Part III

It’s Kevin who delivers the news about their friends. He comes running into Tao’s room, wheezing and clutching a bag.

“I brought…clothes…and a portable…movie device,” He pants, falling to his knees. “Oh gods am I ever out of shape…”

“What are you doing here though?” Kris asks, helping his nephew—rather, cousin to his feet. “I thought you were on Earth!”

“I was,” Kevin says. He pushes Kris away and saunters over to Tao. “How are you feeling?” He asks, taking Tao’s hands. “Is Yifan making sure they treat you well?”

It’s been a week since the surgery, and so far Tao’s new organs are serving him well. He grins at Kris and nods. “Yes, he’s been taking care of me.”

Kevin looks genuinely relieved. “When I heard you had been hurt…I know we haven’t known each other long, but I was so worried for both of you.”

Tao smiles. “Thanks for coming. It’s nice to see you again.”

“I bring good news from grandfather!” Kevin says with a wide smile, “Your friends were given permission to visit, they got approved to travel in a deep-space craft.”

Tao looks absolutely elated. “That’s so wonderful! When are they coming?”

Kevin’s grin grows even more. “They should be docking in about an hour, and in this room before the afternoon ends.”

The two of them stare at him, stunned. “But…we didn’t…how?” Tao stammers.

“They haven’t called!” Kris shouts, “Oh my gosh, I should have known when they didn’t call yesterday!”

Tao looks at him sheepishly. Ever since he started feeling better, the two of them have been so wrapped up in each other that they barely spared a thought for anything else. They’ve been planning a future together, and discussing what Tao’s new body parts would mean for his future. Just yesterday he saw his scar for the first time, and for a while they both just stared at it, lost in their own thoughts. Even though Tao had said he was glad to be alive, he was having difficulty coming to terms with what this meant for him. Sometimes he felt totally different, sometimes he felt exactly the same. Between all the stuff that was going on, they hadn’t thought much of their friend’s silence.

“Should we have told you sooner?” Kevin asks. “They wanted to surprise you.”

Tao shakes his head. “It’s okay, I just…didn’t they think we would worry?”

Kevin smiles gently. “I think they knew that you would have a lot on your mind. They probably planned it like this so that they could distract you from all those thoughts.” He squeezes Tao’s hand. “Everyone on this planet knows what you’re going through. If you ever need to talk, and you want someone besides Yifan to tell you what it’s like, just remember that you have family among us.”

Tao’s eyes fill with tears, and he laughs a little. “That’s right, I’m one of you now, aren’t I?”

Kevin ruffles his hair. “You became one of us when you fell in love with my…cousin. I refuse to call you Uncle. Sorry Yifan.”

But the comment is still very touching, enough to make even Kris tear up a little, and Kevin shrieks that he hadn’t meant to make them cry, and he starts pulling things out of his bag, trying to get them to cheer up. They end up watching a movie while they wait for everyone to arrive, and they don’t have to wait long.

A nurse comes to the room and greets them with a smile. “You’re quite popular,” He says, “Your friends are taking decontamination showers, and in the meantime we’re going to move you to a larger room so that everyone can fit.”

“Everyone? All at once?” Kris asks, casting a nervous look at Tao. “Are you up for it?”

Tao nods eagerly. “Yes, absolutely! Don’t worry, I’ll be okay.” And he looks so bright and happy that Kris’ worries are immediately eased.

The new room is one floor up, and takes only a few minutes to get Tao settled. Kris carries him to his new bed, frowning when Tao winces as he’s moved.

“Can you take a look at him, later?” He asks the nurse. “I just feel like it shouldn’t be hurting him this much.”

“I’m fine,” Tao insists fondly, but his face still looks slightly pained.

“The wound was in a very difficult spot, and it is still healing,” the nurse says patiently. “But yes, we’ll look at it later and make sure everything is alright.”

Tao pinches Kris’ arm. “I’m fine,” he says again. “Don’t worry about me.”

Kris kisses his forehead. “I just don’t want you to be in any pain, ever again.” He leans back, and Tao is shocked at how sad he looks. “And I never want you be that scared, either.”

Before Tao can come up with a response, the door opens and their friends come in, with Suho leading the charge. They’re all dressed in scrubs, and their hair is wet from the decontamination shower. But Tao’s health isn’t so bad that they need to keep their hands and mouths covered, he can hold their hands and see all of their smiles—and they are all smiling.

“Look at you,” Suho gasps, coming to stand by the bed. “Oh, Tao, it’s so good to see you!”

Tao looks at him with tears in his eyes. “Omma,” he mouths, and then they both start to cry.

“I missed you so much,” Suho weeps. He hugs Tao gently, careful not to jostle him, and kisses his cheeks, nose, and forehead. “I’m so happy that you’re okay, I was so worried…”

“We all were,” Sehun says, and he pushes Minseok to stand beside Suho. “But Minseok-hyung was especially worried about you.”

Tao gasps and grabs Minseok’s hands. “Hyung, you saved my life. You, Yixing, and Kai…” he looks around the room, smiling at everyone, but he beckons Kai and Yixing over. “You all got me out of there safely…and Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Jongdae, you guys gave me your blood, right?”

“We did,” Chanyeol says. Then, “Hey now, don’t cry! This is supposed to be making you happy!”

Tao wipes his eyes, and it’s Minseok who hugs him next. He whispers something so quietly that only Tao hears, and Tao smiles and calls him a hero. When Minseok steps back, Tao looks around the room again and sobs, “I missed you all so much.”

They all take turns hugging him—carefully and gently, and they all tell him that they love him and they’re so glad that he’s okay. Then everyone hugs Kris as well, and say that they’ve missed him, too. Kris looks surprised but tearful, and when they call him out on it he says that’s it’s all their fault anyway—there’s so much emotion swirling around the room that it’s making him dizzy. Then everyone gets introduced to Kevin, and they all laugh about how amazing it was that he and Kris lived so close to each other on Earth and never met. Kevin leaves soon after, promising to come back, but not wanting to make the already crowded room even more crowded.

It’s hard to squeeze so many people around one bed, even with Kris standing back, since he’s had Tao to himself for all this time. They clearly don’t want to talk about anything that’s going to make Tao upset, but he insistently asks if anyone from the Agency has been by, or if the mission was considered a success or a failure.

“The mission was a little of both,” Jongdae finally tells him. “We got a lot of information for them, now they’re sending another, more heavily armed, team to get rid of those robots.”

Tao shivers. “Do they know what those things were?”

“It’s not our problem anymore,” Suho says.

“But I want to know!” Tao cries. “They almost killed me, I’m only alive because I got help. A normal person wouldn’t have been so lucky, they wouldn’t have been able to come here and be fixed up, those things could hurt a lot of people!”

“No,” Kyungsoo says. “There weren’t enough of them for that. those things were intended to take on a small group of people, like us. There weren’t enough for like, a crowd or an wide-scale attack. Army grade weapons could have easily destroyed them.”

They all look surprised, but Kyungsoo did receive some military training during his time with the Agency, they know that.

Tao sighs heavily. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Baekhyun and Jongdae glance at each other.

“Well then…maybe this will,” Baekhyun says slowly. He clears his throat. “We didn’t want to take the attention off of you, but we also wanted to make sure that we told all of you at once.”

Kris gasps and covers his mouth. Jongdae grins at him.

“Figures that you would guess.”

“Guess what?” Tao demands.

Baekhyun looks down, blushing.

They had just gotten word that they’ll be leaving for Kris’ home planet first thing in the morning. They’re all rushing to pack, to get everything taken care of. Chanyeol grabs the dog and brings him to Sungwoo, and Kyungsoo takes Kai to the beach (who knows how long it will be before he can swim again), Minseok is escorted to an agency therapist by Lu Han and Yixing, Sehun is helping Suho pack a bag for Tao, and Jongdae and Baekhyun are left to their own devices. They go to their room and pack, but that doesn’t take very long. They sit on the bed in silence.

“Are you scared?” Baekhyun asks.

Jongdae jumps and looks embarrassed about it. “A little,” he admits. “The idea of hurtling through deep space for two days has me a little worried.”

Baekhyun takes his hands and kisses them. “You were scared when we were on that planet too. I’ve never seen you like that before.”

“I…I don’t do well in new places,” Jongdae says. “Especially not hospitals.”

Baekhyun’s gaze softens. “I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Jongdae gulps. “It’s…it’s just so hard to think that we almost lost Tao. It could have been anyone of us.” He squeezes Baekhyun’s hand. “It could have been you. You were right next to Tao when it happened. It really could have been you. I just keep wondering, what if I’d lost you? What if I lost you and I never told you how much I love you.”

Baekhyun startles. “I know you love me.”

But Jongdae shakes his head. “No, no you don’t.” He leans forward and kisses Baekhyun, and it’s familiar but somehow different. Baekhyun finds himself unable to close his eyes, or even breathe properly. When Jongdae pulls away, he has tears in his eyes. “I love you so much that I’ll never be able to find a way to describe it. All those expressions you hear—as much as the stars in the sky, the grains of sand on all the beaches—I love you more than that. And I am so afraid of losing you. I never want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” Baekhyun promises, tears making his voice break. “Jongdae, I’ll never allow myself to leave you, and I’ll never let you leave me either. You’re my whole universe.”

Jongdae smiles even as tears spill from his eyes. “I want more than this,” he whispers. “I want…everything, everything that my parents didn’t have when I was a child. I want a family with you. I want to be with you as…as more than this, forever.”

Baekhyun breath is stuck in his chest, and his eyes are swimming with tears, but he can still see the smile on Jongdae’s face.

“Baekhyun, remember when we talked about getting married some day?”

Baekhyun nods. Jongdae takes his hands and stands, tugging him to his feet. Then Jongdae kneels, and Baekhyun lets out a gasp that ends in a sob. Jongdae waits for him to catch his breath, and then asks.

“Would you like to marry me?”

Jongdae takes Baekhyun’s hand and smiles at Tao. “Baekhyun and I have decided that we’re going to be married.”

There’s a half second of utter silence, and then Tao shrieks in absolute joy.

“YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED?! OH MY GOD!”

And then the entire room is shouting, laughing and crying, and pressing around Jongdae and Baekhyun to hug them and congratulate them. It’s several minutes before the situation calms down enough for Tao to demand to know when this happened.

“The night before we left to see you,” Baekhyun tells him. “With everything that was happening we just, we realized that we never want to be without each other and we want a life together.”

“Tell me everything,” Tao begs, “Don’t you dare leave a single word out!”

So the two of them take turns, adding on what they each were feeling at the moment, and how the other one looked to them (“He looked blurry,” Baekhyun says dryly, “Because I was crying.”), and they finish by saying that as they were getting into the space shuttle, they each felt so calm and peaceful, and so incredibly happy.

“I can’t believe you thought about not telling me,” Tao whines. “Attention be damned, this is the best news I’ve gotten!”

Kris laughs and Tao rolls his eyes. “Okay, best news besides hearing that my life is going to go back to normal,” he amends, and then he smiles at Baekhyun and Jongdae. “You better not plan a single thing without me. I want to help, you know I can throw an excellent party, you’ll let me help, right?”

“Of course!” Baekhyun cries, “How could we plan this without you? As soon as you’re better, we’re going to get the ball rolling on this, we want to be married as soon as possible.”

“This is so amazing!” Tao yells, “Oh I’m so happy for both of you!”

And for a little while, they all talk about the wedding—and there will be a wedding, Baekhyun and Jongdae are sure of that. There will be a ceremony, and a party, and they’re not sure who will attend but there won’t be many people. Nonetheless, they will not skimp on the details. Neither of them are big ticket spenders and risking your life for the world has big perks in the form of big paychecks, so they’ve got the money to go all out.

“One word,” Baekhyun says seriously, “Sapphires.”

“Not diamonds?” Tao laughs.

“Blue looks better with my eyes,” Baekhyun says.

Jongdae hugs Baekhyun and kisses his cheek. “Everything looks good on you.”

After that Tao starts chanting, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” and everyone joins in until Baekhyun grabs Jongdae’s collar and kisses him soundly, to the cheers of their friends.

It’s not long after that Tao begins to be visibly tired, and it’s clear that the long afternoon has taxed him. Kris is not the only one who notices.

“You should get some sleep,” Yixing says. “We can come back later.”

“No!” Tao cries, struggling to sit up. About five people rush to gently but quickly help him lay down again, Kris among them.

“Love, you need to rest to heal,” Kris says.

Tao looks around at all his friends. “But I don’t want you to leave. I just got you back…don’t leave yet.”

Suho chokes back tears, and he’s not the only one. Tao looks to Kris.

“If I promise to sleep, can’t they stay?”

So far, no one has come along to tell them that Tao needs to be alone, so as long as they’re quiet… “I don’t see why not.”

Tao sighs in relief and leans back. Kris adjusts his blanket and makes sure that he’s not too cold, and then everyone settles down around the room. There’s a lot of seating, a table and chairs and even a couch, but even then they have to squeeze. Suho and Kris sit on either side of Tao’s bed and hold his hands, and Suho Tao’s hair.

“How long are you staying?” Tao asks.

“A few days at least, but I don’t think we can stay much longer than a week,” Suho tells him.

Tao squeezes his hand. “I’m going to get better,” he vows. “And I’ll be home soon. And then everything will be okay again.”

Suho gets teary again and he kisses Tao’s forehead. “You take all the time that you need. We’ll help you any way we can.”

Tao looks up at him with wide eyes. “I just don’t want you to leave. Any of you. I’ve really missed you all.” He blinks slowly, and they realize that he’s fighting to keep his eyes open. “I feel like I’m dreaming.”

“We’ll be here when you wake up,” Suho tells him. “This isn’t a dream. We’re really here.”

But before Tao drops off to sleep, he says one more time, “Promise you won’t leave.” Suho promises, but even when he’s asleep, Tao keeps a tight hold on Suho’s hand.

Kris and Jongdae slip outside while Tao is asleep. They’re going to get food and drinks for everyone, and as soon as they’re out of earshot Jongdae turns to Kris and says, “I know what you’re going to say, and the answer is no. I haven’t told him yet.”

Kris sighs heavily. “I knew it. You really should, especially now that you’re getting married.”

“But maybe I don’t need to,” Jongdae challenges. “How much of me does it really change? How much does he need to know?”

Kris is shocked. “He’s going to be your husband. This is a part of your life that you should be honest about.”

Jongdae glares. “And what will you do if I don’t tell him?”

Kris hesitates, then sighs. “Nothing,” he says quietly.

Jongdae nods and smiles. “Thank you.”

“But it’s a stupid idea not to tell him,” Kris adds. “It affects you, whether you know it or not, and it will affect your marriage.”

Jongdae shakes his head. “What does it affect?”

Kris stops and stares at Jongdae. “You have PTSD. Jongdae, you were essentially held hostage for the first ten years of your life, and mentally and emotionally abused. If you don’t think that’s going to affect you—”

“It won’t,” Jongdae says, holding his head high. “As long as I don’t think about it, I’ll be okay.”

Kris knows he’s not going to change Jongdae’s mind, so he stops trying to. It is, after all, his decision.

It seems like all Tao really needed to get better was his friends. With the rest of the team at his side, he makes an almost miraculous recovery, even by Kris’ planet’s standards. Within a few days he’s able to walk short distances on his own, and even longer if someone supports him. And the best news is, he no longer feels any pain.

“I realize now that it didn’t really hurt,” he explains to them. “I knew something wasn’t right, and I was uncomfortable. I guess that was my body adjusting to having nonorganic material inside of it. I felt so weird, especially when I moved. When I realized what had happened, there was a time when I felt like my organs were too lose, and sloshing around inside of me. But of course that didn’t happen. Really, what was most uncomfortable was the skin around my scar, but Yifan says that’s normal,” he said, smiling at Kris. “Now, I really just want to go home. I don’t want to stay in the hospital any longer than absolutely necessary.”

Luckily, ‘absolutely necessary’ turns out not to be that long. Just as time begins to run out on the “visas” that the rest of the team has, Tao is declared fit to leave.

“At this point, there’s not much more we can do,” Doctor Walai tells Kris and Tao cheerfully. “The Agency can address any issues you may have in the immediate future, and we’ll get you back here for a checkup in about three months, then another six, and then once a year. The longer you go with these organs without problems, the less we’ll need to check on them.”

It’s astounding, and Doctor Walai says that having everyone around absolutely helped Tao heal. “The power of love and positive thinking is a real thing,” she says. “And in this case, it helped Tao heal more quickly.”

And now, only two weeks after being shot and undergoing major surgery, Tao is cleared to go home. The Agency arranged for wormhole transport, so that all twelve of them can go home together. And when they do, Tao walks alongside them.

Now all that’s left, is to plan the wedding.

I KNOW NONE OF YOU SAW THAT COMING!