Word Count: 654


Somehow, Dean isn't surprised to find Luna outside at half past midnight. What does surprise him is how beautiful she looks, bathed in the moonlight, all messy hair and pale skin that seems to glow.

"Can't sleep either?" he asks, tucking his pencil behind his ear and holding up his notebook as thought to emphasize that his mind is too restless to give in to dreams.

Luna turns. Her eyes are wide, and Dean doesn't know if it's her natural expression or if he's caught her off guard. Whatever it is, she quickly relaxes into a sparkling smile. "I don't like sleeping very much," she answers with a shrug of her slender shoulders. "The night is too alive. Look."

She points, and Dean follows. In the distance, over the sea, he sees a flash lightning split open the sky. A faint rumble of thunder follows. She's right. On the surface, there's nothing particularly special about a storm at sea. But there's something about it happening in the night that makes it feel extraordinary.

"That's it, then? You don't…" He clears his throat, tugging awkwardly at the collar of his shirt. "You don't have nightmares that keep you awake?"

Luna hasn't talked about what happened to her, but Dean has pieced some of it together. For months, she had been locked away in Malfoy Manor and used as leverage against her father. He cannot imagine the hell she had experienced as their prisoner. And yet, she doesn't act as though anything has happened at all. There's still an aura of serenity around her,

"I don't really have nightmares," she says. "You can't move on if you're still in the past. I think my subconscious knows that, and it lets me let go."

Dean doesn't know much about psychology, but he's reasonably sure it doesn't work like that. He thinks that maybe her trauma is so great that her mind is kind enough to let her forget long enough to move forward. But he doesn't tell her this. She seems content to believe as she wants to. Then again, that's how Luna has always been. She's a strange, beautiful, impossible girl. Once, he had found her to be too strange to handle. Slowly, his hesitation turned to fondness, and he could consider her a friend. Now, he realizes it goes so far beyond that.

"You're staring."

Dean shakes his head, her voice drawing him out of his thoughts. "Sorry. Zoned out," he explains.

Her lips tug into a small frown. "Wrackspurts?" she asks. "I didn't think there were any around here."

Dean raises his brows in confusion. Wrackspurts? He's listened to Luna talk about her imaginary creatures, but this is a new one. "Er… Wrackspurts?" he echoes uncertainly.

Rather than offering an explanation, Luna closes the distance between them and offers her hand to him. "Dance with me," she says. "They can't get to you if you're dancing."

He still doesn't know what exactly the strange, fictitious creatures actually are, but he doesn't question it. By now, he has learned to just accept Luna's eccentricities and go with it. Maybe she's impossible, but she's so beautiful, both inside and out.

There is no rhythm or music to guide them, but they dance along, bare toes caressing the cool sand beneath their feet. Luna is surprisingly good at dancing; Dean would have guessed she would be awkward and clumsy, but she moves with such grace.

He leans in, pressing a quick, chaste kiss to her lips before pulling away. Luna stares back him, her eyes wide and expression soft. For several seconds, neither of them speak. The silence is only broken by the distant sound of the storm over the sea.

"You kissed me," she says softly, smiling. "I think I liked it."

"You think?"

She shrugs. "It was rather fast." A broad smile plays at her lips. "Maybe we could try it again?"

He's happy to oblige.


Hot Air Balloon: dancing

Flowers, Dahlia: Impossible Girl

Fire Element: glow

Gryffindor: Dean Thomas

Faeries, spring: new, thunder, lightning

Book Club, Aiko: notebook, sparkle, dream

Showtime, Take What You Get: "You can't move on if you're still in the past."

Buttons: serenity