Alfred watched her expression, considering. Something in either her features or her tone reminded him just a touch of Charity, and the way she talked about her late parents. Perhaps it hadn't really all settled into place yet. Perhaps she didn't want it to, and was purposefully not thinking about the thing she had implied, but not said: that it was her fault they were dead. No matter who they were or what she knew of them, that was a weight that

He chewed the inside of his lower lip briefly as he thought. After a moment, he said, "It doesn't get much easier, no matter how many times it happens. And that... the tendency to blame yourself doesn't ever go away, no matter how they die. Whether it was preventable or not. I think it's a way of coping, honestly," he said, a touch hesitantly. "Not that it feels great to think that you're at fault for some catastrophe that could have been avoided — but blaming yourself is... easier... than accepting that there isn't anyone to blame," he continued. "Because if there's no one to blame then you have to live with the idea that it could just happen again. Or something like it. At any moment, just —" he made a quick gesture with his hand, then spread his fingers wide; a lightning strike and an explosion. "And it's easier to keep on if you think instead that it's you; that if you do better, or try harder, or notice more — if you're not so foolish or so overconfident — it won't happen again."

Alfred paused. Perhaps that was all a bit too much, at least in this moment. "Although that probably doesn't make you feel any better," he added with a slight flush of his cheeks, turning his attention to his drink.