A/N:

So once again I ended up adding like 7 more paragraphs the night before posting. I don't know why this always happens. I proofread multiple times throughout the week and it's always at the last minute that inspiration strikes. Anyhoo, parts of this chapter are a little rough as a result. It shouldn't be too noticeable because the paragraphs are scattered throughout rather than all being in one chunk.

[Trigger Warning (spoilers): Reference to past self-harm. It's incredibly vague but it's there. Also infertility]


"I am being tested. The human capacity for survival is being tested."

- Russian physicist Anatoli Bugorski, the man who survived the highest acute radiation dose in history. He survived 300,000 rads. 100,000 rads is considered to be a fatal dose for everybody.


"Let's stop for a few minutes," Luna said, already slowing her pace in disregard of the putout expression on the other woman's face. She knew her suggestion would not be easily appreciated - or accepted.

"I'm fine," Raven insisted and Luna tried for a genuine smile, one that would put the Sky girl at ease. She set a hand against a nearby tree, accepting that for now she needed the support it could provide.

"I know." Though she'd seen the other woman falter more than a few times, face straining through a grimace, and doubted the veracity of her words. However, Luna knew better than to voice this. "But I'm not."

Raven's eyes widened and she stumbled over to her, hands out, seeking to touch, to steady if need be, but not daring to connect. "What's wrong?"

Luna suppressed a smile at her concern, so strongly given even when the mechanic herself couldn't stand to be on the receiving end of it.

"I'm just tired," she murmured. "My stamina isn't what it once was. But it will get there."

In truth, she was still weak from the radiation sickness. Abby had warned her that it would take time for her body to recover from the damage her organs had endured before the radiation had been filtered out of her system. She'd also cautioned that there was a possibility she may never fully recover.

Her immunity to the radiation now didn't mean that her body hadn't been vulnerable to its effects when it was still in her blood. She'd been as close to death as any of her clan (and still couldn't understand why she hadn't been allowed to pass with them, why her body remained chained to this desiccating existence).

Only time would tell if there were to be any long-term consequences of that close escape.

Luna wasn't overly concerned. At this point, it didn't appear as though the nightblood solution had much hope of being realized. Which meant, in a few short weeks or even days, everyone would be dead.

Everyone except Luna.

She had no care for what her health would be like if such a calamity came to pass, nor if it would weaken her own chances of survival.

The truth was, she didn't care to survive.

Not in the future she saw coming.

Likely she would. Because she always survived. Likely, her instincts or fate would pull their strings and death would pass her by.

But she wouldn't bat an eye if it did not.

"Do you need to sit down?" Raven was already looking around somewhat frantically and Luna didn't doubt that if she asked it of her, the other woman would race back to the lab to procure a chair just to make sure she was as comfortable as possible.

(though the torture devices they had in the lab were unlikely to be of any help in that regard)

It was touching. She'd thought she'd lost the right to anyone's concern when Nyko died. She hadn't expected to receive such care ever again, least of all from a Sky Person.

Luna reached out a hand, laying it on the mechanic's tense arm as she offered another smile. "Raven, I'm fine. I just need to rest for a moment."

And she needed Raven to rest before she pushed herself into another night of agonizing pain. Luna knew the other woman barely slept - and that her compulsive need to work herself into exhaustion was only partly the reason. On the nights Luna stayed in the lab, she could hear Raven tossing and turning. One time, she'd heard the sound of muffled, frustrated sobs.

It had taken everything in Luna not to march into that room and pull the younger woman into her arms, to hold her through the pain that never left.

But she knew Raven would have been mortified by such an intrusion, by the knowledge that her vulnerability had been so horrifically on display. So Luna let her be.

Some nights, she haunted the lab, spending the dark hours meditating or crafting jewelry on the offchance Raven might wander in after another failed attempt at catching sleep - it had happened at least twice so far. Ever since Luna's Conclave, sleep had been elusive and recent events had made it even more skittish, near impossible to grasp onto. Luna hadn't been lying when she told Raven that she'd been struggling, or that being in the other woman's presence made that struggle less pronounced.

But she knew her close proximity made Raven uncomfortable, knew that invading the mechanic's bedroom in order to increase her chances of getting sleep would be crossing a line, or at the very least pushing things all too far past Raven's comfort zone.

But that was alright. Her training meant that Luna was used to operating on very little sleep and the insomnia that had plagued her since the Conclave only strengthened this ability - even if, in the last few years, she hadn't needed to rely upon it quite so much.

In any case, the lab was as good a place as any to waste the night in. And if Raven sometimes stumbled through the doors, rubbed raw from another nightmare or hours spent trying to sleep through the pain, then Luna would be there. Not to give comfort - for it would only be rejected - but she would be there.

For the time being, it was all she could offer. All Raven would accept from her.

Well, not quite all. . .

She'd noticed that on the days they went for walks - not long ones - that Raven seemed to sleep a little easier and suspected that the movement was a much-needed relief. Luna knew from her own history that sitting around in uncomfortable positions all day did not help a person's pain.

It was one of the reasons she'd suggested they go fishing.

But she had to be careful not to push Raven too hard, past the point of relief and into agony.

She had to be even more careful that the other woman didn't push herself past that point - a task near impossible to succeed in.

No, some rest was needed. For both of them.

(and when the Death Wave came, that rest would be eternal)

Still eyeing her with concern, Raven hovered nearby, not seeming to know what to do with herself.

Luna's lips drew up, unable to hide her amusement any longer, and she took hold of the other woman's hand, tugging her over. "Come stand by me. This tree can support more than just one."

Raven rolled her eyes, grumbling under her breath. "I don't need any stupid tree support." But still she obliged and Luna knew she did it for her sake rather than her own.

But that was okay.

For now.

"Sometimes want is enough," she replied, settling back against the tree, content now that Raven was beside her. "You don't have to need something in order for it to be appreciated."

Raven looked like she might argue with that but huffed, apparently deciding it wasn't worth the effort, before she slumped back against the tree, her body far more rigid than the Grounder's.

She'd noticed that Raven had a tendency to distract and deflect. Not just from her own pain, but that of others' as well. If Luna circled something hurtful in conversation, Raven would search for a way out, enforcing a subject change.

She seemed determined to push forward - through everything - refusing to linger.

Luna noticed it most when she spoke of her clan. Of Adria.

Most days, Raven would nearly trip over herself in her rush to divert those conversations, to 'spare' Luna the pain of engaging in them. A direct contrast to how Raven had been during their first walk, when she'd initiated such a conversation herself. It appeared the closer they became, the more Luna's pain seemed to scare her.

And discussing Raven's own pain was out of the question.

Luna didn't mind but it did fill her with some concern. She was more than aware of the consequences that could come from alienating yourself from all pain, pretending that it didn't exist, or searching for a way to ignore that existence. It was a balancing act that provided only one ending.

She reflexively touched the back of her head, feeling the deadly reminder of uneven skin, remembering larger, rougher fingers that had once touched that place so tenderly.

The same fingers that had eventually held her down, forced her head underwater. Luna could feel them as they gently cradled her face after wrenching her back up for rationed air, combing through the soaked and tangled mess of her hair.

But those weren't the same fingers.

And that wasn't the same man.

Derrick had died a stranger to her. Gone before she ever had the chance to drive the knife in.

That didn't make killing him any easier, though.

Swallowing, Luna took her hand away, trailing it over the sprig of rosemary that resided in her hair. She took a breath, inhaling the reassurance of its scent.

She wouldn't force Raven to talk. That was likely to do more harm than good. Talking had to be her choice and only when she was ready to partake in it.

But that didn't mean that Luna couldn't talk. A part of her hoped that the more she unraveled herself, the more hurts she made open to Raven's inspection, the more the other woman would become comfortable with returning the favor.

And... Raven was very easy to talk to.

She liked talking to her.

Even about the things that hurt. Perhaps especially about those.

Luna closed her eyes, breathing in the smell of rosemary as she allowed the weight of the tree to support her, mind wandering. . .

"Normally, the recovery time for radiation sickness ranges from several weeks to two years, if the person survives," Abby started. "But we have no idea how your blood will affect that - if it will in fact affect it at all. And then there are the possible long-term complications like cancer or infertility."

Luna thought somewhat bitterly that the sickness might have managed to solve one of her problems in that regard. The ability to bear children was something that she'd often wished she could discard, the risk of passing on her genes a fear that had plagued her ever since the Conclave.

She'd loved Adria no less for the fact that she hadn't come from her own womb. Her heart had been utterly and completely devoted to her. In truth, Adria had been easier to love because she bore no trace of Luna inside of her.

She had no need to birth a child in order to love it and she rather wished that infertility and nightblood went hand in hand - though that would have thrown a spanner in the Fleimkepas' plans.

If this was the universe finally deciding to correct that mistake, it was seven years too late.

Not that it hardly mattered now. Nyko was right. There would be no more Conclaves in the future. No more novitiates tasked with the duty to kill or die from birth.

It was cruel that something she'd spent so much of her life praying for no longer brought any relief. The cost of receiving it had been too great.

And how ironic, that now when having a child with nightblood was no longer something to be feared, she may have lost the ability to have children altogether.

Luna hadn't decided yet how she felt about that.

Nightblood or no nightblood, she wasn't sure bringing a child into this world would ever be anything but cruel.

She certainly had no wish to at the moment.

Still, it was yet another choice that may have been taken from her and that was slightly harder to come to terms with.

And there was yet more irony to be had.

Though Luna's opinion of her blood hadn't changed, she'd gone from being disgusted at the thought of passing it on to someone else, to actively praying that the Sky People would succeed in managing to do so on a grand scale.

The spirits were surely laughing at her.

If they deigned to think of Luna at all.

"Right now, I'd say most - If not all - of the radiation in your body has been filtered out, but you're still weak because your bone marrow hasn't finished replacing the cells the radiation damaged or destroyed." Luna wondered whether she should interrupt Abby for clarification - she had no idea what cells or bone marrow were - but found that she didn't care enough to do so. She was mostly uninterested in everything the healer had to say. It was of little consequence to her now. What use was a healthy body in a world of death? "But even with the radiation gone, it was still present in your body long enough - and at a high enough dose - to do damage. Though, from what I've seen, not as much as would be expected." Abby hesitated. "There are tests I can do to try and determine the extent of the damage and whether it's temporary or permanent..."

"No," Luna said, voice low but firm. "There are more important ways to spend your time right now." Abby hadn't stated as much but she knew this was the reason behind her reluctance. The healer's priority was finding a way to save humanity, not wasting time trying to figure out how healthy the one person who was guaranteed to survive might be. If they succeeded in creating nightbloods, Abby could run all the tests she wanted. But not before then.

And, to be honest, Luna had no desire to be poked or prodded anymore than was already required.

Abby didn't protest, which confirmed her suspicions about the healer's priorities more than anything else. But, then, she hadn't expected any different. "If it's any consolation, I don't think there will be any long-term damage. Becca perfected the serum with the intention of protecting the human body from radiation, I'd expect that would include latent side effects."

Abby didn't mention the fact that Becca had designed nightblood to defend against a lower level of solar radiation in space - the radiation the Sky People had adjusted to over generations - which was a far different creature to the levels they were experiencing now, brought on by a nuclear apocalypse. But she didn't have to. Luna had overheard her discussing these concerns with Jackson and she knew that Abby was worried about whether or not nightblood would be enough to counter the effects of the Death Wave - something Becca had never intended for it to do.

With each day, her blood appeared less and less the savior everyone proclaimed it to be.

It would have been vindicating if the consequences weren't so devastating.

"Of course, this is all just hypothetical. In truth, we have no idea how nightblood will affect your recovery. You're already healthier at this stage than anyone would have the right to expect. Your white cell count is still lower but it's rising steadily - and quickly. Soon, it may be as though you were never sick at all."

Unlikely. Even if Luna's body did fully recover, she would never forget the illness that had laid siege to it - not when that very same illness had cost her everything.

In some ways, she preferred to still endure the after-effects of everything that had happened. To feel the pain in her bones just as surely as she did in her heart. She suspected, once it was gone, she'd be left with a disconcerting emptiness. The appearance that everything was fine, everything was better-

when she knew it could never be so again.

The physical malaise at least felt appropriate.

And it was distracting.

Luna needed the distraction. She wasn't ready to return to how she was before this nightmare.

She wasn't ready to wear the body of a woman she could never be again.

"It's the radiation sickness, isn't it?" Raven asked, intruding on the memory. Luna felt the edges of it recede, falling back into the darkness that birthed it. The roughness of the bark needling through the fabric of her glove was grounding. She glanced over, pressing the pads of her fingers into the rough terrain, urging it to keep her present as her mind traversed the path back to Raven's question.

Luna nodded in answer, watching the travels of a ladybug as it climbed the outer casing of her glove. Costia always said they were gifts sent by the spirits, meant to bestow gifts on whomever they deemed worthy. If one landed on you, then a wish should be voiced.

But Luna had too much to wish for - too many impossible wishes, too many lost things whose return she so desperately hungered for - to voice just one. So she stayed silent.

"I'm not fully healed. I look it but. . ." Well, the effects were still there. Muted, fading by the day.

But there.

Certain death was not an easy thing to heal from.

She suspected being drained of her blood wasn't helping, either.

Raven's gaze flickered to her and away again. "You've never said anything."

Luna lifted a shoulder. "I've felt far worse in my life and I understand what it is to heal, the time it takes. This will pass. I don't need to bring it into the light in order to make it do so."

Her pain - her physical pain - was temporary.

Unlike Raven's.

And she was content to watch it pass with little acknowledgment.

There was a time when Luna had craved pain.

Needed it.

These days, a part of her still did.

So this she could more than handle.

"Still," Raven hesitated. "You could have said something. To me, at least. You didn't have to keep it to yourself."

Another person might have pointed out the hypocrisy of this statement but Luna simply nodded. If there was any whom she'd wish to voice such things to it was Raven - whatever the other woman's reticence when it came to admitting any ounce of physical distress herself. "I know. But there hasn't really been much cause to speak of it. Until now."

She wasn't like Raven. She didn't feel the need to hide her pain or discomfort, and she wasn't threatened by the thought of other people seeing it.

Luna simply hadn't said anything because it hadn't interested her to do so. She'd felt no need or desire to mention her body's weakened state, so she hadn't.

In truth, she had far too many other things on her mind.

But today, voicing it had been beneficial. Today, she'd been able to use her pain to keep Raven from fanning the flames of her own. She was grateful to it for that.

The mechanic nodded slowly, seeming to draw some understanding from what her words. "Okay."

"How's your leg?" A risk to ask but Luna weighed that against her desire to see Raven grow more comfortable in sharing her pain - in discarding the opinion that it was a weakness to do so - and found that it was the worth the risk.

She huffed. "You had to ask?"

Luna only smiled. "Well, we were just talking about my pain. It's only fair."

"Quid Pro quo?"

"Mm."

The other woman heaved a sigh before slumping slightly. "It hurts. But it always hurts. So. . . there's not really anything to say."

Luna nodded, happy for now with what she had been given. She could understand, also, how a hell could become so constant, so unceasing, that the prospect of talking about it promised nothing but exhaustion. No relief. When there was no way to change anything, such talk felt meaningless. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Mm."

"That's it?"

Luna's mouth curved as she glanced at the other woman out of the corner of her eye, noting the incredulous expression. "It was just a question, Raven. I wasn't trying to gain something from you with it, or get you to do anything. I was just checking in."

"Checking in?"

"Yes."

Raven eyed her doubtfully for a moment. "That's all?"

"Yes." Her smile grew.

Raven gnawed on her bottom lip a moment, studying her face, before apparently deciding that she could accept what she saw there and relaxing once more. "Okay."

Luna's smile softened."Not everything has to be a fight, Raven."

She snorted. "Not in my experience."

"Nor in mine, to begin with. But it's something I've learned in recent years."

Something she'd made herself learn.

Luna prayed, after everything - and with all that was still to come - that she didn't forget it.

Raven let out a frustrated breath, squirming slightly. "Look, I know I'm a little defensive. Okay? I know that. It's just a hard habit to break."

"Especially when you don't want to."

Raven turned to her, a brief flash of vulnerability passing over her face before it was gone, a hardness replacing it.

A wall.

That anger then sealed into place.

Luna softened her gaze. "I don't mind. Your defensiveness - I don't mind. And I'm sure you have good reason for it." She smiled, hoping to ease the deeply uncomfortable expression on the other woman's face. "I just want you to know that you don't need it with me. You can choose to use it or not, whatever suits you. We all have walls, Raven. And we all have reasons for them. But if one day you don't feel like maintaining yours, I want you to know that it will be safe for you. To let them down. I won't ever abuse that gift."

Raven had a lot of armor and Luna would never ask her to shed it, not for her sake. All she wanted was for the other woman to know that she could. If she wanted to.

Around Luna, she could.

If the weight of it ever became too crushing.

Raven could be light around her - and Luna would never dare to hold her down. Nor would she force her to discard the burden of her shields, the heavy weight that anchored her to the ground. But if she chose to. . . Luna would let her float away if she could. If Raven allowed her to.

She would never bring her down.

The younger woman swallowed but didn't say anything.

That was okay. They weren't there yet.

They may never be there.

But Luna could hope.

Something darted out of the corner of her eye and she turned, just in time to watch the ladybug fly away, a new wish weighing down her tongue, hoping to take flight.

She kept her silence and watched it depart.

Wishes had never brought her anything in the end.

It was best not to ask for what couldn't be given. Luna had more than learned that by now.


"Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them."

Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier


A/N: So I know on the show, Luna doesn't take longer than a week to recover from ARS and doesn't seem to suffer any sort of long-term side effects. For me, this feels unrealistic. For Luna to have displayed the symptoms she did, a lot of damage must have been done to her body and filtering out the radiation doesn't erase that damage, though it does make it possible to heal and regenerate. One week does NOT seem like a long enough time to heal from such damage. I would say at least a month, though the effects of radiation can last years. It's hard to know because we weren't really given all that much information about how nightblood actually works. It's possible that it's similar to hematopoietic transfusions (which are used to treat ARS), Luna's newly resistant to radiation blood replacing the cells already damaged by radiation and filtering it out. Like Abby, I'm sort of just stumbling around in the dark here. I'll admit, my understanding of biology isn't the best. I only did one semester of it in highschool and that was on genetics. All I know is what I've been able to discover through the internet and some of those scientific papers are hard to comprehend lol. But we know Luna seemed to be on the same timeline symptom wise with the rest of her clan and they died shortly after arrival which suggests to me that Luna was very close to death herself, which means organ failure.

So I'm not positive because I haven't finished writing the first draft yet (it's all just a bunch of random scenes and dialogue on its own) but I think I've got about 110,000 words left of draft for this fic so I think the whole thing is going to end up being around 200,000 words. Possibly. We'll see. It's all rough draft that hasn't yet made its way into first draft, so a lot of changes will be made. In saying that though, the word count will probably increase since a lot of it is just dialogue without anything else.

Hence the slow burn lol. Hope you guys don't get bored.

I'm also going to have to warn you that I think I'll need to have a break around the 29 chapter mark. Just because after that, I hit the really really rough drafts and it takes me about 3 weeks to a month to get them ready for posting (I had about 16 first drafts ready for this fic before I started posting and that's why I've been able to get a chapter finalised each week). But because I'm also working on my yumagna fics right now, I haven't had the time to jump ahead and polish off some more drafts. Sorry guys. It won't be a month between each update, I just need that first month (or two) to get enough chapters in first draft mode in order to return to updating weekly. But I'll let you know ahead of time when I have to take that break (since the exact chapter is still a bit unsure right now)