A/N Randomly written between 1 and 2am, motivation prompted by finding the lovely Rachel on tumblr. I don't know why whenever I sit down to write Godchild fics these days they end up as post-series, slightly insane Cassian monologues. I'll try make it something different next time, I swear.

-x-

Sometimes I wonder why I wait for disaster.

I can see it coming. Always, always I can see it coming. What else is there, anyway? Life is just a series of disasters, one after another after another. They don't have to be world-changing disasters. Most often they're not. They're personal. Unique. The loss of a single animal to a lonely child could be as painful as the loss of a single loved one to a lonely man.

The single loved one.

And I saw it coming. I waited. I counted beads of water on the leaking ceiling of the underground tunnels and wondered when it was going to happen. How. Why. But not who. I never had to question who would be to blame for that disaster when the time came.

But that's not the point. The point is that there's never anything you can rely on more than everything going wrong. Always, always it goes wrong. It doesn't care how much this one is going to hurt or how hard you'd tried to convince yourself it could end differently. So why do anything but wait? Brave men don't wait. Heroes don't wait.

Nor do angels. Angels wait for no one. Not the lonely man who has never been brave. Not the man who waits for disaster.

Sometimes I wonder whether I spend too much time thinking.

It's not all I do. I sleep. I eat. I keep the fire burning when I remember. I count the beads of water on the ceiling. It's tiring, though. All of it.

I've got nothing to wait for anymore. I've had my disasters already, sued them all up. I've had my miracle too. A new life, a new body and a new start. I'm wasting it down here in these tunnels. I suppose I spent so long waiting for the final tragedy that now it's behind me I don't know what to do with myself except wait.

I'm good at waiting. I waited for so many years for one thing or another. There's only one thing left to wait for now and it's taking its time. I've tried working it out, you know, the how, why, when. It's all so easy to answer for me, all of it except the when. It should have happened years ago, I think that's why it's so reluctant now. I missed the first train out.

What am I talking about? Trains. Yeah. Of course. It's easier to think of it that way. A hero or a brave man would speak in riddles like that. Only a coward and a pathetic waste of borrowed skin would admit that they're waiting to die. But I do. I want to die, I want to leave, I want to follow. I don't care that there's no one to bury me. No one wants to bury anyone, not really. Better I just snuff out down here, a candle in the dark, and rot away with the leaking brickwork.

Sometimes I wonder how long ago I started to lose my mind.

Because I lose most nights to imaginings. Regrets. Wishes. Daydreams. I like to pretend they're memories, real memories, just from a different me in a different world where it didn't all go wrong. I like to pretend that I stop hiding, that I'd just been honest with everything whether I understood it or not. The things I had wanted to do and say. Even the things I had wanted to scream.

I like to imagine calling him stupid. I like to imagine knocking him to the floor and hating myself for trying to break the fantasy world he clung on to for as long as possible. And after that I like to imagine holding him, how awkward it would feel, how he would tense and panic, how I would already be thinking of excuses. Whatever happens afterwards, whether I let myself make excuses and back away or whether we fight or whether we…it doesn't matter. Because the disaster is always coming. Always, always it's coming. I don't have the imagination to see it any other way.

Sometimes I see us on a train, going god knows where. Sometimes I see us in a field. Sometimes I see us sitting down here together, counting the beads of water and waiting for them to fall, silent as we drown slowly, achingly, inch by inch. But most often I see us as we were. His limp body in my arms. The building collapsing behind us. Except in those imaginings he has just a little life left, enough for one conversation.

And I would have said I'm sorry. I couldn't save you. And he would have said…I can never decide. I like to think he forgave me, at the end. There was something in his eyes, something he was thinking but couldn't say. If only he had waited, if only…

Sometimes I wonder why I imagine the same things over and over again when all it does is bring me pain.

I've tried to think of other things, down here in the dark. But it's him. Always, always it's him. The only thing that meant anything. The only thing that I found beautiful. Just another thing that I couldn't make right. I've lost so much during my life but none of it matters except him.

He didn't know, I think. Maybe that was the beauty of it. He didn't know what even as I was trying to save him he was saving me a little more with each moment. My soul, that is. Everything that makes me me.

And I died with him. My body just hasn't realised yet. It's just a matter of time, now. There's nothing to do but wait.

I'll pale. I'll lose my name. I'll burn all those failed dreams in the failing fire and let myself grow cold. And then when I can barely draw breath, when I can count the beads of water on my own outstretched hands, I'll imagine him. I'll see him crouching in front of me, as I'd seen him do countless times before. Examining. Just another corpse. Another failed experiment.

Hold me, I'll want to say. Don't cry. He won't hear. I won't want him to. And it won't matter because the wait will be over. Whatever happens afterwards, whether I'm able to explain everything at last or whether everything is made new or whether we…it doesn't matter. Because the wait will be over. Anything would be better than this.

Sometimes I wonder why I wait for disaster.

Sometimes I remember.

And always, always I wait.