trailing across her face for the tenth time this evening. "Shall we?" he asks, picking up her bags before she can even react.

"Seriously, I can…"

"It's fine, I don't mind."

She wonders at it as she follows the straight line of his back and shoulders out of the restaurant, trying to keep her eyes from dipping lower. This is wrong, she tries to tell herself. He must be at least twenty years older than you, he has seven children for Christ's sake and to top it all off he probably has a beautiful, stately wife waiting back home in Salzburg for him. He's just being nice because you're stranded all on your own and you don't speak English or Icelandic…

They eventually find a pair of seats that aren't occupied by other travellers and he immediately goes to find a pair of blankets and pillows from the help desk. She watches from the distance as he leans over to talk to the woman, speaking in what seems to be fluent Icelandic. Now that he's not there, all obvious and handsome and man, right in front of her, she can admire the way he looks in his suit, the sharp creases of his trousers and the way he smiles again, almost nervously as he approaches with their provisions. As he sits down, she tries to stifle a yawn.

"Sleep," he says. "I'll wake you if something happens."

When she wakes, the pillow feels significantly more muscular and less like cardboard than when she'd gone to sleep. It's also moving, and there's a warm arm wrapped around her shoulders. She tries to sit up, panic fluttering between her ribs, but he won't let her.

"Ssh, it's about six in the morning," he mutters, his voice groggy with sleep.

"What…"

"You couldn't get comfortable."

"Oh, sorry."

"Don't be. I don't mind. There's a car coming for us at about eight."

"Us?"

"Well," his voice has thickened slightly with awkwardness. "You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you. I managed to get my old suite at the hotel rebooked for the next week…"

"And what?"

"Would you like to stay with me?"

"Why?"

"I'd feel wrong abandoning you after all of this, alone in a foreign country, God knows how long this disruption is going to last…"

Maria sits up properly and stares at him, forgetting all about the crick in her neck and the pain cramping its way up her legs. "Are you serious?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

She just stares at him, and then nods. "If you're sure I wouldn't be too much trouble."

"My dear, it would be my pleasure."

He's not one to use unnecessary adjectives, but watching Maria explore the beautiful room at the Hotel Nord is nothing short of adorable. She flits about in her socks, leggings and enormously unflattering grey jumper, exclaiming at the view, the artwork, the minimalist colours, how bouncy the bed is…he tries to stop the inappropriate thoughts that cross his mind at the last one and almost manages. Why did he do this again?

"So where were you staying before?" he asks.

"Oh, this little hostel out near the mountains. It was pretty, but nothing like this." She comes and sits down a respectable distance away on the edge of the bed. "What are you going to be doing until we can fly again?"

"Probably working." He watches the way a wisp of her hair falls across her collarbone, how her ink-blue eyes light up and knows he's said the wrong thing.

"It sounds like you've spent your life working. We should have some fun."

He likes the way she's skidded into the idea of the two of the spending time with each other with such reckless abandon. Any other woman would be questioning, doubting, wondering whether something was really sensible but obviously not Maria.

"Well, what do you classify as fun?" He doesn't miss the blush that scalds across her cheekbones.

"Sightseeing. Have you been to the Blue Lagoon? Or Thingvellir – that's really beautiful at this time of year, or even Geysir. You must have seen Geysir."

He shakes his head. Her mouth pops open in shock. "Seriously? No?"

"No."

"Well…we could start with that?"

In that moment, he'd agree to catching the moon for her if only to see that smile again.

Thingvellir is all hazy shapes in the early morning mist, and there's no-one around. She drags him around, pointing out this and this and this - look, Georg, the first Parliament was held here, and oh look, if I stand here I'm on the boundary between the Eurasian and North American plates. If only there was lava.

"I thought you were scared of lava?"

"Nah, it was the only dangerous thing that came out of volcanoes that I could think of."

They're standing so close together, now, with the wind ruffling tender fingers through her hair and her nose chapped red, and God help him if she doesn't do something right now, he's going to kiss her and break this fragile, new friendship into millions of glittering knife-sharp pieces…

But of course, she's Maria and doing something in an awkward situation is what she appears to do best. Before he's even had the chance to finish the thought of what she'd feel like in his arms, she's started to sing…"High on the hills was a lonely goatherd, lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo…"

"What even is that?" he interrupts.

"A song my mother used to sing to me," she grins. "We acted it out with finger puppets."

"Your voice is beautiful," he shakes his head. "Is there anything you can't do?"

"Thank you." Her voice is as warm as hot chocolate, and she gives him one of her looks that makes him want to melt. This is ridiculous – he's a decorated war hero from the Gulf, he jets around the world making money as a speaker at conferences and talks, he's seen things most people wouldn't dream of, and she's bringing him to his knees so easily that it frightens him. "Lots of things, I'll have you know. Do you sing?"

"I used to," he says. She doesn't say anything. "I…my wife died. The music stopped, after that."

"I'm sorry." Her voice is tender, and he wants to snap, the way he used to at all sympathy, at all mention of how Agathe was with God, how he was being so strong, so brave. If he'd been strong and brave, he could have saved her. If he's strong and brave, he wouldn't be trying to forget.

"It's in the past," he says tightly. She reaches out to squeeze his hand, and he wants to hang onto her so badly. He knows he can't.

The week is over before it's even started and the airspace is clear. He drives her to the airport in a rental car, helping her with her bags and wondering at how everything's going to be different when she's gone. How has it only been seven days?

"Well, good luck with everything…" he says, cursing at how stilted it sounds.

"Thank you. I hope America goes well. Send me a postcard."

"Of course."

They stand and look at each other for a few moments. He can see the thoughts flickering across the surface of her eyes; he makes his decision and leans down to kiss her cheek. "Have a safe flight, Maria."

"Thank you," she whispers, her hand flying up to touch the spot and a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Then she's gone, and he's left standing and staring at the place where she was.

.To be Continued.