Lu Han's legs had turned to jelly. The door stood open, the woman glared down a challenge. He could not close his fallen jaw, the shock too great. On top of that he was embarrassed and utterly mortified not only that he had a wife, but that he hadn't known he had a wife.

He just got here. He'd never been here before. He was in fifteenth century Joseon along with two other time travelelers who had at least had some family curse as an excuse for their ventures, but how in all the worlds had Lu Han managed to unknowingly acquire a wife!?

"Husband?" threw down his wife one last time. 

Lu Han shot another glance between Minseok and Jongdae. The latter was unperturbed. Minseok looked completely floored and he quickly looked away. "Go," Minseok whispered, with something that sounded like disappointment. Lu Han pretended his tone ended with that, that it didn't sound a little too much like betrayal. 

"But--"

"Go!" said the other, suddenly with more force. "We'll be fine... we'll get out... Jongdae said... so, just leave."

Lu Han wasn't buying it. But he didn't see that he had another option. He held onto the bars just to stand up, strengthening his wobbling legs until they could move on their own and he could leave the cell. Behind him the guards swung the door back shut and the click of the heavy metal lock sounded more like a death sentence for Minseok and Jongdae than he could ever have imagined.

Would he even see them again?! 

He turned and clutched the bars, even as the guards prodded him impatiently away. 

"Wait, Minseok!" he cried. 

His host, his employer, his... Lu Han didn't know what... narrowed his eyes and looked up. "I said, go!"

"But how! How do you get saved if..." His voice trailed off. 

The guards began pulling Lu Han away; his wife was already paces ahead. But still he had to know otherwise Minseok would die, here and now.

Minseok grinned. He said, "Easy. All you have to do is wake me up." As Lu Han grew further and further away, Minseok's face shrank, his voice fading off. And Lu Han half heard, half prayed he heard wrong one last fatal line. "Just hope I don't kill you when that happens."

Outside the prison cells Lu Han could still hardly breathe. They were surrounded by open fields on at least two sides. Lanterns lit up the side of the barracks and partially down a lane which twisted around a low hill. Lu Han barely could make the dark hint of mountains in the far off distance, just enough to verify that he really was in a strange foreign land. His wife was already entering a litter born by four strong men. A riderless horse stood beside it with a servant holding the reins. Lu Han balked only a moment when he realized he was expected to ride it. He had plenty of experience riding horses and other pack animals in his travels, but not usually after being beaten half to death. 

"I can walk," he told the man. 

From inside the litter came a haughty scoff. 

"Get on the horse, husband. Unless you truly do wish to look like a peasant." 

Lu Han did not know this woman, but he recognized that tone, and he obeyed. 

As expected, getting onto the animal was torture. Then there was the inevitable scurrying as he remembered how to handle the reins. The horse shied from side to side, causing a few more of his household to scattered with alarm. At least his wife made no further comment. Lu Han couldn't say he was pleased about this though. He wanted answers. He wondered who she was, when had they married, had Lu Han always been present? How on earth did this thing even work! Without Minseok there Lu Han was doubly lost and confused.

As the horse cantered along Lu Han went step by step through everything he did know. One, he remembered where and when he born. He knew his childhood, he could remember his parents' faces. He could recite every major adventure and every important figure he'd met in his life right up until being accosted and 'invited' to Minseok's estate. Then, to his knowledge, he had been introduced to that machine and so far had 'traveled', twice. 

His brain hurt by the time they arrived at whatever new old home he had now. It seemed set on the the outskirts of the community. A high stone wall separated it from the street. Lu Han slid off his horse at the gate. His wife alighted from the litter. She still looked pissed, and Lu Han guessed he couldn't blame her. He didn't even know her name. 

When he went no further than the gate, however, she turned and stared at him, perhaps less scornfully than before. 

"Center building on the right, in case you've forgotten where to sleep." Then, softer, "you never remember anything."

She went left into a different building, and disappeared. 

Lu Han stood there. "Huh," he said to himself. 

How long would this even last? Before he could remember spending a matter of seconds in that future world, and yet he'd spent the better part of half a day in this one and still there was no tingly unconscious feeling drawing him home. Should he sleep? Minseok was sentenced to death on the morrow. But was Lu Han supposed to go back and save them, or just wait until he himself woke up? What if it took too long and he was too late?! 

He looked around the courtyard, at the packed dirt under his feet, at the line of Joseon era buildings with their papered windows and screens. An old woman sat comfortably on the porch beside the the center building. She was awake and staring right at him, a knowing smile on her lips. Lu Han walked to her and the closer he got the more she smiled. Lu Han felt drawn to her, as if she was the clue he had somehow been missing. 

When he stood before her she did not get up. But dotingly, she cooed aloud. "There you are, now... finally..."

Lu Han gulped. "You've, you've been waiting for me?"

She nodded. "Oh yes, and for quite a long time now." She patted the steps next to her. Lu Han sat down. 

"Do... do you know who I am?"

For a second Lu Han feared he was misreading the situation, that perhaps she really was just an old retainer in this particular estate. She certainly regarded him strangely. 

"Do you know who you are?" she asked instead. 

Lu Han blinked. He started, slowly. "My name is Lu Han?" 

The old woman laughed. "Well of course you are. My name is Mae Chang. Maybe you don't know it yet. Not many people do. I am not as famous there, as perhaps I am here."

"Do you mean there as in..."

"As in the place I was truly born? Yes." She sighed dreamily, regretfully. "But I cannot easily pass back into that world. And if I did I would not find much there to live for. My children are all scattered now. That doesn't mean I don't see them though, from time to time. They are drawn to this place. I suspect they are drawn to every place, where you are, actually. And so I sit around here, and I take care of the lady, your wife. It is a thankless job, but she is fully of this world and is ignorant of all others."

As Lu Han mulled this other, his mind bubbling up with questions which he could not put into words, she reached other and gently took his hand. "And how is Minseok, dear? Over there?" 

Lu Han stuttered a bit. "I... I don't really know. You know Minseok? Is he your son?"

She shook her head. "Oh, no. He is not. But all of us know him. We know he is the one who will put a stop to this curse."

"The curse?" Lu Han asked, curious to know more. Mae Chang, however, continued talking. 

"We know he is the last of us to have to live this way. You see, he is the youngest. There aren't any younger than he, traveling. Not in any of the lines of descendants. They all stop short with him. I used to ponder in my youth, that Minseok maybe died young, or childless, and that is how the curse would be broken, but you see, he isn't the only one his age. There are cousins, so many cousins, and all their children and grandchildren and every one of them are still traveling. But then Minseok was born, the youngest of that generation, and all of a sudden there are no more wanderers in his plane or any of the others. If they are born, they are born there in the right place and they must die there in the right place, but they don't pass onto here... And then Junmyeon came to me and told me about Minseok and the machine he was building, and about you, and I finally knew it! I knew Minseok had broken the curse and that he'd found the key! Everybody knows it but we don't understand how, that's why you're so important Lu Han. You will explain it to us. When you understand it yourself."

More and more there grew a buzzing in Lu Han's ears.

"Junmyeon?" It was the only name he recognized. 

"Yes, he is one of my children, my only boy..." She sighed. 

Lu Han cried out, suddenly doubling over in pain. He clutched his head where a sharp spasm originated and pulsed. 

The old woman held his back. "There now, it's starting. It's drawing you home. Don't mind the lady, I will take care of her and she does well. Visit us again though soon, Lu Han. It was good to meet you... It always is..."

Her voice grew soft, Lu Han's vision blurred. Just like before he felt gravity coming up to meet him, pulling his under, swallowing him whole. He cried, and sweat dampened every pore, and his body twisted and contorted in on itself, into the vortex of whatever curse-filled channel...

Then he awake! Gasping, his arms and legs thrashing. A quiet light greeted his eyes, and Yixing stood over him looking alarming, overly fixated. 

"Minseok!" Lu Han cried out. Wires disconnected in a flash as he scrambled out of the chair, rushing, seeking... there, that bed he hadn't noticed before. Minseok lay there sleeping, sweating, writhing in pain, and Lu Han ran to him. He shook him first, "Minseok, wake up! Wake up or you'll die!" before Yixing was on him, shoving him aside. 

"What are you doing?!" roared the servant. "You'll put him into shock if you do that!"

But Lu Han wasn't listening. Before his eyes he was imagining Minseok, limbs bound by rope, face bloodied and about to die, and all he knew was that he could not let that happen. He thought of Jongdae, saying somehow they would saved, and Lu Han wished for that, as hard as he'd ever wished before. 

"Minseok, come on... come on, wake up," he screamed, ignoring Yixing. "Come on, Minseok. Damnit, Jongdae said... he said..."

He slapped Minseok's face, and with a jolt the man sat upright in horror. Both Lu Han and Yixing froze. Then Minseok turned to him, and like before Lu Han saw a rage building inside him. 

"Uhm... Minseok?" he said warily.

But Minseok wasn't looking at Lu Han. 

From behind him, a fourth body with an older man's face, was laughing in joyous surprise. It was a face Lu Han knew, but it wasn't Jongdae. "Ha ha! I'm back! I'm really back!"

Minseok growled and said only two evil words. "Kim. Junmyeon..."