Sasha's face flushed a brilliant pink and he dropped his gaze to ... well, with Raine standing right in front of him, Sasha's gaze settled on the ground somewhere off to the side.  "I'm sorry.  That's not what..."  Though, he wasn't entirely sure if that's what he meant or not.  This was precisely why he did not like this - why he avoided these conversations.  Emotions robbed someone of their sensibility, their reason and their ability to self edit.  They robbed one of their sense of control.   

And, Raine was wanting him to explain further.  Didn't she get it?  He couldn't just explain.  It wasn't like it was some proverbial overflowing emotional bucket or whatever nonsense.  He couldn't just ladle off a few scoopfuls and take off the pressure.  It was more like an overfilled water balloon.  You couldn't just let a few drops out without it bursting forth in a huge explosion.  Carefully carrying around the balloon, protecting it from unintentional (or intentional) injury, had become the tactic of choice.  The thought of doing anything but was terrifying. 

"I'm sorry," he repeated, shaking his head quickly, crossing his arms in front of him.  "I don't know how ... I can't.  I don't even know where to start.  When I try, it just ..."  He could feel the emotions starting to bubble and churn and he felt the immediate urge to do exactly what Raine was telling him not to. 

Sasha shifted on the fence post and reached into his pocket, compulsively feeling for the ever present small stack of flashcards.  He drew them out, shuffled through them twice before forcing himself to look back up at Raine and speak. 

"I've tried to make things go right.  Every time things go wrong, I try to do things differently but ... things just always seem to get worse.  Like ... like I'm cursed.  Then, when I think I know what feels right, people I trust are telling me it's wrong.  And, six ... six people are dead because of me.  All I know is all this started when I stopped keeping to my studies and I'd give anything to get back to that, but I don't know how." 

It was almost painful, observing Sasha as he stumbled through sentences with all the grace of a riddikulus'd boggart. There was a story there, she knew, one he wanted very badly to tell but couldn't for... for whatever reasons. Raine had to trust that those reasons were real. She certainly couldn't force him into telling her anything- that didn't work for people like him. Sanya had been like him. One had to hope or wait or push them a little at a time until something significant occurred.

Raine's jaw tensed with the slightest sign of impatience and she lowered her gaze to the flashcards in his hands as he mumbled through the silence. They were his comfort blanket, a concept that was beyond her understanding. Even if she set them on fire it was very likely he owned a reserve set.

And that was when he mentioned the deaths. Her gaze snapped back  to his face, alert- she pulled on the reigns of her imagination, which was already prodding at the multitude of rumours that had arose earlier in the year when the disparaging posters of Sasha's 'crimes' were put up around the castle. No. There would be none of that. This was her friend and she was above speculation.

The burden of six deaths was a heavy one however and Raine could tell, from the weight in his voice, that he genuinely believed himself to be responsible for them. A hundred questions shot through her consciousness (how, when, why?) but they were not so important as the strain this was putting on Sasha. Running a hand through her curls, she considered the other prefect briefly.

"This too shall pass. That's an... an Arabic saying, isn't it?" Raine smiled wearily at him. "It won't always be a turn for the worst. I can't promise you that things will go better if you try to face your truths and these..." she hesitated ever so slightly. "These deaths. I can't promise that, nobody can. But I will tell you what I have learnt from experience."

Or at least what she thought she learnt from experience. They were only teenagers, Godric knew if her advice was worth an iota to Sasha.

"You can never go back to the way it was. It's like with the Thestrals..." the redhead gestured to the dark equines that milled idly around the paddock. "You can never unSee them. That's what death does to us, isn't it?" she shrugged. "All we can do is move on to something similar, perhaps, but not the same."

He was painfully aware that he had to look like a complete pathetic mess and he hated it.  He usually avoided situations that put him in this state of emotional vulnerability and blatant loss of control, especially in the presence of others.  And, it was a good thing Raine didn't know about the conversation he'd had a few short hours before. 

Sasha dropped his gaze to the stack of flashcards and shuffled them and read through several.  They were, on some level, a security blanket but they were also his safe zone - an opportunity for his brain to take a step back from the intensity of the conversation and focus on something logical and familiar.  Even if for only thirty seconds. 

"And if it doesn't?"  Sasha asked, quietly, looking up from the stack of cards.  Just because it was an arabic saying didn't mean it was guaranteed.  She could have said the same thing back in January before Ava's death.  Or, back in February before Foley's attack.  "If ... if it hasn't passed yet?  I mean ... Zel ... he's -"  He was a werewolf; Raine had to have heard the rumors by now.  "They also say everything comes in threes.  What if - first Greyfriar, then Foley and now ..."  He didn't think Raine knew about the Foley incident - he didn't even know how much she knew about Greyfriar. 

"And, then ... my parents - then Ava ..."  In both cases, there'd only been two incidents.  Was a third waiting in the wings in both instances?  Would this not pass until then?  And, was that what he was really hoping for?  He shrugged and looked back down at the cards without focusing on them.  "What right do I have to move on?"

The tone of Sasha's voice was, from Raine's view, defeatist. Like he dared not even hope for better. It was grating and mentioning Zel did not help- she knew that he wasn't in favour of Weres. Her own opinions on the issue were indifferent but the Hufflepuff was her friend too and in her mind, he was a friend before he was anything else. That's what friendship meant.

Not even trying to suppress her irritation, she scowled up at him with glaring blue eyes.

"Zel is a werewolf. You can say that, it isn't a big secret anymore..." Raine tried to keep the defensiveness low and achieved little success. "I didn't realize you were so superstitious. Everything coming in threes, that isn't even logical. Would you also prefer it if Maurice didn't cross your path? Or perhaps you're more wary of opening umbrellas indoors."

Bringing up his parents quieted her vexation, slightly. In the midst of all this talk about calamities (some which she had surmised from flocking rumours, others she did not recognize) it was difficult to keep herself from letting Sasha slip into his moping. This had been a difficult year for him. Her frown relaxed and she sighed softly, looking away to rest her back against the paddock fence. "What right do I have to move on?" he asked.

That was almost enough to make her want to throw something at him. Perhaps, if there had been an apple at hand.

"What right have you to linger?" she replied without trusting herself to look at him. The anger would be too apparent. "What right do you have to stay with your tragedies when the rest of the world must keep on turning... I mean..." Raine swallowed, pausing to collect her thoughts. Her eyes remained on the Thestrals. "Merlin, Sasha. I wish you could hear yourself. Terrible things happen but you can't bloody sit there in anticipation of the next one."

Sasha shifted, uncomfortably, on the fence as Raines' frustration built.  These questions and thoughts and Raine's persistence and frustration were quickly piercing a whole in that proverbial balloon.  The Ravenclaw closed, his eyes, desperate for some distraction - anything that would temper the raging thoughts just enough so he could force it all back under control, again.  But, it wasn't happening.  She wasn't relenting.

He hated the idea that he was disappointing her and every scowl, every glower was illustrating just that.  But, he didn't know how to make things right; he didn't know what she wanted to hear.  Was he supposed to apologize?  He doubted it.  He was almost certain attempting to apologize would manage to push Raine to slapping him.  Was he supposed to lie and say everything was fine?  He doubted that just as much.  So, then, what?  This was a problem he didn't know the answer to. 

To compound the uncertainty, only half of what Raine was saying was fully registering.  Sasha had reached his threshold.  He'd reached the limit of what he could handle without simple relinquishing all sense of emotional control.  And, he was not going to cry.  Displaying weakness in such a manner would not help anyone. 

"What right have you to linger?"

"Because I killed them!"  Sasha blurted.  "They're dead because of me and ... that's how people repent!  That's why we send them to prison!  That's why we send them to Azkaban!  Because I don't know how else to try to make things right!" 

He opened his mouth to speak, again, but the words caught in his throat in a strangled croak and he shook his head as he closed it, again.  He took a deep breath and turned his attention fully to the flashcards in his hands.  "Velocity equals the sum of the initial velocity and the rate of acceleration multiplied by time," Sasha murmured, finding his voice, again, through a simple physics equation. 

"What would you have me doing?" he asked, looking up from the cards.  "I don't know what you're wanting.  Am I supposed to pretend it's all okay?  That everything's normal?  What if something does happen?  To Zel?  Or ... or Abby?  Or you?"     

It took more than a sensible measure of restraint for Raine to keep herself from taking a step back when Sasha exclaimed he had, or at least believed he had, killed people. She was surprised by his conviction and even if it didn't enter her head that he might truly be responsible for such deaths, there was something vaguely hostile about his admission... like a frightened creature, who hardly knew its next move (and so how could she know?).

But the prefect stood perfectly still, shoulders tense- eyes softening when her friend began babbling muggle science from his flash cards. Words that were not so nonsensical now that she'd been through enough of Trishna's odd Astronomy classes. Sasha didn't need a breathing technique to calm him down, the way she did when she'd first lost Sanya, all he needed was facts.

A Thestral had moved over closer to the fence, nudging Raine's arm- she unconsciously slipped a hand on to its nuzzle and turned away from Sasha for a moment. Her irritation with him settled slightly; it was easy to understand now, the quieting effect of companion creatures. And then, breaking his revision: "What would you have me doing?"

He reminded Raine of her counselling session with Storm last year- when the professor had reminded her being an auror could not protect all her loved ones. Things would happen regardless. It was touching that Sasha thought it worrisome if anything terrible happened to her.

"I don't know with certainty," she replied in a quiet voice, eyes still on the Thestral and back to him. "But if you have blood on your hands, you don't sit and stare at them. People will get hurt despite how much we worry and you can't keep us all safe."

Saying that final truth was painful even for her to admit. No matter how good of an Auror she was...

"Nevermind." Raine halted abruptly, looking over her shoulder at Sasha and half-smiling in a weary expression. "Let's not. You're under a lot of stress, I can see that. Self-inflicted stress perhaps but you don't..." she ignored her instinct to say otherwise, "... you don't need me trying to push you now. I don't want you to do anything you would regret."

Hesitating only slightly, the redhead added: "Only...I mean... remember that not doing something soon enough can also be a regret. Preparing for calamities isn't really a life, Sasha. That's nothing bur fear. Fear without courage."