Athens: Two Weeks Later

"I'm fine," he replied harshly, as if offended that she'd even asked. He looked her over, and his jaw clenched again as he lost himself in his own mind, remaining just close enough to the surface to barely understand what she said.

HE wasn't okay, that was clear. She knew however that he wouldn't tell her what was wrong. She shook her head. She sighed. She turned and started to walk off leaving him alone. She didn't know how to help when she couldn't even help herself.

She started for the stairs, and Sodom called after her. "Monica, you don't have to go, child." He couldn't bear to be alone with his thoughts.

She stopped and turned back around and came back. She went over to him and held her upper arm with one hand. She had her upper arm in one hand while it dangled on the side. "Don't want to be alone?"

"I have lived a great deal of my life alone, dear, and have learned that solitude can never compare to the company of others," he answered truthfully. She looked like a child in many ways as she faced him.

She smiled. "I never liked being alone," she rubbed her arm. She hatted being alone for the most part, it made her uneasy. Talking to Sodom she felt young, almost childlike and maybe she was to him. "Not being able to hear another person breathing bugged me when I was little."

He nodded and turned his head, subconsciously touching the scar on the left side of his face lightly with his fingertips. Agony flashed over his features, and his look hardened when he glanced at the dagger she held. His jaw clenched, and he looked away again.

She watched him move his hand to the scar. It was light and she didn't think he knew he was doing it. She saw him look at the dagger and then the emotions crossed his face. Carefully she placed the dagger in a case she had on her side. It was the same reaction she got earlier that day.

He watched as she returned the dagger to its case, eyes softening. "I apologize. I'm being terribly rude. You may sit, if you so wish." He gestured at a seat across the room.

"No thank you I'm fine standing," she looked up at his eyes, they were softer. The dagger triggered something.

He watched her carefully. She'd caught on to his expressions earlier, but he was sure she didn't know the actual reasons behind them. "How was your," he paused, scrutinizing the dust on a display case, "walk?" he asked.

Hawk. That was the first thing that came to her mind while he watched her. The walk, oh god. She smiled a bit, maybe blushing a little. "The walk was," she paused a bit trying to find the right word, "good." It was better then good, she kissed Will. She was giving Will a chance but she wasn't sure Sodom need to know about that just yet.

Her cheeks tinged the slightest red, and a smile hovered on her lips. She didn't have to say anything. He had been like that once, many years ago, but those emotions were long-gone, along with the people there to witness them. "I see."

She looked down at her feet to attempt to hid it, it wasn't working. She failed at pretending not to be attached to him. She looked up at Sodom and smiled. "You know, don't you?"

He turned to the display cases, hiding a smile. "Ah, dear, there are so many things you can say with a look." He glanced in her direction. "You will learn that, with time, just as I have."

He knew. She couldn't help but smile. Even though she knew that she shouldn't like Will she couldn't help it. "I shouldn't feel this way," she sighed.

"Well, there's no changing that, now is there?" Sodom took a key from his pocket and unlocked the display case, gently pushing the glass aside and picking up a scroll gingerly. He took it over to the desk and unrolled it. Then he placed a sheet of glass atop the paper to protect it. His finger followed the symbols from right to left as he read.

What he said was right, she couldn't fix it. She couldn't say she didn't like him becasue she would be lying. But the truth was after not wanting to be hurt she just hurt herself more. She watched Sodom take out a scroll and then moved his fingers over the glass he put down. She was almost positive that each scroll had a mistake in it, big or small. "Vous ne pouvez pas fixer tout," she muttered what her dad would always say to her after making mistakes.

He glanced up from the parchment. "No, that would be impossible, no matter how hard you tried." His eyes followed the lines of the blueprints on the desk, the large rings that surrounded the long-lost, but never-forgot city.

She smiled at him. She had forgotten that he would be able to understand her. "Sir if you don't mind me asking what are you looking at?"

His gaze broke from the scroll as if he hadn't realized she was there. "Blueprints," he said. "They were passed down to me from my father and to him by my grandfather, to my grandfather by my great-grandfather, who drew them up himself."

She mouthed the word wow. She was now very interested in all of this. "That sounds amazing," she smiled. She was like the kid in a toy store that found the new toy but she was wanting to learn. She probably put on the role of the five year old to Sodom who was spending time with their grandfather while he told stories.

"It was," he replied with nostalgia. "But all good things must come to an end. All empires will crumble. Greed is inevitably to conquer, but it is never expected. The downfall of man is always his inability to settle for what he has."

"Like what happened to the Roman Empire," she new little about it seeing as history wasn't her strong subject. Math was. "After it was split up into two parts the east, I believe, taking most of the money."

He nodded. "They took many ideas from the Greek, who also failed. I can't fathom how no one foresaw its end."