How he found her in New York City, she couldn't honestly fathom but Helen didn't question it. Percival had been looking for work, something a little more glamorous than Starbucks to pay the rent, but she stood out among the cafe patrons in a bright red coat, her hair done up in a sixties fashion. He surprised himself by seating himself across from her and she offered in return a smile that suggested expectation of such a move. Years later, he'd inform her husband that her ego was the only one she really needed.
Beyond coffee, they had no reason to stay and so they left together. She offered him news of this and that, of things he did not ask about or care for but he listened because he knew it unkind to interrupt. He knew of the very public spats of the king and queen of Sparta, certain that one goddess of rumor ate it all up as well. He knew of the daughter who had to witness the decay of a marriage that had been her reason for existence.
He knew Helen to be much sadder than she'd ever let on and how she would never ever admit it, especially not to him. And when their walk led them to her agency, he halted her in place and told her he was not her subject anymore. Not her prisoner, not her friend. Not even her knight or the one he knew would only temporarily soothe the wounds she suffered from those callous arguments the whole world could see.
And that was when she kissed him. It was no accidental brush, no badly aimed press of her mouth. She caught him - right on the cheek. When she pulled back, she smiled in the face of his uncertainty, a hand lifted to that cheek to let her thumb rub away a bit of lipstick. He would always be hers, the queen of Sparta informed. There wasn't a man who couldn't be.
❖
Percival would not take the job at the cafe when they called the next day. Something further away sounded better (safer).