Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sasha was ghastly pale as she leaned over to snatch the necklace that Jerry held. She lifted it up along with the second picture she'd looked at - the man in the photo wore the same necklace - the very same cross - as the one she held in her hand.

She felt like she was going to vomit.

With stiff fingers Sasha reached for one of the pieces of paper. It didn't take her long to read it.

Bile swirled in her gut, burned her throat. She scrambled to her feet and swayed, hands clapped over her lips - the necklace twined like a snake between her fingers.

Sasha's voice was an odd combination of shrill panic mixed with a deep, deep confusion.

"I don't know who these people are."

"I told you where I found this case! I told you where I found it! It was at my .. it was at the house - from before. The house from before, where I used to live."

She held the necklace up and swayed. Her skin was pale, and a cool sweat formed a film across her forehead and her upper lip. Her thoughts were moving rapid fire.

This was her father. This was her mother.

Her papa was not her papa.

This man in the picture. He was her father. The woman, her mother.

Her papa was not her papa.

Sasha's mouth ran dry. Her stomach clenched and roiled.

Sasha sat on the bed with a dazed expression on her face. She felt like everything - everything - she'd known had been a lie. A harsh, ugly lie that was only now coming to light.

Jerry's reassurances were doing absolutely nothing to make her feel any better in the least. If anything, he was making her feel worse - it mattered. He knew it mattered. She knew it mattered.

There was a pressure in her chest that made it hard to breathe. It made it hard to think, hard to do anything.

Her papa wasn't her papa.

He wasn't.

So who was he? And what had happened to her real parents? Her real father? Her real mother?

Oh, God.

<Sasha, you must calm down, please, little dove.>

The tension built and built. Thoughts were running rampant through her mind. They could not be stopped.

The man that she'd spent her entire life struggling to keep happy, to keep proud - the man that she'd yearned to make happy. That man - the one who had been so very cruel to her as she'd gotten older.

He was not her father.

Tauter and tauter the tension stretched, thick in her throat and sour on her tongue.

"The person who raised me was a man who did not love me. He never loved me. I realize this now. He never cared. He didn't want me."

The weight of his arm against her back felt stifling, like an anchor that kept her tied down. The tension was thicker and blacker and more acrid and destructive than anything she'd ever felt, any emotion that she'd ever come close to. Even the dungeons had been tame compared to this.

Tauter.

It was no wonder he'd been such a cruel man. It was no wonder she could never make him happy.

Tauter.

Why had she even tried? What kind of cruel joke had this been?

Snap.

Something gave way then - the already trembling foundations of her entire memory base crumpled and shattered. The control that she had desperately been grasping at was no longer there. Sasha allowed herself to slip into the rage that seemed to constantly simmer deep beneath the surface. It was comfortable there. It was familiar. She slowly rose to her feet.

"Better men, Jerry?" Her voice was a low, harsh rasp; venomous, serpentine. There was nothing but pure, putrid anger now - the anger that had burbled to the surface only once before, with Rep. Even this was different. This was pure, hot, consuming. This was different.

"Better men? Like you?"

She turned to face him, her expression contorted and ugly.

"Is that what you mean?"

"You can hardly take care of yourself, Jerry - and I don't want to take care of you. I've paid my dues - I've .. I'm not.. things have changed. I've changed. You haven't. You haven't changed."

The floodgates were open now, rage and anger and pain and regret all gushing forth. She was helpless to stop it.

"At first maybe it was charming. Music, someone I connected with. And then - now - it's a chore. All of this is a chore. Looking after you, caring about you. Caring about anyone. Weakness piled upon weakness piled upon weakness. Exploitable."

Sasha was sneering now, unable to stop spewing the words that were so eager to be spoken.

"Just go away. Leave me alone."

She wasn't even sure what was coming out of her mouth anymore. Sasha couldn't stop herself from looking at the pictures spread across the floor, and she hated herself for feeling pain. For feeling regret, and hurt, and weak. It was a fathomless void of hurt that yawned in her chest, endless and selfish - taking everything she'd ever known and leaving nothing behind.

"Don't tell me to calm down! You don't .. how can you understand! You can't! You had someone there for you, someone who loved you!"

She'd always thought she'd had someone like that. Even at his worst, she'd always believed that her papa had loved her.

"I thought.. my mother, he told me she died giving birth to me. I can't... I can't remember any of this," she waved her hand at the open case, the pictures, the rings, the cross. "I can't remember these people. I can't remember my mother - I can't remember my real father - just lies. So many lies - so many <******** secrets - and I can't handle it. I can't handle this, and I .. I just want you to go away."

Her hands formed fists.

"Now. Go away and leave me alone."

"Why do you keep talking like ... like this can be fixed? Like I can just pick up the pieces of my life and rebuild everything? And you really think that the doctor is going to tell us anything? That he's going to tell me anything?"

Sasha laughed, the sound half-crazed. Both tone and volume increased, any final strands of control snapping like frayed thread.

The ache in her chest demanded release. She moved to the desk, picked up the lamp, and sent it soaring against the wall. The crash it made was surprisingly soothing. Pens, pencils, books - and when that wasn't enough, Sasha picked up the chair and threw that, too. It thudded harmlessly against the floor.

"Get out. Get out." Jerky movements carried her towards the bed where she retrieved the flute. "Get out," the flute went zipping through the air, crashing against the floor near Jerry's feet. "Leave me alone, just leave me alone - you're <******** suffocating me and I can't breathe, I don't want you here just go away, go away - go away!"

The last few words were shrieked - like a child, eyes closed, face red, chest heaving.