So I wrote this story before but wasn't very happy with the way I started- considering there was only one chapter. However, I have new ideas now and hopefully, I can implement them better.

PROLOGUE

He couldn't stop glancing at her every few minutes.

The kid had been there for nearly twenty minutes, all alone and nobody had come for her yet. Passers-by gave her no second glance- New York, being New York- and yet, he couldn't stop worrying about this girl, this child who just sat on the bench and observed. It was unnerving to watch what he assumed was a child of no more than seven or eight not cry or search for guidance or attention of some sort.

"Can I get you something else, sir?" the waitress smiled at him, glancing pointedly at his empty cup. He'd finished it nearly ten minutes ago.
He was seated at a booth in his usual coffee place, watching the adjacent street through the glass wall. He gave the lady a sheepish smile.

"No, I was just leaving," he said, as he stood, pulling out his wallet and dropping a few notes onto the table. "Thanks."
The crisp, cold wind bit at his exposed cheeks and palms when he opened the door and stepped onto the pavement. And again, his eyes sought the red-headed girl sitting on the bench, all by herself.
He checked his watch: Enough time to make sure the girl got home safe.

The moment he sat beside the girl on the bench, her eyes shifted from the park across from them to him. Now that he was closer, he thought she really was like a tiny doll: pale, with a generous smattering of freckles and adorably wide, green eyes. Eyes, that were, inexplicably squinting at him quite openly, with a hint of suspicion.

He glanced at her, smiled and then turned his attention to the park before them.
She stared at him for a couple more seconds, then shifted away, arms crossed, returning to her observations of the world around them. From the corner of his eye, he could see her watch everything with a fascination that amused him. Then she caught him grinning at her and her eyes narrowed.

"What do you want, mister?"
His smile faltered and there was a long pause, before: "Um, where's your mother, kid?"
The girl's green eyes narrowed further. "She isn't here. Why you starin' at me? Got a problem?"

His brows rose. Well, then.
"Nope. No problem. What's your name, kiddo?"
"Like I'd tell you. I'm not tellin' a stranger my name."

Alright. Fair point.

"How 'bout I tell you mine first."
The kid shifted so she was facing him, arms still crossed defensively.
"No promises."

He wanted to laugh.
"I'm Percy," he said, offering his palm. She eyed it as one would eye an unattended backpack at an airport carousel. "Percy Jackson."
When the girl made no effort to grasp the proffered hand, he dropped it, albeit reluctantly.

"Seriously, though, where's your mom?"

The girl watched him and he was unnerved by the maturity, way beyond her years, that shone in them. Then she said, quietly, "She's dead."
Well.
That was certainly not what he'd been expecting.

He didn't allow his shock or sympathy to surface. "Ah." was all he said.
They sat in silence for about thirty seconds that felt more like an hour of awkwardness for Percy.
"Where's your Dad, then? Or...anyone else who might come for you?"

The girl opened her mouth, as though to say something, then shook her head. "Not right now." then she wagged a finger at him, fierce and determined, like a baby ginger cat, learning to fight with her claws. "But I don't need help. I can take care of myself!"
This time, he did chuckle, although that seemed to aggravate her more than anything.

"I'm not kidding!" she emphasized.
"Do you know how to get home? Or-uh-" he faltered, horrified at the thought that maybe she didn't have a home and he'd just spectacularly upset a child. "Do you have a home?"
The girl gave him scathing look that he was sure, had he not been a regular recipient of, from his mother, he would have quailed under and said with an indignant scowl: "Of course, I have a home!"
"So..why are you here? Without your dad, I mean. Won't he be looking for you?"

The girl scowled, glancing away from him and drawing her denim jacket closer around herself.
He noticed that the jacket actually looked particularly nice, with three letters sewn in curly embroidery on her collar: RED.
So she wasn't homeless, at least. Or wait, maybe she was, but she'd stolen the jacket. Good Lord, he needed to tamp down on his imagination.

"He doesn't know I'm here." she said quietly, drawing her attention away from a woman walking her dog, to a couple holding hands and laughing on a bench not far from theirs.
"So he would be looking for you?"

"You ask too many questions, Percy Jackson!" little miss feisty exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air exasperatedly and jumping off the bench. "You're really ruining this for me."
And before he could so much as get in a word of apology or ask what 'this' she was talking about, she'd stormed off and disappeared into the morning rush crowd.
He'd shaken his head and headed to work.

The little girl was far from his thoughts until he saw her again, in the same place, the next week.

This time, she had a little notebook with her and was scribbling furiously into it. With the notebook balanced on her folded knees and flyaway red hair blowing in the wind, she looked like a fragile doll in her own bubble, oblivious to the world around her.

He picked up his usual order of coffee and asked the waitress for an extra hot chocolate.

She was surprised.

"With marshmallows, if you've got them please."

Her jaw dropped but she added them in, nonetheless.
The girl looked up from what he realized was a sketchbook when he sat on the bench next to her and narrowed her eyes at him.

Wordlessly, he offered her the cup of hot chocolate. She glanced at it then squinted at him again.
He let out a long sigh then took a sip from the cup.
"See? I drank from it. Now you."

She eyed him warily but accepted the drink and the indirect apology. They said nothing to each other, taking intermittent sips from their respective cups and sitting together in companionable silence.
And then they left their separate ways. But she was there the next week as well.

And the next. And the next. The waitress at his usual cafe was now used to his order of hot chocolate with marshmallows.

He learned that she was very much into art. Week after week he saw her reproduce almost exactly similar likenesses of the street they were on. And yet each drawing, whilst of the same street, looked different each time. Like it was looked at from a different perspective every time. She had talent. Somedays they spoke. He talked about his mother Sally and her blue cookies, about his job, about his friends and she laughed or asked questions but rarely volunteered information of her own willingly. One time he was enlightening her on the delights of blue licorice and she'd blurted out like she hadn't meant to: "I've never had candy."

He had been shocked and indignant on her behalf and promptly bought her a bag of the best candy she could dig into the next time. And yet, he never knew her name.
On the seventh Thursday he sat next to her and held out her usual hot choc, he asked her: "So, are you gonna tell me your name?"

She considered this with the expression of one figuring out a complex calculus equation, sipping serenely from her styrofoam cup. "Hmm. Maybe later."
He had nodded, disappointed and confused but she'd grinned at him, revealing a two-teeth-wide gap in her smile.

"It's Rachel," she said. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare."

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