"But instead, we're here. Thou needst not be a force--and if thy friends return, thou canst be a man with them." He kisses Lucien's jaw, his cheek, the curve of his lower lip. "I would have fought beside thee, if I found myself in thy Paris three hundred years after mine own time. I would have been proud to do it. But now, I'm proud to be thy friend, and to have no more pressing duty than to learn to make baguettes with thee."