Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sasha let herself be drawn into the hug. He sounded like Wash with his positive thinking, but Sasha wasn't so sure. She wouldn't be sure until she had Nona in her hands and her mind once more - and if that never happened, then what?

"Will you come with me when I go back? I.. it's a horrible place, Jerry," Sasha cleared her throat and rubbed at her eyes for a moment, "...something else happened, and.. Jerry, it was awful, so awful."

Sasha gave a wet laugh, though there was no true mirth in the noise.

How did one segue into talking about how one might've torn their own family member's jaw off?

"I think I met my grandmother."

There was a weighted silence as Sasha paused. She pulled away from Jerry so that she could reach for her jacket. It took her a moment to rummage through the folds of the tattered thing.

Withdrawing a picture from the heap that was her trainee jacket, Sasha slowly turned to show it to Jerry.

"This," she pointed at a woman who was impressively pregnant, "is my mother, my real mother - and this is her mother."

Her hand trembled as she delicately brushed her index finger over the face of a young woman with long, dark hair.

"This person, right here, was the one who came out of the casket in the crypt - and I think she's the one who stole my Nona. My grandmother -- I mean, I think that's who she is -- w-was, she was in the chapel. We spoke briefly, but she was .. c-confused. M-mad."

What was left of the story to tell?

"The house.. I think I must have become part of the house, because I could see my body except it wasn't me who was in my body, and I couldn't catch them. Four da-days later I woke up in the rectory and m-my hands were covered in bl-blood and she was dead."

She glanced over at him almost hopefully, brows lifted as if she'd never really considered that option before. An illusion?

She chewed on that for a while and then dismissed it with a wave of her hand.

"I don't think it was, Jerry. I don't think it could've been an illusion. The casket was real, the woman was real."

She flipped over the picture and pointed at it with a trembling finger.

"Delacroix family reunion, 19xx."

Sasha shook her head.

"There were mountains of pictures in the rectory - I've never seen so many boxes of pictures. A-and.. And Nona, she's really gone. I can't," her voice cracked, "I can't even h-hear her. I couldn't b-back there, either."

"I'm glad y-you're coming with me," she whispered softly against his chest, "I've .. what if we don't make it back, we might not m-make it back from there and I can't .. after ev-everything, I can't expect y-you just to do that f-for me, Jerry."

Sasha pulled away from him and abruptly wiped the tears from her cheeks. She took up the same seated position she'd had when he'd first approached, and Sasha remained silent for a long time.

"I told Wash I didn't w-want him to come, but," she secured the picture in her jacket before brushing her tear-dampened hands off on the leggings she wore, "I think we're going to need all the h-help we can get. Do you think I should ask anyone else? Maybe Rin?"

She trusted Rin. They hadn't talked in a while, but Rin had been down in the dungeons with her.

"Completely out of the question."