[what's that sound so loud, we're heading for a breakdown]

[what's that sound so loud, we're heading for a breakdown]

---

maybe someday

someway, somehow

sometime

we'll get together and we'll break it down

---

The first thing recognizable is pain. It's too silent-still and it's too dark to make out anything more than shapes - outlines - and there's a distant buzzing in her ears. She remembers things, tiny pieces, and she doesn't move; she lies still while she tries so hard to put them together. There were people here; there was screaming here. She breathes - slow, in and out - and her nostrils burn, her throat and lungs burn, and she moves carefully.

Her arms are sore when she tries to push herself up, slow and unsteady, and her head swims; if she could see, her vision would be blurry. There's warmth spreading from her head to her chin, and she presses her hand carefully to her temple; she hisses in pain, pulls her hand away slick-warm and she can smell the blood on it.

She tries to stand and figures out quickly her leg is broken - in more than one spot - and she falls back against the hard floor, panting in ragged breaths, fighting the urge to throw-up and cry all at once.

When she was seven her father built her a tree-house and she climbed, climbed the tree in the backyard until she reached the top, until she could sit in that little wooden box in the branches. She sat there for hours, and when she came down she missed a step - just one - and fell. She fell hard. She broke her ankle, cried until Daddy held her and whispered everything would be fine. She wishes Daddy were here now.

When she was eleven, she saw Ron. When she was fourteen, she knew she loved him.

Her voice catches in her throat when she tries to call for him, but the second time it comes out; it's weak, and it's choked, but it's sound. “Ron?”

She gropes in the dark for her wand, but really, she'd be happy to feel anything within her reach. She needs to know someone is alive in here, and the fear starts gripping her from the inside out. Her breath comes quicker, shallower, and her hands start to shake.

“Please,” she whispers. “Please…”

She hears movement and loses a little more of her composure; she cries a little.

“Luna?”

Her hands are shaking so badly and her eyes burn with ashes and dust and unshed tears. “Ron? Ron, I don't… I can't find my wand. I can't see.” She can hear herself breathe, feel the buzzing in her ears still, and she hears him scraping the floor, and hears him speaking quietly. A soft glow of light erupts about ten feet from her.

Now she shakes with relief. He's alive. He's alive. “I can't…” she sobs a little. “I can't get up. My leg is broken.”

“Don't move,” he says and she watches him get up on shaky legs. His wand light shows the littering of bodies around them, some moving slightly, and some deathly still. He moves carefully, avoiding stepping on anyone, avoiding disturbing anyone unmoving. Her head swims as she's trying to concentrate on him getting to her, as she catalogues every wound she can see. His arm is bleeding, dripping down over his hand and fingertips, and his head- his head is bleeding, dripping down and narrowly missing his eyes.

“You're bleeding,” she says, her voice shaky and she watches him nod. He says “so are you.” He kneels down next to her, picking up her wand and handing it to her. She whispers lumos shakily, and her want gives a soft glow of light. “Where is…?”

Ron shakes his head and her breath catches in her throat.

“We need to get out of here,” he says quietly, looking over her leg, touching lightly with his fingers. “Death Eater's are going to be here soon.”

“What about these people?” She asks and hisses in pain when he brushes over her broken bones. “Some of them are alive, Ron, and we can't just-“

“Luna,” he says seriously, his voice low and quiet and I'm so sorry. “I can't save everyone. I want to, but I can't. I need to save you; I need you. Okay?”

She nods, allows him to pick her up, understands that he'll fix her later, they need to go now. She presses his face into his neck, smells the remnants of fire, of smoke, and something that's always just been Ron, and she closes her eyes. She lets him do the work, apparate them both because she can't focus right now, not with her head swimming with the dead, with the people's faces she'll never see again.

---

When she wakes up her mouth is dry, tastes yellow-green with bile, and she keeps her eyes closed. She's hoping so hard that if she gives it a few minutes when she opens her eyes everything will have been a nightmare, that no one will be dead, they won't be hiding again. She remembers when they used to laugh and it's so far - too far - now.

“Luna?” His voice is soft, soothing, and she thinks it might be easier to give in and go back to sleep, its fingers pulling gently at her edges. It would be so much easier to sleep through it all and wake up at the end when everything is… When everything is.

She takes breath and opens her eyes, and he sinks down on the ratty sofa next to her. She takes it in, all of it, looking around instead of at him. The couch has holes in it, burn marks, and the walls are bare- nothing more than wood and remnants of what might have been here before. The floorboards are warped, and the roof leaks- from where she's sitting she can see the rain dripping into a pail he's set in the doorway.

“This is really happening,” she says softly, and he looks down at his hands. He nods and she lets out a slow, shaky breath. “Ron… where are we?”

“We're safe,” he says. He scrubs a hand over his face and scoots aside a little as she sits up all the way. He touches her leg. “I healed you,” he says quietly, “and I… I went back but…” He shakes his head and takes a shuddering breath. “I couldn't… It was burned to the ground.” She remembers too well the smell of smoke, ashes and burnt flesh and she fights the urge to gag. “Harry got out. He's sleeping and-“

“How many?” She says, and her voice is hoarse. She used to keep count; numbers and each number a name. She can't anymore because… Because. There are too many, too much hurt, and not enough I'm sorry. “How many?”

“Thirty,” he says softly.

“And Daddy?” Just like before, like her half-formed sentence, he shakes his head. Here, she should cry or throw up and she feels like she needs to do both, but she can't do either. He reaches out to touch her, to comfort, and she shies away. She slides her legs up and away from him, and over the side of the ratty couch; she puts her feet on the floor and sits for a minute, waiting for him to take it back, tell her it was a mistake and Daddy is fine- living and breathing and fine. He doesn't and she stands on shaky legs. He stands with her and reaches for her again, and she lets him take her hand, lets him pull her closer to him.

“Luna,” he says softly, cupping her face in his hands, his voice breath-soft and warm against her skin, but she doesn't raise her eyes.

“He's dead,” she whispers. “You can't fix that, Ron,” she says and she knows that she's breaking him a little more, but what about her broken pieces? He touches her lips with his, soft and quick, and she pulls away. She shakes her head and stares at the floor. “You can't fix any of this.”

It's easy
to fall apart completely.
I feel you creeping up again.
it's over,
I feel it growing colder.
I knew this day would come to end,
so let this life begin.

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