His breathing stills from There's ash on the sand, and the world is already over.

Paul says It's not meant for me, and God shuts his eyes. Paul says I make them mine, and God opens them with the same air of a man sustaining a blow. He watches the slow, implacable roll of the ocean up the shore. He listens. He catalogues the catch in breath, and says nothing. Through it all, God observes:

This kid is terrifying. It's easy to say he reminds him of the man he'd been in the ashes. It's just as true to say he reminds John of the woman he'd met there, and John knows she was never really a woman. Never even close.

Paul asks that last question, and God exhales a held breath. He turns his gaze from the sea, back to the miserable tucked-together curl of the boy on the shore. He does not look at Paul like he's a god, or a bomb, or a too-familiar ghost. He does not look at him like a mirror. For a mirror he would not wear this weariness that reads so much like aching pity.

"Always," he says. His voice sounds so human, by comparison: just the one voice, alone. "Shoot."