Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost

The Bad News Is We're All Gonna Die, The Good News is We're All Gonna Die

A/N: Luna changes a lot from episode to episode and I feel like in each one we get a different version of her. The first three chapters of this fic bridge the gap between 4.3 and 4.4 and show some of the development and causes for the changes between those two episodes. According to the timeline on wiki, they spend about five days at Arcadia before going to the island (more than enough time for this chapter to have taken place). I will warn you, though, that after chapter three I've messed with the timeline. Instead of spending three days on the island together, I've extended it to weeks (which could happen because Raven says they have two months or less before praimfaya hits at the time of Luna's arrival). Because of this, things won't be matching canon exactly because I've had to tweak things in order to space events out. I wanted Raven and Luna to have more time together so. Please don't hate me for it.

The time travel is a minor part of the fic and really only figures into it at the end. It exists solely so I can give Luna a better ending.

Also this was originally going to be called Before You Go after Lewis Capaldi's song. I decided on that months ago, made a sea mechanic vid for it and everything. And then today I saw this poem from Edgar Allen Poe and decided to use it for the title. Oops.

Trigger Warning: reference to suicide, child abuse

. . .

"It was dark now. A thin moon was visible, a bright portent, but giving no light."

― Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet

. . .

"One day your anger and resentment won't be enough to sustain you."

Inwardly, Jasper groaned at the remark, mostly because of the person it slithered out from.

Luna. He didn't want to talk to Luna.

Didn't want to have anything to do with her, not after the hell he'd watched unfold back on that oil rig.

But, of course, she'd happened to be in the room when he and Monty had gotten into another one of their fights.

Although it could hardly be called a fight when it mostly consisted of Jasper pelting barbed remarks at his oh-so-loyal friend, hoping that one would pierce his thickening skin and be enough to create a break, whilst Monty did his utmost best to take it all with good grace.

He felt bad about it, in the aftermath.

The way someone would feel bad about kicking a dog that would never bite back.

But that didn't stop him from doing it again. And again.

Idly, he wondered who he hated most these days.

Monty.

Or himself.

Jasper turned to face the woman standing a short distance away.

She smiled a little at him. Like she cared. Her smile was as useless as Monty's comfort.

He stared.

She shrugged. "Bitterness isn't the most nourishing of substances to survive on."

"Oh yeah, and you know this how?"

His interest flickered, rising from the darkness inside him. She was a much more interesting mark than his regulars.

This might even prove to be fun. Maybe he would actually feel something for a change.

Luna crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall.

There was no judgment in her gaze, but no kindness either. She looked at him like he was a book she'd read a thousand times before and was beginning to grow tired of. "Experience. Everyone I've ever loved is dead, some at my own hand." She said it so simply. And he wondered how a person created that kind of distance from their own suffering. If he wasn't so annoyed, he might have asked her. Maybe it worked better than moonshine. "Pain survives on anger and bitterness, feeds off it. Until one day you're left with nothing. Not even yourself."