Raina lifted her hands and allowed slender fingers to slip into her hair. When she was a child, her mother used to brushed her fingers through her hair whenever she was upset. She could clearly remember being a young girl and crying into her mother's apron after the neighborhood kids poked fun of her brilliant shade of hair. She had run into the kitchen where her mother was tending to dinner on the stove top. The moment she had heard Raina's tears, the older woman took her child into her arms and sat with her on the linoleum floor, pulling her fingers gently through the younger girl's hair. Raina even remembered how she had let dinner burn and they had to go out to pick up something that night because she had lost track of time comforting her daughter.
Even the happy memory stung.
"I want you out of my house." Her voice was eerily calm and steady, tone vacant of almost all emotion. Once green eyes were now a horribly steel gray. Her thin hands were shaking with the struggle. Either struggling not to cry, or struggling not to scream. Raina couldn't tell the difference but the wide eyed look on her face portrayed the desire to know.
"But mom."
One hand was held up and it physically stopped any more words from coming out. "Get out."
Raina closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed back the feeling that was building up inside of her to just.. explode. Her throat felt like sandpaper and for the first time in years, she felt fragile. The idea of tears frightened her for surely the simple droplets would shatter her skin. That was partially why she was so thankful he had mentioned something that caught her attention. Djinn. Why hadn't she thought of going to a genie? They granted wishes. Perhaps she could find a way to fix things and set them back into place. Surely anything that was taken from her in turn for the wish would be a willing price to pay if only she could take back the events of that night.
She offered her hand out to him, wanting him to come and sit beside her. She wanted to be close to him. This whole past week she had wanted to be with him. Being around Desmond was like being handed an oxygen mask when you were drowning in the deepest, darkest of seas. Somehow he made it so that she could breathe again--or maybe just gave her the courage and confidence to take those painful breaths on her own. "What happened?" She asked him, referencing his comment about losing what had mattered most. Of course if he didn't want to talk about what had happened, Raina was not the type that would beg him to share with her. He had a history's worth of life experience, and it certainly all could not be good. If it was painful, or if he did not wish to share some of those experiences, he would find that Raina was filled with unending patience and understanding.
It was his question about why she would wish to change time that made her finally sit up. She bent her knees and pulled them against her chest, wrapping her arms around them as she looked to the ground surrounding them. The thought of saying it out loud frightened her even more. While she knew it had actually happened, speaking it seemed like it would make it real. More than it was, if that was possible. Her voice was already cracking when she parted her lips to speak. She spoke softly, fighting as hard as she could to keep from crumbling into a million tiny pieces. "Last week.. something horrible happened." Her tongue just barely slipped past her lips to wet them. They, along with her mouth, seemed to dry up just as quickly. She had been so thirsty and.. lifeless. "And I think--" Now this was the part that really ached. Reaching down, Raina picked at a blade of grass. "It was my fault."