Even In The Grave, All Is Not Lost

It's Our Nature

A/N: So, in canon, Abby sedates Raven at the end of 4x06. But because I'm stretching out the timeline I've decided to delay that until later in the story, once we get up to 4x08.

There's a lot of internal monologue in this chapter, sorry in advance. Originally there was even more but it was starting to feel excessive so I've decided to save the rest for later chapters.

Luna's chapters tend to be pretty heavy on the internal monologue cos there's a lot going on under the surface that she doesn't let you see.

Next chapter we return to Raven's POV and Raven and Luna interacting, though.

...

"When things are at their blackest, I say to myself, 'Cheer up, things could be worse.'

And sure enough, they get worse."

― Robert Asprin

. . .

John and Jackson had worked together to heave Raven's unconscious form back to her 'bedroom', Abby and Luna following their actions with anxious attention.

She'd wanted to reach out to her, to carry Raven herself, to hold her - like she'd held her through the uncontrollable rage earlier - but something stopped Luna.

She'd seemed so fragile, laying there on the floor after the convulsions had ceased - it wasn't a descriptor she'd ever thought to apply to Raven. The girl was small but big - her personality and life bursting out of her, dwarfing all other occupants in the room. But unconscious, that grandness disappeared, sucked into the weakening world of sickness, of her body's contrasting frailty.

A part of Luna had been afraid to touch, to break what was already crumbling.

It wasn't a fear she'd experienced for a long time. That nauseating suspicion that her darkness was contagious, that if she touched the light of others she would only contaminate them, spread that darkness like a ravenous disease-

destruction without limits.

But reality had dismissed that fear over the years, that belief that she would ruin all in her path.

Derrick had never been afraid of her touch.

And neither had Adria.

Luna had watched in wonder every time she released them from her arms and their light didn't flicker, didn't go out but instead bloomed, growing stronger.

The fear that her mere existence would bring catastrophe had worn away, been revealed for the irrational paranoia it was.

Until A.L.I.E. had arrived, starting a chain reaction that extinguished all sources of light in Luna's life.

They were gone now.

All of them.

And she could trace that fatal conclusion back to her own actions, her own choices.

Her darkness - the world's darkness - had won.

There was no light left now.

Except for Raven.

Somehow, someway she'd appeared as a torch in a tunnel Luna couldn't find her way out of.

She made something settle inside her, made the darkness retreat.

For a time.

Luna didn't want to break that.

It wasn't rational. She knew it wasn't rational.