No Need To Ask

The Sun

Summary: We're about to find out where Luna ran off to

Note: Warning, my best friend started sobbing halfway through this chapter.

If a person was to choose another life, they would never choose Luna River's. Destiny had a way of seeing to it that she remained lonely. Her long coat sways as she walks down the street, children screaming, laughing, and crying in the park next to her; siblings abound.

The nostalgia hits her in waves. Helios, a mop of curly hair and big brown eyes that looked up at her like she was everything he wanted to be, even if she was only a few minutes older. He would wait at the bottom of the slide expectantly. When she reached the bottom his hand would grasp hers and he would gently tug her towards the next fun piece of equipment on the playground.

The same expectant eyes looked at her when they had crawled out of the wrecked car that night. The ones that silently asked how they would save their parents. How they would stop their own bleeding. Eight year old Luna didn't know the answer. So she just hugged him and sobbed thinking they were going to die like that, bleeding out against the car because they had no doctors to stop their bleeding like there always was.

That night their parents bled out in the car before the ambulance could come. Luna and Helios barely survived, having already passed out from blood loss when the paramedics got to them. That was the thing about Nightblood. It didn't affect you in daily life. Only when you got hurt. Only when it truly mattered.

After that, Helios changed.

He smiled more, went out with friends, and relied on her less to make his decisions. Luna suspected that it was in part not to worry her. Never once did she have to ask if he did good on his quizzes. Never once did he ask for her time, not even to go to his varsity basketball practice championship game. Luna had taken this gratefully. Only in the after fact did she realize that she had taken it for granted.

Luna didn't know. She couldn't have known but her seventeen year old self was busy at one of those stupid charity balls with Lexa because according to Titus it was good for the family business that kept all of them fed and clothed. Too many of her teen years after the death of her parents were spent this way.

It was a concussion. Some ridiculously large oaf from the other team had crashed into him while he was jumping to take a shot.

Helios was still smiling when they rushed into the hospital room. The idiot had grinned up at Luna and Lexa, proudly declaring, "I won! And I got a full ride to to Polis University!"

Luna had frozen, half on the verge of tears at her silly brother. She didn't know if she should be proud or outraged that he had let himself get hurt like that.

Then like a dam bursting apart she had surged forward, enveloping him with a giant hug and he had laughed over her shoulder, "Do you see this, Lexa? You're lucky you don't have an older sister."

To which Lexa had answered slyly that Anya alone was more than enough.

Except the doctors couldn't have predicted the brain bleed, the one that had him coding several hours later, and dead in forty eight hours. The one that wouldn't stop and kept growing because of the nightblood disorder.

Just like that when his heart flatlined, Luna was alone. She watched the life leave him hour by hour. Her twin was gone, never to come back...or so she thought.

When she looks up from her pavement as she finishes reviewing her memories, Luna stops dead in her tracks.

Standing in front of her, with the same big brown eyes and curly floppy hair was Helios. He smiles at her boyishly as her heart thumps like crazy. Helios stands with the same slouch and hands shoved into his pockets. There's no way it's him because Helios died years ago, but here he is, older, with stubble, and in an old frayed Polis U sweater.