A/N:

I really, really don't like this chapter - it's a bit too cracky - but oh well.

I'm not so sure if this chapter - maybe even the next one - fit all too well with the general tone of the over all fic. They were last minute additions. I considered reserving it for the other sea mechanic au fic I'm writing - which would probably match the tone better - but decided against it as parts of the chapter tie into other areas of this fic so I couldn't really cut it.

Also, fair warning, I wrote a good portion of this chapter when I was tipsy on New Year's Eve, so that might explain a lot ;)

Sorry, not much Luna in this one.


"The thing with heat is, no matter how cold you are, no matter how much you need warmth, it always, eventually, becomes too much."

Victoria Aveyard, Glass Sword


Raven groaned as she winced her way into consciousness. The light of Becca's lab was way too fucking bright to be tolerable. What had the woman been thinking?

She rubbed at her forehead, blinking as she glanced around her, trying to get her bearings. She'd migrated to the lab after her room had grown increasingly claustrophobic; her awareness of Luna's presence, of her gaze, at an uncomfortable level.

Plus, the room had begun to fill up with that minty earth smell that Raven couldn't place and it was starting to get to her. She hated not knowing things.

Hated having yet another problem that she couldn't solve.

She'd needed space. And lots of it.

Raven hadn't meant to fall asleep, despite what she'd promised Luna about getting rest. Hadn't expected for a second that she even could sleep. But here she was, bent over the table, her cheek tingling from where it had been smushed uncomfortably against a tablet. Squinting her eyes, she thought she detected a little drool on the screen.

Very attractive.

Thank god, Murphy isn't here to witness this.

It was then Raven noticed the extra weight on her shoulders and looked down, frowning as she took in the ocean-colored jacket that belonged to someone very definitely not her.

Bewildered, she glanced around, eyes narrowing on a certain Grounder, seated a couple of meters away on the floor.

Luna's eyes were closed and her mouth was moving with soundless words, chest rising and falling easily.

Coupled with Raven's rising irritation there was also a pleasant tingle climbing up her spine at finding Luna there, with her, close-

Fuck that.

Raven rose to her feet, yanking off the jacket - which, before now, she'd assumed to be some kind of dress - and marched towards her. If Luna heard her, she gave no indication and Raven huffed, launching the hand with the jacket in it out in front of her.

"What's this?"

Luna's eyes finally opened, but she barely spared the offending object a glance before closing them again. "A jacket."

"I know it's a jacket. But what the hell was it doing on me?"

Her eyes remained shut. "You looked cold."

Raven huffed, annoyed at how Luna was mostly ignoring her and seemed largely unperturbed by her presence - which stood in stark contrast to how deeply perturbed Raven was by hers. "I wasn't."

"Okay."

She hated people coddling her. She got enough of that from Abby, like hell she was going to take it from Luna, too.

"I wasn't cold."

"And I said 'okay'."

She groaned. "Luna."

"Yes, Raven?"

This woman.

The obscene lighting of the room should have made Luna look pale and sickly - Raven had seen her own visage in one of the windows here enough times to feel confident of that - but instead she appeared almost ethereal, her skin near glowing under the assault of the light. Wasn't she supposed to be recovering from radiation sickness and blood loss?

Fucking supernatural if you asked her.

Infuriating, really.

Like who gave Luna the right to look so goddamn beautiful all the time?

The absence of the usual dress-jacket-abomination-thing also presented another problem, highlighted by the angle Raven had been gifted by towering over her.

That thin singlet didn't cover Luna's cleavage nearly as well as the jacket did.

Not that she was looking.

Nope. Not her.

Never.

Nope.

Fuck.

If she didn't know Luna better, she would have thought she was doing this on purpose. That she had clocked Raven's ever-frustrated libido and decided to torture her.

But she doubted it. Something told her that attraction of any kind - even from someone else - was the last thing on Luna's mind.

Understandably.

But not Raven's.

Which. . . wasn't entirely unexpected. When she got angry or stressed - or just plain frustrated - she had sex. You know, if it was an option. It wasn't always. But it tended to get the job done, even if it didn't leave her feeling particularly good about herself afterwords - mostly because it was then Raven actually took the time to think about the many potential complications she had just introduced into her life. The sex itself was okay but the last thing she needed was someone else catching feelings for her or coming to expect more than she could give - more than she wanted to give.

Anyway, that wasn't going to be a problem here. Whatever troublesome feelings of attraction she may or may not have for Luna, Raven knew she didn't share them.

Why the fuck would she?

Raven was hot, yeah, and a genius. So, she had those two things going for her. But they were superficial traits that she doubted would hold much pull for someone like Luna.

Raven had a feeling whoever caught her attention - if anyone did - would have to be nothing short of amazing. A goddamn pinnacle of humanity.

And Raven. . . Raven wasn't that.

Not that it mattered. She wasn't interested in anything with strings and she was almost positive any relationship with Luna would boast a mountain load of those. Strings running as far as the eye could see. Long enough to wrap around the entire goddamn earth with room to spare.

Suffice it to say, not her cup of tea.

She'd had strings with Finn.

It didn't work out.

Had tried to attach some to Wick, against her better judgment.

Which worked out even less.

She had no intention of going for a third run when it came to huge mother fucking mistakes.

Raven wasn't a genius for nothing. She had to at least be smart about some things.

It'd just be nice, you know, if Luna could help her out with that. Stop looking so freaking irresistible, for starters. Rub a little engine grease over her face, mess up her perfect hair-

No, wait. That would just make things worse.

Raven was a sucker for engine grease.

And messy hair.

She withheld a groan. "You're really fucking annoying, you know that?"

Luna's face pulled into the semblance of a smile. "It's been said."

Yeah, she could believe that.

Rolling her eyes, she dropped the coat in Luna's lap and turned to go. A hand snapped up to block Raven's path, and she nearly screamed at the sight of the offending garb dangling from it.

"You still look cold."

"Your eyes aren't even open!" She threw up her hands and stomped out of the room, ignoring the proffered item of clothing.

Raven swore she heard a resounding chuckle behind her.

Why the hell did she get the feeling that she'd just lost some kind of battle that she didn't even know she'd had a stake in?

Something about the set of Luna's jaw had been suspiciously smug.

Almost like Raven had played right into her hands. But what those hands wanted she didn't have a fucking clue.

"Grrr!"

Fucking Grounders.

She wondered if all of them were this maddening. She'd ask Octavia, Clarke or, hell, even Murphy - the three most knowledgeable candidates on the subject - but had a feeling they were more than biased, having each fallen in love with one themselves.

Well, that was not going to be her.

She had more than enough fucking bullshit to deal with in her life without adding more to it.

Nope, Raven Reyes was smarter than that.

(hopefully)

. . .


Body blistering with heat, palms sweating, she paced the expanse of the second floor. Not much was down here, it seemed to be something of a storage facility for all of Becca's tools and creations, and that suited Raven fine. The others were unlikely to wander into it, given the superfluousness of its nature, and she desired nothing more right now than to be left alone.

"Yo, Raven, what-"

"I don't want to have sex with Luna!"

Murphy blinked, coming up short, before his face twisted into a smirk. "You sure about that? Cos you're looking kind of hot and bothered."

Shit. She had not meant to say that. Fucking Murphy. Fucking Luna. Fucking ridiculous hormones that couldn't tell the difference between honest attraction and sexual frustration.

At this rate, she was just gonna invent a vibrator. Call it Rocket Raven. . . or something. The name could be workshopped. That would be a service to mankind.

What the hell was Murphy doing down here, anyway? Shouldn't he be off wasting time with Emori? She'd come down here to be alone. That was the whole point!

Trust Murphy to fuck up a good plan.

"I'm frustrated, okay?" she spat. "Because we have weeks, possibly days if those nuclear power plants decide to be even bigger dicks, and we're no closer to finding a way out of this!" Raven couldn't save everyone if she didn't know how. If she didn't have the tools she needed to make it possible. If her fucking head kept putting her out of commission every time she even got close to- "I figured it out, Murphy, I had a way, I could fix this and it just-" She let out a muffled yell, pushing an ancient computer off its desk.

That was fine. It was too old to be of use, anyway.

Doubtless, it would be destroyed when the Death Wave came. Everything would be.

Still, the crash made her jump.

Even Murphy looked startled. He jerked a thumb at the door, eying her with wide eyes that weren't nearly serious enough for Raven's tastes. "Should I come back later?"

"Yes."

But he didn't leave.

Fucking Murphy.

His expression did lose some of its levity, though. "It's not your fault - what happened with the barrels."

Raven closed her eyes.

It was worse when he was actually being nice.

It was so much easier to punish him for what he'd done to her when he was stuck in his Grade-A Asshole mode.

Raven sighed, rubbing her head. "I know it's not my fault."

But if they failed to save humanity, that would be.

"No-one expects you to pull another miracle out of your ass after that."

Didn't they?

Cos, Raven sure as hell did and past experience suggested that everyone else was primed to follow suit. "I have to fix this, Murphy."

She had to save them. What was the point, otherwise?

Of everything.

All they'd gone through, all they'd suffered.

All the people they'd killed.

Finn.

What was the point, if this was how it all ended?

"Not even you can fix everything, Reyes."

She glared at him, wishing it was a lie. "What are you doing down here, Murphy?"

Her nerves couldn't take this conversation anymore.

(and she was aware that, deep down, he wasn't the one she wanted to be having it with)

Murphy shrugged, inspecting the room. "Abby's looking for you. Got kind of concerned when she came into the lab and realized that her star patient was missing. Kinda think she wants you on bedrest." Yeah, no joke. "Or, at least, some kind of rest. Preferably horizontal." The corner of his mouth drew up. "Maybe Luna could help you out with that. Though I'm not sure it'd be considered resting."

Charming.

Raven sighed and looked away - pointedly ignoring that vulgar addition. "I can rest when I'm dead."

Murphy narrowed his eyes a little at that but didn't comment, continuing his surveyance of the room. "Guess we all have that to look forward to." He frowned, picking up a long metal instrument that had two bulging spheres at the bottom. "Does this look to you like a-"

She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Murphy?"

He smirked fleetingly before placing it back on the crate. "So Luna finally managed to kick you out of the lab."

Raven flushed. "What? No. I chose to leave." The look on Murphy's face told her he very much doubted that. "She was being annoying." His lips began to peak. "And she smells." The faint smirk fell away as his eyes widened.

"Huh. You noticed that, too? Kind of minty, right?"

Raven stalled. "Wait, I'm not imagining it?"

Not out of the realm of possibilities considering all the hallucinations she'd been having lately.

Well, at least she wasn't going totally insane.

Small victories, Reyes. Small victories.

Murphy ignored her. "What is it?"

"You don't know?" Raven resisted the urge to pout, having kind of hoped that he would. But things were never that easy for her.

This was nothing more than a small hurdle to jump over, though, one not nearly as big as the dire lack of fuel they were now operating with.

Which may be why she was so focused on it.

If Raven couldn't figure out a way to save humanity then by God she was going to find a way to solve this mystery. She would not be defeated by some weird-ass smell. She was a genius. It would not get the better of her.

Murphy waved a hand, turning away to inspect a new object. "Nope. Just that it isn't actually mint. Emori confirmed that before she told me it was rude to talk about another woman's stink behind her back. So, no help from her corner."

Raven's lips pursed. "She doesn't stink."

That was the problem. As confusing and frustrating as the smell was, Raven liked it. Which wasn't helping matters at all.

"If you say so." He shrugged. "Wanna go up and ask her?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Fuck off, Murphy."

Raven wasn't going to leave this floor until she was good and ready. Curious smell, or no curious smell.

He shrugged carelessly. "I'm sure she would appreciate your company."

"Are you trying to set me up with Luna, Murphy?"

"Yep."

Despite her suspicions, she still couldn't quite contain her disbelief. Unfucking believable. "What the hell, why?"

"I'm bored."

It was worse than she'd thought. A bored Murphy was a fucking menace to society.

(the same could probably have been said about her in the past, too)

"And this beats sitting around thinking about how we're all going to die." Murphy's gaze remained focused on the object in his hands, apparently finding her unworthy of his full attention.

Nope, nope, she was not going to stand for this. "We're not your fucking entertainment!"

"Well someone has to be." He shrugged, looking completely unrepentant for the fact.

"Someone not us." Raven huffed. "It's not going to happen, Murphy, so give up the dream."

"If you say so."

She scowled.

Maybe she should return to the lab. As frustrating as Luna was, she couldn't compete with the likes of Murphy.

Crossing her arms with another huff, Raven turned away to run a furious eye over the cabinets on the far wall, wondering if there was something in there she could aim at Murphy's head.

That metal sphere. . .

Frowning, she turned back around, deciding that it was probably best to resist temptation.

For now.

"Anyway, I didn't just leave because of Luna." Raven could not have him believing that. Knowing Murphy, he'd sell the information to the highest bidder. "That room just gets really stuffy after a while and I had things to do."

"Uh-huh." He crossed his arms. "Like?"

"Well, I'm not going to fucking tell you, am I? It's none of your business."

The glint in his eyes told her he read right through her bullcrap. Asshole. But what did she care what Murphy thought? His thoughts were worth less than einsteinium.

Raven crossed her arms. "If you must know, I'm looking through Becca's shit to see if there's anything that could help us."

Not true but it wasn't a bad idea.

"Well, that may be how you see it," the expression on Murphy's face, however, told her how very much he doubted that, "but there's a reason Luna was looking so smug when I came across her earlier."

"Smug?"

"Like a cat."

Yeah, Raven had gotten that impression, too. She huffed, swiping an obscenely large glass award off the nearest desk. Shit looked expensive. For a moment, she considered letting go. Watching it fall to the floor in a shower of lethal shards that didn't stand a chance at being put back together. "She okay?"

Raven still hadn't forgotten the look of terror on Luna's face when Abby had rudely awoken her earlier. She wasn't sure she ever would.

Murphy seemed confused by the question but shrugged. "Seemed alright to me. Was having a swell time doing arts and crafts with my girlfriend."

She raised an eyebrow. "Arts and crafts?"

"Looked like it to me. Emori was helping her. Think it might be Grounder business."

Raven narrowed her eyes, intrigued in spite of herself. But, nope. She'd just succeeded in escaping Luna's presence, no way she was going to return to it this soon.

No matter how curious she was.

Stupid curiosity.

Murphy paused beside a large vertical machine. . . thing. Honestly, Raven didn't know what half the crap in this room was. There could be the goddamn holy grail of myth in here and she wouldn't have a clue.

Murphy regarded the important looking contraption with interest. "What's this?"

"Teleportation device."

He whipped around to look at her. "Really?"

Raven snorted. "No. But it honestly wouldn't surprise me if there was something like that down here. Becca had her hands in everything."

She was also criminally lacking in common sense and foresight.

Raven had read enough sci-fi books to know that creating an A.I. never ended well. But that was something Becca with her superhuman IQ had somehow failed to consider.

The woman might have invented nightblood but she was still the reason they had any need for it in the first place.

Thanks for that, Becca.

Murphy frowned, further scrutinizing the 'teleportation device'. "Well, something like that would probably solve a lot of our problems right now. No need to rocket up into space and back again if you could just teleport yourself up there."

If only.

But this wasn't science fiction and nothing on the ground was that easy. If Raven could invent a teleportation device to get them out of this shit, she would.

But she couldn't.

She couldn't do a lot of things.

Sighing, Raven placed the award back on the desk.

You had a good run, Becca, but you left us with the biggest fucking mess in the universe that we have no way of fixing and, as much as I admire the fuck out of you, I don't think I'll ever forgive you for that.

She could never forgive her for inadvertently killing everyone Luna had left in the world. For causing her even more pain than she'd already been forced to endure in her short life.

Nor could Raven forgive her for creating an A.I. whose code was now eating away at her brilliant brain like it was the mother of all feasts. Her most treasured possession - and she was going to lose it just like she'd lost everything else.

If she didn't die first.

Hopefully, she did.

And wasn't that a fucked up thing to hope for?

But they'd all done things that came with a shit ton of consequences for other people.

They'd all fucked up.

Raven included.

Becca just happened to be an overachiever.

Murphy seemed to notice the shift in her mood. "We'll figure it out, Reyes."

She snorted, hated that there was a tinge of wetness to it. "Yeah?"

He shrugged, turning away. "We always seem to."

Maybe, but 'always' came at a cost.

Winning always meant losing.

Surviving always meant other people dying.

Raven was tired of it.

Thank God, she wouldn't be around to see the consequences of their indomitably this time.

She sighed. "I think Luna still wants to leave."

It wasn't something she would ever voice to Abby - or Clarke, now that she was here - but as much as she didn't trust Murphy, she found him reliable in his general indifference to all things. He wouldn't overreact.

And she needed to say it to someone.

True to form, he seemed utterly unmoved by the suggestion. "Course she does. Who'd want to spend the world's last days trapped in here? It's freezing." He wasn't wrong. Most of the time, Raven was too fixated on what she was doing to notice. And yesterday she'd been working up one hell of a sweat. But standing around doing nothing like this definitely brought out the prickly feel of goosebumps along her skin.

Then Murphy winked at her and all thoughts of the lab's accursed air-conditioning system were lost. "But at least she has you to keep her warm."

"Oh, fuck off."

She was definitely going to throw something at his head.

Something really, really big.

And sharp.

Preferably at his face.

Murphy sobered. "She's not gonna leave, Raven. She cares too much. People like her always do." He didn't say it like a compliment and she suspected he didn't view it as one, either. "You ask me, we're stuck with her for the long-term. Or, well, until the Death Wave gets here." He brightened. "So maybe not that long."

Raven felt relief at his words, and then guilt.

Because as much as she wanted Luna to stay, she knew that wasn't what Luna wanted. Not really.

It wasn't in anything she'd said exactly but in what she didn't say. Sometimes, Raven would catch her staring off into the distance, always in the same direction, as if she could see through the thick walls of the lab to the abandoned dock that lay miles away.

To the sea.

But they needed her, Raven needed her - however much she might not want to admit it.

She didn't want her to leave.

And she hoped Luna could forgive her for that.

(though something told her she already had)

Because she wasn't sure she could forgive herself.

. . .


Past

"He's gone."

The girl shivered. Despite the added protection of the blanket, the cold clung to her. He could not chase it away.

Nyko sighed and sat back against the wall, beside her, not quite touching.

A terrible thing, forcing sibling against sibling. The Fleimkepas had been particularly cruel in that. To pit both Luna and Sol against one another in the first round, when they needn't have faced each other at all - not unless they'd both made it to the final battle, which would have been highly unexpected.

What had Titus been thinking? The Fleimkepa had always been callous, but never brutal without cause.

He could not imagine that Bekka Praimheda had seen such a future when she gifted them with her Flame. Saved them.

For what?

What had she saved them for?

So many years and Nyko still didn't have the answer.

But there was a hurt, shaking child beside him and he had the power to help her.

Perhaps this was what Bekka had saved them for.

"He's gone. I killed him."

Carefully, Nyko wound an arm around her shoulders, exhaling when she sank into the hold instead of pulling away. They had bridged that gap at least, and he savored the victory.

Nyko drew her against his chest, hoping to give shelter, to shield her from the chill - to offer her something to hold onto in the cavernous space around them. He could protect her from the cold even if he could not protect her from life. "You will see him again, little moon."

Just as he would see his brother. One day.

She hunched in on herself, shaking her head repetitively. "Only Commanders live after death."

"Not true. I have seen many die. Seen many spirits depart. But some do not leave. Some stay in the world around us. In the trees. In the deer. In the leaves you crunch beneath your feet. In us. Your brother's spirit will find you again."

It was not empty words but a comfort he had held onto for many years, the hope that the doorway into death was not one-sided. That the spirits would not fully abandon the living, and that love had no end date. It was not a belief shared by many but Nyko held fast to it nonetheless.

Now he gave it Luna, hoping that it would provide her with even the barest amount of consolation it had given him.

He pressed a kiss into her hair, suppressing a grimace at the taste of decay, and tucked her head under his chin, holding her closer.

Nyko was not blind to the fact that, over time, war had become an indulgence for their people rather than a necessity - and it had shaped them all in cruel ways.

He had seen too many children go into battle and not come back.

But he cried for the ones who did.

They were never the same.

They could never be the same.

It was a terrible thing to send children into war.

He was a healer. It was his purpose to patch up bodies so that they could be sent out and destroyed once more. To heal the hurts of battle and turn away from those things that could not be remedied.

He was forever fixing things that should never have been broken.

"I didn't mean to."

She was mumbling again, more to herself than him and he sensed her mind departing, growing fainter.

"I didn't mean to."

Nyko tightened his hold.

"Right now, you are in a nightmare," he breathed into her hair. "But nightmares end."

She shuddered.

And he prayed the spirits did not make a liar of him.


"It's too cold outside for angels to fly."

Ed Sheeran


A/N: Einsteinium is a synthetic element that is both radioactive and highly toxic. Aside from research, it has no use.

So I think Luna's dress is a jacket/coat/top thing because she has an outfit on underneath it and the dress has been removed in various scenes without Luna actually having to change.

Though I think it might be more of a shrug than a coat, it's hard to tell.

Anyway, Nadia will never read this so ain't no-one with authority going to prove me wrong. Artistic license, folks.

So I think I'm going to end up not including all of the flashbacks I've written in this fic and moving some over to the other sea mechanic fic I'm writing instead. There's a lot of Lexa & Luna flashbacks and I feel like it might take away from the story to include all of them in this fic.

Anyway, again I'm really sorry about this chapter. I hope it's not too much of a disapointment.