He says it like it's a death sentence. Helen aches, and it's not from being dragged from the palace on featherlight feet, or the fact that Menelaus can barely look at her. Her eyes still sting from the ashes of Troy, and she feels filthy, but...
No, it is in the way Odysseus is looking at her. He's staring, the whites of his eyes red and expression too hard for the mischievous boy she knew, the besotted young man he became when met with her cousin. This is someone else.
Odysseus looks as if he needs to imprint Helen in his mind. As if he's expecting someone else. Surely it is him that's changed, not her? But that's yet another lie Helen has been telling herself for ten years, and the path in her mind it takes her is familiar. Comfortable. She hasn't changed.
Still, the memories of what had been wrenches the overworked, tired part of her that feels guilt into action just one more time.
"Hello, Odysseus," she says carefully. He watches her lips like a hawk, a vulture. Helen is tired of war, no matter the strategy involved.
"You are cruel." Oh, what fresh agony. She opens her mouth to interrupt, because she's had enough of men berating her—
"But perhaps you can prove yourself as merciful, too." Helen pauses. Fisting her soot stained chiton, she tells herself to be patient just a little longer.
Finally Odysseus takes off his helmet. His hair is matted, blood that she didn't notice streaked down his jaw—like he wiped some spatter away and only smeared it further. It unsettles her. Menelaus was careful to keep her covered, coming out of Troy.
Odysseus's throat works before he rasps out, "Speak, as you did outside the Horse."
It doesn't register, what he's asking her, face set so severely. It's... he's not the Odysseus she remembers, mobile mouth always smiling or smirking or laughing.
And that's when her cousin's husband breaks a little, a chip in his solid built walls. "Please," he says, fingertips whitening where they clutch the rim of his helm. It immediately discomfits her.
"Odysseus, what do you mean—"
"Penelope." It's said so quietly she can barely hear him. Odysseus is still looking at her, eyes setting her alight with how they reflect the torches from afar: liquid silver and blackened tar.
"Helen. Please - Penelope. Just once more—once more, could you—can I—"
"Yes," she says before she can think. "Yes."
She doesn't know if it's better or worse when he closes his eyes, finally. Odysseus has removed his gaze but the pyre still burns.
She clears her throat, and says in her cousin's more throaty timbre, "Hello, Odysseus."
She sees a man truly break, then.
"Penelope." It's a prayer, whispered out in terror and hope and grief. He reaches one hand out.
She takes it—it doesn't matter, in this moment, that it's smeared with soot and blood, grainy on her soft palms.
"You come back to me," Helen says, because it's what her cousin would have wanted to say. This is one thing she isn't afraid of saying wrong. It is easy to put on another façade.
It is hard to break one down. Helen does not think of Menelaus. It is Odysseus in front of her who says, "I will. I will come back to you, Penelope."
Helen dreads his eyes opening—but he smiles at her. It is smaller than she remembers, but it is a smile nonetheless.
"Good," Helen says in her own voice. Perhaps she might have done some, just this once.
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