Jongdae sat at the porch of the cabin Suho had generously let them stay in, enjoying the silence while he could, knowing it wouldn’t last long. The sky was dark and full of clouds. It would rain soon.

 

He remembered the feeling he got whenever the roaring thunders were in close proximity - sometimes, he’d just close his eyes and feel the sheer force they produced as they striked somewhere far away, but close enough to be felt by him. Other times, he’d try to direct them away from places where humans dwelled, settling for guiding them towards the mountains where they could demonstrate their force without interruptions.

 

Today, he felt empty. He didn’t feel anything as he watched the cloudy sky, and it would’ve made him wonder whether the people inside of the cabin were crazy or trying to deceive him somehow, but he knew better.

 

He’d remembered on his own, just like the rest of them - he was reading a book on that rooftop in Almaty when Suho approached him, sat down next to him and called him Jongdae, Chen. He was confused, not understanding what the man was saying to him, though both him and the words that came out of his mouth felt similar somehow.

 

The more Suho told him about who he was, the more Chen remembered his past - the maze, Luhan flying away with Kris as Baekhyun shouted and released a tidal wave of energy that knocked them all over, and what came before it.

 

Junmyeon had said it would take a while for him to get all of his memories back - it was normal and everyone had went through it already. He was the last person they’d managed to locate because Almaty was so remote and not at their usual paths so none of them ever sensed him.

 

He didn’t remember much of the day when they’d found him, because he was so confused by the arrival of so many people at once, people whom he seemed to know but couldn’t quite remember.

 

He did remember that there was quite a ruckus the whole time. The eclipse happened, and it was supposed to mean something but he didn’t know what, then someone threw himself off the building and a girl was mourning for him, while some weird people appeared out of nowhere and kidnapped someone else while another girl fought some random guy who was obviously helping them.

 

Now, he knew what had happened - his friends Kris and Luhan were being controlled by SM, and they were made to come over and kidnap Baekhyun, though for what purpose, they didn’t know until he came back. It was quite a confusing story, really - Baekhyun had already been kidnapped once, and back then SM had cut him open and literally taken almost his whole essence away. This time, Baekhyun claimed they wanted to get more of his powers that, of course, couldn’t regenerate because they weren’t getting closer to The Tree of Life’s energy so their powers were being cut off slowly but surely.

 

The thing was, SM must’ve known that, because they’d chosen a planet so far away from their own as their base, where they could lure them and then exhaust them slowly while using them as lab rats for whatever experiments they had in mind. They’d eniolated every single guardian that had ever existed - they had to have known their powers wouldn’t regenerate. None of them believed anything happened by chance - not Kris meeting or losing his girlfriend, and definitely not Baekhyun being kidnapped twice.

 

Baekhyun was hiding something from them - Chen remembered enough things to know that was a part of his character, especially of the person he was before he’d been kidnapped for the first time. It always seemed to be dramatic with Baekhyun, and Chen loved his brother and hoped no bad thing ever happened to him, but the situations involving him were very confusing and they didn’t need secrets to make things worse.

 

On the other side, Tao had gone through some kind of a mental breakdown after he remembered everything, including what he thought was Kris’ betrayal. He’d told them about the torture Lamiya went through, with them taking one of old recordings of Sehun which they cut to make it seem as if he was captured by them and at their mercy, and holding it as their joker card which made Lamiya give Kris her powers.

 

Tao had no idea what Kris would need them for, and he didn’t question it - that wasn’t anything new, since Tao never questioned anything Kris said or did. So when Kris went into the maze, Tao went, too, and when Kris flew away, leaving him behind, he didn’t know how to feel or what to think about his brother’s betrayal.

 

No matter how many times Lay tried to explain to him - and in Chinese - that Kris wasn’t truly an enemy, that SM was blackmailing him and that he wasn’t doing any of the evil things he’d done because he wanted to, but because he was forced to, Tao couldn’t seem to get it. They left him alone, hoping time would help him face things, but he’d gotten the idea to kill himself when they’d found Chen.

 

He felt so flattered - his friend was so considerate of his condition and so worried that maybe he wouldn’t be fine that he went to the edge of the roof, ready to jump rather than say a simple hi.

 

The confusing thing about Tao’s brilliant move was that, not only did he disappear instead of landing at the pavement in front of the building, but he took Sehun to wherever he had gone. They had no idea where, or more importantly, when it was.

 

Lay had proposed a very plausible theory - that if they had gone into the past, they most likely would’ve interacted with them all somehow, and since no such thing happened, that must’ve meant they went into the future. Tao said he didn’t know how to make time move forward instead of backwards, but since nobody’s powers worked the way they wanted them to, it wouldn’t have been impossible for that to have happened.

 

So now Baekhyun had magically been returned by SM, because, as he said, they finally realized he was useless - many of them would’ve protested, but Baek was too weak and any kind of exertion could’ve made his condition worse, so they let him off the hook for now - whereas Kris, Luhan, Tao and Sehun’s whereabouts were unknown.

 

And they were stuck with a complete nutjob with no idea what was wrong or how to help her.

 

As if she’d heard his thoughts, she began causing a mess again, which meant nothing was working anymore. At first, it didn’t seem like she was crazy after that one endeavor when they’d all seen her basically become someone else who was speaking about some revenge and someone stealing from her or something. It was probably her being angry at Kris for having taken her powers away, they’d reasoned, but then she’d mentioned that she had some kind of a vision and people began getting worried - at least, that’s what they told Jongdae, who was still having difficulties with connecting all the dots. Who wouldn’t?

 

The most important thing of all, though, was the eclipse - now that it had happened, they had no way of ever going back. Kai would’ve been able to teleport them to their base at the dark side of the Moon only when the eclipse happened, since that was the only time when he could connect with the location and be able to bring them there. On the other side, their backup possibility was Kris flying them to the Moon one by one, but Kris was unavailable, too, so now they were all doomed to slowly die away on this beautiful planet that suddenly didn’t seem so beautiful anymore.

 

This planet was SM’s base, and instead of being smart and tacticizing, they’d went into their claws like fools and now they were being picked off one by one. First one of them fell in love with a native, then the other got some kind of a poison injected into his blood and the third was kidnapped. Wonderful. They were really a professional group of guardians trained to destroy the threat that was SM - they had no idea where they even were, let alone how they’d confront them, if such a thing ever even happened.

 

Jongdae tried to ignore the screams from the cabin. He tried to ignore the fact that the person who was screaming used to be his friend and now she’d gone mad after being abused by Kris and having lost her boyfriend. He’d tried to talk to her, just like everyone else, but her eyes shifted wildly from one to the other side while she laughed or spoke of betrayal and things they couldn’t even begin to understand.

 

Jongdae was not one of the patient ones - he did things immediately and in the swiftest way possible. But he had no idea how to tackle her, when she didn’t even seem like herself. She kept talking about getting caught in a sand storm and how she couldn’t hear his voice anymore or whatever. As awful as it was, after two weeks of watching her being out of her mind, they were all slowly getting accustomed to the fact that she had a loose screw somewhere and until Sehun arrived, they probably wouldn’t find or fix the problem.

 

Lay had tried, but Lay wasn’t Luhan, and he couldn’t even reach his powers. Aya had insisted to try, but Baekhyun didn’t let her, arguing that she’d never touched a mentally ill person before, and how she might go crazy if she saw everything that was in her head right now. The others’ powers were physical and unreachable anyway, so even if they’d wanted to, they hadn’t been able to do anything but talk to her, and talking was definitely not helpful.

 

The front door opened and a person came out. Chen didn’t turn around, because this wasn’t the first time they had to deal with this, and someone always lost their calm and had to get out for a little while.

 

This time, the person that sat next to him as he sighed was Jongin.

 

They sat in silence for a little while, but Chen knew Jongin wasn’t the type to keep his emotions inside - sooner or later, he’d voice his doubts and let things out. So he waited.

 

“I just don’t get it,” Kai spoke after a little while. He was panting until a couple of minutes ago, obviously having tried to reason with Lamiya by shouting at her and obviously having failed. “I just don’t get why she’s suddenly like this. A couple of weeks ago, she’d been sad because of what happened with her and Kris and the whole misunderstanding but she was still her. Now I just…”

 

Jongdae nodded at him and patted his leg. “You can’t get through to her, I know. She’s my friend too, you know - I know that she’s been acting different. But you mustn’t lose hope, Kai - I think this isn’t permanent, and that if we just manage to find out what’s causing her to be like this, we’ll be able to bring her back to normal.”

 

“But did you see the look in her eyes this morning, Jongdae?” Jongin said while making gestures in the air with his hands. “It was as if she was somewhere else, in some far away world that exists only in her mind. And then an hour later - poof! She’s walking around the cabin completely normal, as if nothing happened!”

 

Kai was right - the weird thing was that Lamiya wasn’t crazy all the time - it was like some kind of psychosis that happened every once in a while, and she didn’t remember having any of them. The first couple of times, they asked her loads of questions she found weird, but after a while they just settled for not upsetting her further by telling her that she was basically crazy during all of those blackouts.

 

So they pretended the episodes never happened in the first place, and it was kind of hard because they never knew when she was listening and they talked about her state a lot.

 

Especially Suho. He was worried out of his mind - he’d already lost four members of his family, the fourth one has been abducted and tortured twice, and now the newest member of the team was going through some kind of illness he had no idea how to cure or what caused it. The others tried to help him, but it seemed like a long time would have to pass before Suho’s wounds were healed.

 

Jongdae knew what would help his most devoted brother - bringing the others back. Sehun would know how to help Lamiya, so they just had to wait until Tao found some way to bring them back and from then on things would keep getting better.

 

We are going to die out here, Kyungsoo had said, which was uncharacteristic for someone with a steel resolve like his. It had made some of the others afraid, but Jongdae refused to believe in such nonsense. Let’s not be dramatic, he’d answered in the calmest voice he could pull off. Just because things seem gloomy right now, doesn’t mean that they won’t change very quickly. For God’s sake, just be a little bit patient before dramatising, Soo.

 

Jongdae had to be strong for the others - Suho already had too much on his plate even without the children getting a panic attack. Yeah, the possibility that they’d die from lack of energy existed, but things were nowhere near over. SM had a plan, a plan that included them so they wouldn’t just hide underground forever, like Soo and Xiumin assumed. Jongdae and Junmyeon believed that they’d lure them in somehow, whereas Lay and Kai thought they did have a plan, but how they wouldn’t be expecting for them to be able to find them in South Korea so they could count on the element of surprise, at least.

 

He knew they weren’t that lucky - SM had planned this carefully and they seemed to always be one step ahead of them. Sitting and waiting to see where they’d strike next was suffocating and stressing, so it wasn’t a wonder why Suho had hurried them halfway around the world just to get things moving as soon as he could.

 

Just then, some of the others exited the cabin, too, joining the two brothers sitting on the porch. Chen didn’t like the sad atmosphere that seemed to always be following them everywhere nowadays, but what could he do? He couldn’t laugh when they just came out of a room where Lamiya made a mess again.

 

Chen sighed. “What did she do this time?” he asked as D.O. sat next to him and Lay next to Jongin.

 

“She…” Kyungsoo started in a low voice, putting a hand on his forehead, “This time she said that she could feel his powers calling to her, and that he was closeby.”

 

Lay piped up then. “And when we asked who he was, whether she meant Kris or Sehun by that, she laughed with that spooky laughter and said not to be silly, that it was the thief, her brother.”

 

“Lamiya does have a brother,” Jongin added, frowning. “He is a couple years older than her, but he doesn’t have any powers. Perhaps he took something from her a while ago and now her subconsciousness is bringing it out in this weird way?”

 

Chen raised an eyebrow. “I wish it was that simple, Kai.” He decided to change the subject. “So everyone is sure that they’d never met Tao from the future ever since coming to Earth?”

 

Jongin and Soo nodded, but Lay shook his head. “That doesn’t prove anything, Jongdae. He might’ve met Kris or Luhan or Sehun, or even himself. He could’ve warned himself about SM or something but it failed and so now Tao went back to fulfill that part of his destiny and then come back.”

 

“Or,” a new voice piped up, “Tao went into the future, just like I’d said before.”

 

They all turned to see a tired, smiling Suho at the door. Jongin immediately got up and hurried to hug him whereas the others felt the same way, though they didn’t show it. Jongdae was relieved - nowadays, Junmyeon preferred staying in his room and seeing him here seemed like a dream.

 

It also meant that Lamiya had fallen asleep again, so they could put their guards down, at least for an hour or so.

 

As Suho went over to sit between Jongin and Jongdae, Soo spoke, still deep-in-thought. “But if that is true and they do come back, wouldn’t that mean we won? Because if he manages to collect enough energy to come back, it’ll mean that he had someone to collect it from and it’s only us that can provide him with sufficient amounts to make a jump.”

 

Suho nodded at Soo. “Of course, Kyungsoo,” he said softly. “And we shouldn’t lose hope, but I think it all depends on how big of a jump Tao had really made. He was aiming for a huge one, considering the fact that he endangered his life in such a way to achieve it. If he really made a big jump, then perhaps he is in a timeline thousands of years from hours and I really doubt we’d managed to survive until then.”

 

“But it’s highly unlikely,” Jongin finished. “If I try to teleport somewhere far away, I end up a couple of meters in the sky above a place that is, at the very most, a couple of kilometers from where I made the jump. If we apply the same logic to Tao, then it’ll mean that he managed to travel a couple of days or months at most, and that gives them a chance for us to still be around and be able to help them come back.”

 

Junmyeon sighed. “I really hope you’re right,” he concluded.

 

The rain began to fall as the thunders roared in the distance - Jongdae hoped that, wherever their brothers were, they were safe and that they managed to fill up their powers. They stood no chance against SM when they were at their 100 percent - what chance could they stand now, sitting on a porch where their legs were getting wet from the rain, without access to their powers or at least without a proper one?

 

Sehun had explained that Lamiya was a very powerful wind-yielder, one far more powerful than himself. He’d claimed that, if trained properly, the two of them could unite their powers and blow away any SM agents that came their way. His plan was working out so well, Jongdae thought.

 

Where are you, Sehun? He wondered. We need you, brother.

 

“When it comes to Lamiya, I…” Suho began again ad Jongin and Soo stopped chatting to listen to him. “I’ve been watching her closely and I think she’s been having strong hallucinations for a while.”

 

Everyone nodded at that - they’d all seen her acting strangely, swatting away at herself and running around as if she was chasing someone. She was completely oblivious to their presence in the room, completely absorbed in whatever it was that she was seeing.

 

“I think that it has something to do with her powers - that for some reason, she’s having hallucinations about the wind and what she believes Sehun’s home planet looks like. Perhaps the shock of having her powers taken away so violently was too much for her so instead of facing it and moving on, she ran away into some strange world where she’s trying to avenge herself and where she hadn’t given Kris the permission to take her powers away, instead calling him the thief and blabbering about revenge.” Suho shrugged as he told them his opinion, staring at the wet, muddy ground rain was still falling onto.

 

Chen missed home. He missed being fearless and so completely happy and careless.

 

He knew how sacred the ritual of giving one’s powers to another was. They’d told him how harsh Sehun was towards her after getting out of the maze and being found by the others, and how the misunderstanding lasted for a while. He couldn’t blame him, that was for sure - Kris had used Sehun’s voice to make the girl Sehun was in love with give him her powers, the powers no person but Sehun was supposed to know and feel. And she’d given into it because she didn’t know, but still, she’d done it and now in a way, their relationship would never be the same because Kris would know, he would always know everything and Sehun couldn’t get over that.

 

But Sehun loved her, and he’d be able to help Lamiya face her past - the others had tried and failed miserably, so they had to keep hoping everything would be alright.

 

“Will you stop it already?” a new voice shouted as the door to the cabin opened. “I’m not going to go crazy if I sort through her memories, Baekhyun! I’ll just know what she’d seen and that’s kind of the whole point of doing it in the first place!”

 

Baekhyun and Aya were getting out of the cabin, both of them red and with their arms crossed over their chests. Lovers’ quarrel. They had to get out of there, and fast, before they started shouting.

 

“But what good will it do, aeri?” Baekhyun spoke in an equally angry voice, only toning it down when using his endearment for her. “So you see what craziness she believes in, and what then? It won’t make her any more aware of her surroundings. You’re not a psychiatric! What if the craziness somehow got into you, too? I don’t care how low the chances are, I won’t risk it.”

 

Aya sighed as they finally realized they weren’t alone and said Hi to everyone. Aya was another acquaintance of Jongdae’s from the high school they came into to spy on SM’s agents and try to get as much out of them as they could. She was a nice kid, one that Baekhyun and Kris seemed so intent on bullying, though Jongdae had no idea why, and now suddenly she seemed to have gotten together with one of her worst enemies. Weird, he thought, but he didn’t expect a normal girl to be with Baekhyun, after all.

 

The weirdest thing, though, was her power - it was something none of them had ever heard for, which led to questions about whether other planets somehow created their own guardians, too, or if it was just some weird play of nature that led to the existence of people with such powers.

 

Again, Jongdae believed neither - he knew SM had its role in all of this, and that Sehun’s first assumption seemed to be very close to the truth: when he first met Lamiya, he was certain that she was just bait sent to lure them in and make them come to SM on their own. The one thing they hadn’t counted on, though, was the fact that the baits weren’t aware of it themselves.

 

Suho still claimed they were just gifted, but that was because he wanted to believe that there might be other people out there with the ability to help them. But what good would their knowledge do? Only if they managed to connect with The Tree of Life again would they be able to transfer the information they’d acquired. Since that seemed highly unlikely, whatever they uncovered would probably just remain with them while SM destroyed them, just like so, so many others.

 

Suho patted Aya’s leg while she pouted. “Thank you for wanting to help,” he said gently, “But I must agree with Baekhyun. We don’t know how useful your power might become when the time comes - you could incapacitate our enemies with your touch and that could be very useful. If there is even a slightest chance for failure…”

 

“And there is,” Baekhyun growled, still pacing on the porch, looking angry though Chen knew better - he was worried and scared.

 

Suho continued as if Baekhyun hadn’t interrupted at all. “Then we can’t risk it. Just wait until Sehun comes back - he’ll know how to help her. He knows her powers - he know her, so he’ll know what to do.”

 

“I don’t mean to be rude, Junmyeon,” Aya said tiredly, looking at him with a serious look, “But can we please consider, just for a second, that maybe he isn’t coming back? I mean, I know that they probably will find a way but what if-”

 

“We’ve been through this, aeri,” Baekhyun intercepted. “Sehunnie will come back. He always does.”

 

Nobody said anything after that. Aya was the most objective out of all of them - neither of them wanted to think about the possibility, but what if Tao and Sehun had gone into the future and they’d lost? What if there was nobody to get the energy from, nobody to help guide them towards the past? Or worse, what if the future brought them right to SM and they tortured them and took their powers, too?

 

There were so many possibilities, and neither of them were good for Tao, Sehun or themselves. Chen looked at his brothers’ faces, seeing that they were thinking about the same things like him. Jongin was biting his lip, being the maknae for the time being and looking as insecure and as scared as one. Suho just looked plain tired, his eyes closed and his mind probably in denial.

 

Baekhyun was staring into the distance as he stood, his face a mask of indifference, though he was one of the closest to Sehun and probably barely holding himself together. Lay was looking at his hands, probably blaming himself for not being able to reach his powers, though he wouldn’t have been able to heal her even if it was otherwise. Kyungsoo crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head at himself slightly, probably debating about some theories of his in his head.

 

Xiumin was still blaming himself for what happened when Luhan had controlled his mind and made him attack Aya - Luhan hadn’t had that ability before, but it seemed like SM had ways of giving them power boosts or otherwise Kris wouldn’t have been able to fly them to that rooftop, or out of there. Aya had forgiven him because it wasn’t his fault and Baekhyun was back, sound and safe and seemingly not scarred more than before, though he was great at acting and Jongdae kept a close eye on him.

 

Chanyeol had arrived to the porch, too, in the meantime, having checked Lamiya’s blood pressure and other parameters and having settled her into the bed to get some rest. In a couple of hours, they’d go back to pretending she hadn’t screamed for Oh Se Hun, the butterfly savior, before she’d lost consciousness again. Chanyeol, whose head was in his hands as his back leaned to the cabin’s wall, would make her laugh and assure her she’d just slept through her blackout again.

 

And then she’d go back to pulling her own hair, saying they’reclose he’sclose over and over again as she spun in a circle around her bedroom and laughing like a maniac.

 

Sehun, Jongdae thought as he looked into the black sky while the rain poured down on the world, hoping it’d clean all the messes they’d left behind themselves, Where are you?