Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost

Don't Ask Me To Drown

A/N: there's a little nod to Nadia's movie, Spring, in this chapter.

We know from 4.6 that Luna is both aware of Murphy stealing the medicine for Adria, and doesn't seem to hold any negative feelings towards Raven over the fact. So this chapter sort of explores that. It's actually the first one I wrote for this story, though it's evolved a LOT from the first draft. Actually, that's why it took me so long to post. I kept editing it every day cos I wasn't satisfied.

With this fic, I'm constantly trying to find a balance between Luna's anger/judgment/despair and her compassion/peace/hope. We see both sides of her throughout the series and it's something that I'm going to be continually exploring.

Trigger Warning: Child Abuse

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Given up on walking in circles after ten minutes, Raven admitted defeat (because she was bored and not because her leg had reached mammoth levels of pain) and returned to Luna's spot on the dock.

She hadn't budged an inch and the braid was still in her lap.

They were going to be here a while.

Luna inclined her head to acknowledge her return but said nothing.

She was good at being quiet.

Raven could be, too. But that was usually when she had something interesting to focus on and, as beautiful as this island was, it didn't offer much in the way of that.

Her gaze traveled to the perimeter where the drones lingered and she halfheartedly considered taking one down to tinker with just to pass the time. The chances of something exploding or someone being shot at were relatively small, but she also didn't want to explain any of that to Abby if things did go wrong. Or watch Murphy laugh his ass off.

Fucking Murphy.

She still didn't know why he'd tagged along. It certainly would have been better for her ever-fraying sanity if he had chosen to stay behind.

It was like he was trying to make her life harder.

"I won't be much longer."

Raven started guiltily.

Shit.

Had she been that obvious?

"No, take your time. I'm all good. The fresh air is. . . nice."

Much better than recycled space air, at any rate.

Luna smiled fleetingly. "I know you have things to work on back at the lab and that you don't like being away from it."

That was. . . very true but, "This is important, too."

Raven meant that.

She'd been forced to rush through her goodbyes to Finn and Sinclair. Too much else was going on; hell, she'd barely been given even a second to grieve the former before she was strung up on a pole and forced to endure a lovely game of 'let's cut the little bird to ribbons in order to get our rocks off'.

Luna blinked at her words as though they'd surprised her in some way.

Maybe that was to be expected. She hadn't been given time to grieve, either. Raven could remember all of them - including her - pouncing on Luna just as she was finishing her prayers for the dead upon discovering that she was, very strangely, not among those dead.

And then there was Nyko.

There'd been little time to pay him much respect, either.

Raven's eyes passed over the braid still clutched protectively in her hand.