A/N: Luna changes a lot from episode to episode and I feel like in each one we get a different version of her. The first three chapters of this fic bridge the gap between 4.3 and 4.4 and show some of the development and causes for the changes between those two episodes. According to the timeline on wiki, they spend about five days at Arcadia before going to the island (more than enough time for this chapter to have taken place). I will warn you, though, that after chapter three I've messed with the timeline. Instead of spending three days on the island together, I've extended it to weeks (which could happen because Raven says they have two months or less before praimfaya hits at the time of Luna's arrival). Because of this, things won't be matching canon exactly because I've had to tweak things in order to space events out. I wanted Raven and Luna to have more time together so. Please don't hate me for it.

The time travel is a minor part of the fic and really only figures into it at the end. It exists solely so I can give Luna a better ending.

Also this was originally going to be called Before You Go after Lewis Capaldi's song. I decided on that months ago, made a sea mechanic vid for it and everything. And then today I saw this poem from Edgar Allen Poe and decided to use it for the title. Oops.

Trigger Warning: reference to suicide, child abuse

"It was dark now. A thin moon was visible, a bright portent, but giving no light."

― Iris Murdoch, The Message to the Planet

"One day your anger and resentment won't be enough to sustain you."

Inwardly, Jasper groaned at the remark, mostly because of the person it slithered out from.

Luna. He didn't want to talk to Luna.

Didn't want to have anything to do with her, not after the hell he'd watched unfold back on that oil rig.

But, of course, she'd happened to be in the room when he and Monty had gotten into another one of their fights.

Although it could hardly be called a fight when it mostly consisted of Jasper pelting barbed remarks at his oh-so-loyal friend, hoping that one would pierce his thickening skin and be enough to create a break, whilst Monty did his utmost best to take it all with good grace.

He felt bad about it, in the aftermath.

The way someone would feel bad about kicking a dog that would never bite back.

But that didn't stop him from doing it again. And again.

Idly, he wondered who he hated most these days.

Monty.

Or himself.

Jasper turned to face the woman standing a short distance away.

She smiled a little at him. Like she cared. Her smile was as useless as Monty's comfort.

He stared.

She shrugged. "Bitterness isn't the most nourishing of substances to survive on."

"Oh yeah, and you know this how?"

His interest flickered, rising from the darkness inside him. She was a much more interesting mark than his regulars.

This might even prove to be fun. Maybe he would actually feel something for a change.

Luna crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall.

There was no judgment in her gaze, but no kindness either. She looked at him like he was a book she'd read a thousand times before and was beginning to grow tired of. "Experience. Everyone I've ever loved is dead, some at my own hand." She said it so simply. And he wondered how a person created that kind of distance from their own suffering. If he wasn't so annoyed, he might have asked her. Maybe it worked better than moonshine. "Pain survives on anger and bitterness, feeds off it. Until one day you're left with nothing. Not even yourself."

He wondered whether she practiced these speeches in the mirror. Do Grounders even have mirrors? Jasper tried to remember if he'd seen one on the oil rig, his only real exposure to Grounder culture.

Well, aside from a spear to the chest.

That was a riveting introduction.

"Yeah, well, it's looking like I'm gonna be fortunate enough to die before seeing that day so thanks for the pep talk or whatever but I'm fine."

Go away.

Please go away.

She didn't. Instead, her stare burned through him, the imploring nature of it plain to see. "You still have people you love and who love you. Don't waste that."

Jasper said nothing.

He wondered why she even cared, why she was bothering to try and appeal to whatever spark of life still existed inside him. The one he'd been doing his best to smother ever since he'd watched the life fade painfully out of the only girl he'd ever loved. The girl who had, impossibly, loved him in return.

He'd grown tired of people trying.

There was nothing they could do to fix this. Nothing.

Their efforts come too late.

Too late the moment Clarke and Bellamy had pulled that lever.

Perhaps even before then, when they'd decided to send one-hundred children to the ground, to their deaths. Like a sacrifice to the gods of a civilization long dead.

Where were the gods now?

Probably fucked off to some other planet centuries ago, as disgusted with their own creation as Jasper had grown to be.

Or maybe they'd gorged themselves on too many sacrifices and gotten heart disease. Ate themselves to death. Fuck knew the history of the world would have given them a feast.

Luna stepped closer, eyes softening. But Jasper could read the space behind them, knew it was an act. She was as empty as him. Or close to it. "You can still come back from this. You can still heal."

"I don't want to," Jasper snapped, finally losing his calm. That was something nobody seemed to get, refused to get. He was done with healing, done with trying. All that came after was more pain, more death. And then the healing started again. He was tired of the cycle. Tired of everything. Tired of being here. "So thanks but no thanks, I'm not here to buy what you're selling." He snorted as a thought occurred to him. "Especially since I don't think even you believe it."

He might have been flailing around in the dark with that one but the way Luna blinked, startled, told him that he'd managed to unintentionally hit something.

Huh.

Well, maybe this would be interesting.

"What? You think I don't see it? You're about as ready to give up as me. You're just too scared to let yourself. Yet." She was drawing away - that was good - but not doing it nearly fast enough for his liking. "So, if you'll excuse me I'm gonna get back to drinking the rest of my life away. Go take your peace-loving bullshit to someone you can actually fool."

He was sure Monty would appreciate it. He'd missed the grand tour of Luna's sanctuary.

Lucky bastard.

Her brand of peace seemed right up his alley. Or the old Monty's. He didn't know what this new Monty was into. This Monty who committed genocide and then just continued on like his life was still worth living.

Jasper waited.

Waited.

But she didn't leave.

What did it take to get this woman to give up?

Didn't she know a lost cause when she saw one?

He chuckled inwardly.

Of course, she did. She was one herself.

Slowly, without a sound, Luna lowered herself onto the chair beside him. Jasper resisted the urge to shrink away at the closeness.

She smelled of death.

Still looked a little like it too.

He wondered whether she wished she'd fallen victim to it like the rest of her clan. Whether she felt as abandoned by that mother fucker as he did.

How often could death pass over a person and still deign to leave them behind?

Jasper wasn't keen to find out. Maybe he should ask Clarke.

She was the Commander of Death, after all.

What a joke.

Luna was talking again. For a woman who no longer had anyone left to talk to, she sure as hell had a lot to say. "Why are you still here then - if you don't care? You could walk away and never come back. Easily. Walk away from your people. Or, even further." She shrugged, leaning back. "Walk away from life itself." She said it so simply, so matter-of-factly that Jasper was sure it was something she'd thought about herself, if not acted on.

He wondered if that would be a more promising wound to poke at.

Decided against it.

He had his limits, after all. Unlike Bellamy and Clarke.

"Maybe there are still people I care about here." There was truth in that, as much as he wished there wasn't. "Or maybe I just don't think they've earned the right to be free of me."

Still more truth in that.

Luna's gaze was too knowing. She looked at him like a child who'd just said something very amusing, and also very wrong. "You like making people uncomfortable. Judging them."

"Well, I mean I could have started a peace-loving cult to deal with my trauma instead but that didn't work out so well for the last person who tried it."

Luna flinched, imperceptibly.

The old Jasper would have felt guilty. This new poor impersonation of him - the shrivelled remains of the Jasper everyone once loved - barely felt a thing, nothing other than a small sliver of satisfaction as he filed the reaction away.

Another victory.

Hollow as all the rest.

He shrugged. "And if the world is ending, might as well get a front-row seat."

Luna was unmoved. "The world isn't ending. Humanity is."

What an interesting distinction.

Yeah, she was closer to that edge than she was willing to admit.

Jasper wondered whether it would be worth giving her a push.

Whether he even wanted to.

Maybe watching the fall would finally make him feel something.

Something other than this.

Jasper hesitated-

but let the opportunity pass.

He could always call on it again later.

"So why are you still here, then?"

Luna looked at him like the answer was obvious. For others, it might have been.

Not for them.

"I can help."

Wrong answer.

Jasper leant back in his seat, eying her lazily, knowingly. "Or you don't have anywhere else to go. And you're afraid that even if you did, they wouldn't let you leave."

Luna looked away.

Gotcha.

It didn't make him feel any better.

Nothing did.

But might as well go for home run.

"That girl. Adria?" She stiffened at the name and Jasper tried to forget the tear-stricken face of a little girl, hiding as all horror was unleashed around her. Even children weren't spared on the ground. "I saw you kill that guy for her. He clearly meant something to you. More than something." She went still but Jasper could see the sharp rise and fall of her chest, knew that beneath that calm a storm was brewing. For a moment, he felt bad. Regretted starting this, considered ending it. But the knife was in, and he couldn't resist twisting it. "And you killed him anyway. How did that work out for you? Kid's still dead. They all are. And you're alone. You're going to be alone forever. Cos now you get to watch everybody else die as well. But not you." That was the thing about Luna. For all her speeches, all her promises, she'd still sunk as low as the rest of them in the end. Gone back on her word never to kill again. Her great peaceful endeavour, over in an instant.

He resented her for that, for how easily she'd caved.

Though, it wasn't really that easy, was it?

He could remember the torture, the threats.

How she'd resisted. Seemed like she was going to resist forever, until they'd brought in the child.

Everyone had their price.

And hers was better than most, he could grant that.

But a part of him couldn't forgive her for giving him hope, only to reveal herself as being as smothered in darkness as the rest of them.

('none of us is innocent.')

Still, out of everyone here, Luna was probably the only person he didn't hate.

No, he pitied her.

As high as she'd been, as low as she'd sunk. . .

How could you not pity her?

And the universe had ordained to bring her here, right into the jaws of wolves. Did she even understand the prey she had become? How she had forfeited any freedom she once had the moment she'd stepped through those gates?

Didn't matter.

The jaws had snapped shut now.

They would never let her go.

Jasper liked to think that maybe she still had a chance to run, though. Right now, when they were least expecting it.

Maybe she could get away.

Maybe he was pushing her to.

It was the least he could do for bringing the wolves into her sanctuary. Serving her up on a silver platter to A.L.I.E.

"Or do you really think they're gonna find a cure with your blood? Save humanity?" She turned her gaze on him once more, finally. It burned. "How many months do we have left again to accomplish that? Or is it weeks? I try not to pay attention. I mean, they certainly believe it. Wonder what they'll do to try and make it happen." Her eyes flicked away and he could see her turning that over in her head, though the lack of surprise on her face told him it was something she'd already considered. Perhaps he'd underestimated her. Maybe she was well aware of the trap she was in. "You know, I feel sorry for you. Cos even if you chose to walk away from this hell, they wouldn't let you. Me?" He spread out his arms, leaning back in his chair with a lop-sided grin. The action hurt. Everything hurt. "I'm expendable. But you? Everybody needs you. You're trapped."

Her skin seemed a little whiter, but maybe that was just a trick of the light. Her glare was out in full force now, though.

Finally.

"But, you know, thanks for the chit-chat. Really feel like we learned something."

She didn't wait for him to say anything more. Nor did she choose to dignify that with a response. Like everyone else had eventually learned, words were useless when it came to him. Useless when it came to anything, really.

With one final look, she stood.

And left.

Jasper hoped she kept walking. All the way to the door, outside, past the people working themselves to death for a future they might not even get to be a part of, and out the gates.

He hoped she ran.

"Hey, Lu- woah!" Raven stepped back just in time to avoid being run over. Luna was going so fast, Raven doubted she'd even seen her there. She certainly didn't apologize for the near collision and a second later her back was disappearing around the corner.

Shit.

Raven stepped into the room, eyes landing on Jasper. "Please tell me you didn't just piss off our one shot at saving humanity."

Jasper smiled but there was nothing nice about it. "Wouldn't dream of it."

She didn't have time for this. If Jasper had said something then she needed to get her ass on the run after Luna so she could try and do damage control.

Raven turned to go-

"She's a person, too, you know."

Stopped in her tracks. "What?"

It could be hard following Jasper's train of thought at the best of times and right now was not the best of times.

And she didn't like the way he was looking at her. Like she was Clarke.

Well, maybe not Clarke.

Jasper's long-brewing resentment for their chosen one was unmatched and Raven doubted there was anything she could do to earn it.

"Luna," he said simply. And, okay, that should have been obvious. "She's a person. Just something you might want to keep in mind. I mean, I know how good you all are at seeing people as numbers. Dwindling them down to their barest uses."

That hurt. But it wasn't exactly untrue either.

Raven hadn't started out like that, had been the exact opposite of it, in fact.

But it was hard to hold onto sentiment at the end of the world. "We're not using Luna. She's helping us - helping everyone."

"Whether she wants to or not, right?"

Raven's eyes narrowed. "That's not true."

His expression told her that he didn't believe that for a second. She wondered whether she did. Had to look deep inside herself for the answer. Found she didn't know.

She'd stopped being able to predict what they were all capable of months ago and had long since given up trying.

"You should let her go."

Jesus Christ. Raven rolled her eyes. "You make it sound like we're forcing her to stay."

"Come on, Raven. You really think Clarke and the others are going to let her walk out of this place when she's Humanity's Last Hope?" he said the moniker like it was a joke, and not a very funny one.

Raven narrowed her eyes. "Luna's not a prisoner, Jasper." And maybe if she repeated that enough times, she'd actually believe it. She wanted it to be true. Needed it to be. "She's here because she wants to help. If she wants to leave, she can leave."

"Come on, Raven. You're not that naive. You wouldn't be keeping tabs on her if she was really as free to leave as you say."

Fuck him, because he was right.

Clarke had suggested that someone stick by Luna at all times, or at least keep an eye on her. Her reasoning being that the woman had been through a lot, she was in an unfamiliar (and probably daunting) new place and the Grounder-based hostility among Arcadia's residents was always close to boiling over.

All that was true.

Raven just didn't know whether any of it had been the driving motivation behind Clarke's decree.

She knew, for her own part, that she'd found herself getting antsy every time Luna wandered too close to the exit, or that one instance she'd hovered by the gates for a full three hours, staring out at the treeline.

Raven wondered what would have happened if she'd actually stepped out past those gates. Even further, made a run for it.

Found that she was comfortable with not knowing the answer.

Jasper leant towards her, more serious than she'd seen him in a long time. "Clarke and Bellamy killed the entire population of Mount Weather just to save a few of our people. What do you think they'd do to save all of them?"

Raven swallowed.

An almost imperceptible action but he didn't miss it, nodded, leaning back in his seat once more. "Yeah. That's what I thought."

Raven snapped. "I get it. You hate the world, you want to die. Fine. But you don't get to make that decision for the rest of us. And you sure as hell don't get to make it for Luna. So stop trying to fuck this up for everyone. Some of us still believe there are people worth saving."

Clearly, Jasper had been spoiling for this fight for a while now because he met her tit-for-tat. "And who gets to decide who those people are? You? Clarke? It's not about worth, Raven. It's about favoritism. And even if it was about worth, how do you measure that? What makes a person more worthy of life than another?"

Raven looked away.

Fuck if she knew. All the people who had been the most worthy of life in her eyes had died in front of her.

Sacrificed.

Their lives hadn't mattered all that much in the end.

"Either we're all worth saving or none of us are. But you don't care about that. None of you do."

She turned back, scowl fully in place, the only defense she had. "Just try and remember you're not the only one whose life has been a living, breathing horror story. You don't get the monopoly on personal suffering. So stop trying to spread it around." Raven softened slightly, remembering who exactly it was she was talking to. "Monty misses you. I miss you. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but the least you could do is be kind. For Monty's sake."

"Monty helped commit genocide and murder the girl that I loved."

"Then punch him in the face like I did Clarke after she murdered the guy that I loved. Then move past it. You guys have been best friends for so long. You're family. I wish I had more time with Finn. But I never will. It's too late for that. But it's not too late for you. The world may be ending, but you still have time."

She dared to hope he'd listen to her, but knew the odds were far from in her favour.

Raven found she couldn't wait for his response, didn't want to hear it. So she turned to follow in the footsteps of the woman who had all but fled this man's presence.

Jasper's voice halted her.

"I'd watch my back around Luna, you know."

She turned around and he shrugged at seeing her confusion.

"Just saying. I've seen her kill."

So what?

"We've all killed people, Jasper. Luna is hardly an exception."

"And how many of us have actually been trained to do that? How many of us can kill a person without the help of a gun? Without even breaking a sweat?"

Raven wasn't moved. "She's a Grounder. It's kind of what they do."

No doubt what they would do, too. If they had the ability. If they'd been raised that way.

Instead, they had the technology to kill from a distance. Kill with ease.

Jasper sneered a little. "Trust me. She's not someone you want to make an enemy of."

"Well, that's good because I have no intention of making an enemy out of Luna." Quite the opposite, in fact. Dangerous or not, they needed Luna too much to piss her off. "Besides, how bad can she be? She founded a clan on the notion of peace. Doesn't exactly strike terror into the hearts of children."

By her estimation, Luna was one of the few people they didn't have to be scared of.

"A clan that was annihilated in a matter of months." He shrugged. "Maybe she's learnt the error of her ways."

Raven couldn't listen to any more of this. She strongly suspected that Jasper wasn't trying to warn her about anything, certainly wasn't trying to help. No, he was trying to stir shit up. Make her doubt the only plan they had to save the human race.

A race he'd made it very clear he didn't think deserved saving.

Well, she wasn't going to buy into it.

"Right now, I'm less worried about Luna than I am about you." Her tone was harsher than she'd intended it to be and she sighed, rubbing her brow. "Patch things up with Monty, Jasper. You don't have much but you still have him. Don't waste that."

A muscle in his jaw jumped out but he said nothing. That was good, Raven had run out of patience for listening.

Taking a breath, she turned and left.

Raven was keenly aware of just how much of a loose cannon Jasper had become and how, lately, he seemed intent on taking the rest of them down with him.

She couldn't allow that. After everything they'd done, everything they'd survived, she wasn't about to let a little radiation make it all for nothing. She wasn't going to let Jasper make it all for nothing, either.

Finn had died so that they could have a future.

And fuck if she wasn't going to do everything in her power to make sure they got one.

She was still grateful for what Jasper had done for her whilst she'd been chipped, and it wasn't something she was soon to forget. She also knew what it was like to watch someone you love be sacrificed for the greater good - if such a thing even existed.

A part of her wondered, though, if she got through it, why couldn't Jasper?

Maybe she was just more used to living with pain.

She'd only been doing it all her life.

Whatever the reason, Raven couldn't let him affect their chances of survival. And right now the majority of those chances rested on a certain nightblood. Whether Luna wanted them to or not.

It took her over twenty minutes to find Luna after her spat with Jasper. When Raven realized that she wasn't anywhere inside, her stomach dropped, fearing that Jasper had succeeded in his goal of scaring Luna off.

But she also knew that wasn't an option. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right.

No-one was letting Luna leave anytime soon.

Fuck.

In the end, Raven found her outside, not far from the entrance. She was seated on an empty cargo box, sheltered by an overhanging piece of scrap metal and watching the workings of the people around her.

Raven hesitated a moment before going over, hesitated even longer before taking a seat as well, careful to leave a good amount of distance between them. She was so not in the mood to be invading anyone's personal space right now.

Damage control. That was what she was here for.

Luna didn't acknowledge her presence.

"Hey, I'm, uh, sorry if Jasper was being an ass to you back there. He's uh. . . he's going through something."

They all were.

Luna shrugged. "He's in pain."

She wouldn't look at her and Raven hoped that wasn't a bad sign.

"Yeah. Yeah, he is." Again, they all were. There was too much fucking pain to go around and not enough of them to bear it. "But it's still not an excuse to be a jerk. Make others hurt, too."

This made Luna turn to her at last and she watched Raven thoughtfully for a moment. "No. It's not. But some people have so much pain the only way they know how to get rid of any at all is to spread it around. I've seen his kind before. He's Battle Weary."

Raven took a seat beside her. "He's given up. I mean, we're all here trying to find a way to survive and he's just-"

Luna cut her off. "It's a cruel world. He knows that now. Can you really blame him for not wanting to be a part of it?"

No, she couldn't but- "He just needs to fight a little longer, to-"

"Not everyone's built to survive. And everyone has their limits." Luna's voice was gentle, too gentle for the topic they were discussing.

Somehow that angered Raven, made her forget the goal of damage control.

"And what about you?" she snapped, challenging.

Luna didn't rise to the bait. "I'm. . ." She trailed off, smiling slightly to herself, though there was a bitter edge to it. "Not sure I know how not to survive." She glanced down at the still-healing radiation burns on her arms. The reminder made Raven's stomach turn as she thought of the bodies they'd cremated only two days ago. "Seems it's in my blood."

"Yeah," Raven breathed, deflating slightly as the defensive anger of before abandoned her. She felt guilty for its appearance, for directing it at Luna. "I can relate to that." At Luna's raised eyebrow, "Not the blood thing, obviously. But I'm not sure I know how not to survive, either." Raven smirked. "And I've made it this long, so why stop now?"

Luna inclined her head, though neglected to agree or disagree. "I never caught your name."

She startled at the very deliberate subject change. "Raven. I'm the-"

"Mechanic." Luna nodded in comprehension. "I've heard a few people mention you. I'm not sure I understand what it is exactly that you do but from what I've heard, you do it very well."

Raven snorted. "Kind of an understatement, but okay."

Luna's lips twitched. "I'm-"

"Luna. Yeah. Kind of infamous at this point. Hard to miss."

She smiled thinly but didn't comment. Instead, she glanced out at the bustling activity going on around them. "What are you building?"

"A shelter of sorts. To survive the radiation."

Luna hummed thoughtfully. "Will it work?"

"Yeah." Well, she was ninety-nine percent certain at any rate. And that one percent could kiss her ass. "But it's not going to be enough," she sighed.

"Why not?"

"It won't save everyone." That was information that was - wisely - privileged but she doubted Luna was going to tell anyone. Who did she have left to tell? Skaikru weren't her people and she had no need of the shelter herself, being the one person capable of surviving the coming hell. Besides, Raven needed to impress upon her the importance of her help. How dire the situation still was. What better way to do that than this?

Luna said nothing for a long time. "Who gets to decide who lives and who dies?"

She and Jasper were clearly on the same wavelength, unfortunately for Raven.

"Clarke." That's what she was good at. "But we're hoping it won't come to that."

"Because of me." Luna still kept her gaze out at the people.

"Yeah. Your blood is the miracle we all need."

Her mouth curved into a humorless smile, eyes lost on the hopeless crowd in front of them. "I wouldn't call it that."

"I would. Luna, your blood might save everyone. And not just my people. Your people, too."

This seemed to be the wrong thing to say.

Luna exhaled, rising to her feet. "My people are dead."

Raven frowned, watching her walk away, an uneasy feeling creeping into her gut. She'd kind of just assumed - they all had - that getting Luna's help on this was a done deal. Who wouldn't want to save humanity?

Maybe Luna was a little more like Jasper than they'd hoped.

That could prove to be a problem.

Fuck. Why wasn't anything ever easy?

. . .

"From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back."

― Franz Kafka

A/N: Okay, so this chapter was a bit of a risk because I don't actually know how to write Jasper so I'm sorry if it's a bit ooc. I just thought it would be interesting to see a scene between Jasper and Luna because they have a lot of similarities. Also gonna tell you now, characters in this fic will express views and opinions (often about other characters or themselves) that I don't necessarily share. Because I'm writing from their P.O.V.

I'm not sure how frequent my updates will be for this fic (I'm juggling edits, my yumagna fics, and another season 4 AU sea mechanic fic that I'm working on) but I can promise that it will get finished.

Come say high to me on Instagram and/or twitter! My twitter is welcometocaritas and my instagram is . I post sea mechanic and yumagna related stuff (like edits) on those. And my youtube channel is also welcometocaritas.