Author's note: As the description says, this is sort-of-a-sequel to my fic Misfortune always Includes Fortune. There will be several chapters here, but no great plot; only moments in Francis and Arthur's lives. Enjoy! :)

Fortune of Our Misfortune

Moment one

"Do you remember when we were kids and you climbed a tree to rescue my kitten?" Arthur asks suddenly.

Francis stops counting raindrops on the train window and turns his eyes on the blond Englishman sitting opposite to him. Arthur is gazing out of the window, leaning his chin on his palm, head resting against the cold glass. He doesn't look at Francis, and nothing in his posture signals that he has just spoken to the Frenchman.

"Why do you ask?" Francis inquires after a moment of deliberation.

"Forget it," is Arthur's immediate retort. His eyes are still on the changing scenery, and his face betrays no emotions whatsoever, no clues what he might be thinking of. He has always been a great mystery to Francis, with that rejective wall he has built around himself to keep the Frenchman away, and yet Francis knows him inside and out. It is a curious paradox, that one.

Francis fixes his eyes on the window again and resumes counting raindrops. One, two, three...

"I rescued Horatio more than once, you know," he then utters, and at that Arthur's eyes actually flicker on him for a second. Francis manages to catch s small flash in them before they return to stare at passing fields, but it's enough – he knows Arthur is listening.

"Strangely enough," he continues, lips tugging to a small smile as he recollects, "your cat never learnt from the first time."

The first time. The first time when Arthur's kitten got stuck on a tree was the first time when Francis encountered the small, huge-eyed and messy-haired boy, who was crying for his inability to help his precious kitten. At that time the wall between Arthur and Francis did not yet exist – it was only later when the English boy learnt how to build it. Francis suspects that he never learnt how to take it down.

Arthur is still gazing into distance, but Francis knows that he's only pretending to be indifferent. He can see it in the ever so slight tension in the Englishman's facial muscles, in the way he keeps his eyes trained on one spot instead of letting them follow the scenery.

"Why do you ask?" Francis repeats his earlier question.

"No reason," Arthur bluntly utters.

That's a lie. With Arthur, there is always a reason.

"So be it," Francis states and turns to the window, too. In this moment, Arthur reminds Francis of Horatio – the cat only reflected the stubbornness of his owner, he is convinced of that. Well then. If Arthur has decided to be a safe with seven locks, there is no way the Frenchman could get anything out of him, anyway, so he might as well drop the subject.

Only he knows that's a lie, too.

Truth is that with enough coaxing, with the right questions and an appropriate amount of persistence, Francis would be able to tease Arthur into cracking the door of his unbreakable fortress open just a bit, just enough to stick his foot inside so that the door couldn't be closed any more. Francis knows that this spontaneous question of Arthur's is a crack in the wall, something that Francis could use to his advantage before Arthur notices it and repairs it to be even stronger than before. With some effort Francis would be able to make his way into Arthur's fortress, he knows.

But he doesn't do it. Doesn't coax, doesn't tease, doesn't force Arthur to splutter and curse but nevertheless open his door. He isn't sure he wants to. He isn't sure he wants to see what's inside those walls, because then it would be different, it would be intimate, sort of, and then Francis would have to acknowledge that there is something special there. And it just wouldn't be worth the effort to break through those walls and find what exactly that something special is only to be pushed away by Arthur. However, what Francis does not admit is that there might be a little bit of fear, too, fear of losing something that he doesn't even quite have.

And so Francis doesn't ask, Arthur doesn't tell, and the train keeps on moving.

(Neither Francis nor Arthur know that the railway leads to abyss and they will fall into it if they won't get off the train on time.)

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