It became a pattern. Each night the others would come up with some ingenious way to distract Lancelot, and Ahkmenrah would slip away unnoticed. At first the others hadn't understood, but Ahkmenrah had assured them that he was working on it, that given time Larry would come around and come back to the museum. He believed that, but a tiny part of him too, liked having Larry all to himself.
Most nights they strolled around the park, finding a new place to sit. Ahkmenrah didn't mind where, the most important thing was that Larry was there.
It was true that Larry was slowly coming around, each night saw him a little more relaxed, a little more willing to share a joke, a little more the man that Ahkmenrah remembered from the night program days.
They walked by Bow Bridge, a place often frequented by couples. This evening as they passed a boy dropped down on one knee. Ahkmenrah stopped, watching curiously.
"What is he doing?"
Larry gave him a little smile.
"I guess men in ancient Egypt didn't propose like that, huh?"
"Propose what?"
This time it was a frown of disbelief.
"Marriage," Larry supplied.
"Oh, I see," Ahkmenrah realised. The girl was nodding, and the boy was standing up, then he was kissing her.
"Guess, she said yes," Larry said.
"You have some strange customs," Ahkmenrah observed.
"Well how was it done in Egypt?"
Ahkmenrah was sure it was intended as an innocent question, but the answer he had to give made him blush.
"What?" Larry wondered, apparently even more intrigued now. There was no avoiding it.
"Mostly it was arranged by families, but if you liked someone, you'd have sex with them. If you decided to live together, that person became your spouse."
"That's it?"
"What else would there be?"
"A wedding?"
Ahkmenrah did not understand.
"Is sex not a wedding?"
Larry barked out a laugh.
"Not in modern society."
Ahkmenrah was still lost.
"Umm," Larry said, picking up on his confusion. "That would come after the wedding, technically, I guess. Well it used to. Anyway... There's a ceremony first, people get dressed up, exchange vows and rings. Promise to love, honour and all that stuff until death do they part. Then there's cake and dancing and speeches."
"It all sounds very complicated."
"I guess it can be," Larry allowed, becoming pensive for a moment.
"You have a son. You were married once..."
"For a brief moment, yeah."
"What happened? Did your wife die?"
"What? No."
"That's right," Ahkmenrah remembered. "The custody agreement..."
"Yeah. You don't really want to talk about this, do you?"
Larry obviously didn't.
"Not if you don't want to. But I do like getting to know you better, learning new things about you..."
The young couple were walking towards them, arms around each other, smiling widely.
"Congratulations," Larry offered.
"Thank you," the girl beamed, gazing loving up at her intended.
Ahkmenrah felt he should say something to the happy couple too.
"May your marriage not end in a custody agreement." That seemed like an honourable sentiment, but judging by the looks on their faces, they didn't agree. They rushed off without another word.
"I think you just ruined one of the happiest moments of their lives," Larry smirked.
"I meant to wish them well."
"I know you did," Larry agreed, dropping a hand on his shoulder in a show of solidarity.
Ahkmenrah liked the contact, and for a moment wished that he and Larry could be closer like the young couple, with their arms around each other.
xxx
A while later their wandering lead them to the eastern side of the park, up past 79th Street.
Ahk stopped so abruptly in his tracks that Larry was a few paces ahead of the Egyptian before he realised.
"What?" Larry said, doubling back to find an awestruck look on his friend's face. Following Ahk's gaze, Larry saw the towering obelisk in front of them. It was Cleopatra's needle. "Oh..."
"It is Egyptian..." Ahkmenrah breathed.
"Well yeah. Back in the 1800's it was shipped over here. Unlike a lot of treasures that left Egypt, it was a gift. Does it say anything interesting?"
Ahkmenrah looked at him, maybe a little surprised by his knowledge, but he had worked at the museum for a long time and spent the last three years studying history.
"It is from after my time. It tells of military victories."
It was moments like these that put things in perspective. A three and a half thousand-year-old obelisk was younger than Ahkmenrah. It must be so strange for him to have emerged into twenty-first century New York. Larry once thought he'd had his world ripped out from under him, but it was nothing compared to what Ahk's family had done to him. His parents in forging the tablet. And his brother for... Well that was too awful.
"What is it, Larry?"
"Nothing," Larry said, shaking himself out of the thought.
Ahkmenrah stepped closer, studying his face carefully.
"A shadow passed over you just now."
He couldn't deny it, but he didn't want to bring that up.
"I was thinking of you, and how hard it must be to have left behind everything you knew, and then woken up here where everything is so different."
"Different, yes," Ahk agreed, brushing a hand over Larry's arm, looking into his eyes. "But not so bad."
For a second, Larry felt some pull between them, but brushed it off and put it down to his imagination, because it made no sense at all.
"That's the Met," he said instead, pointing to the large building to the right. "It's one of the biggest art museums in the world. It holds over two million works."
"A museum?"
"Yeah. They have like twenty-seven thousand Egyptian artworks. The Temple of Dendur. They packed up eight-hundred tons of stone and relocated the whole thing over here in the sixties. Another gift, it was going to be flooded by a dam otherwise. We can go see it one night if you want."
Ahk looked amazed.
"You'd go to a museum?"
Larry faltered for a second, but soon pulled himself together, drawing strength from having Ahk by his side.
"I'd go to that one. For you."
It would be uncomfortable, but the dazzling smile Ahk sent back at him made it all worthwhile.
"I should like that very much."
"Okay then, it's a date."