Sometime later (a few weeks, maybe a month)

Rose was pushed to wakefulness, her heart thundering as if she’d been running, and her forehead sweaty. It felt like she’d woken from a nightmare, even though she couldn’t remember a single thing out of it.

She tried to think back, to recall, but there was nothing, just blankness.

It bothered her because it was so reminiscent of the early days of her possession. And she hadn’t talked to Lily or Kyra about it but she had started experiencing blackouts again.

At first, she’d thought it was because she was super tired. But lately, she’d noticed that she didn’t really remember a lot of her nightly rituals. Her memory leading up to the point where she came to her room to finally turn in was good. But how she ended up in bed, clothes changed, teeth brushed, was something she didn’t recall.

And she’d been waking up during the nights too, just like tonight. It was the third time this week.

Rose tried to connect with Star, to see if the girl would respond but all she felt was the block. She wondered what Star was doing.

The last time Star had taken over when they’d met Chen, Rose had gotten a distinct feeling that Star was up to something.

What, she had no idea.

Neither did Chen, apparently.

She could still feel him and it was both a blessing and a curse.

Right now, with her heart thundering like this, and her concern for Star, it had obviously alerted Chen because she felt him poke about her, push against his bond with Star but the blockade held firm. She could sense his frustration and worry, and it bled into her.

If Star was doing something dangerous…

Rose wanted to figure it out before things got out of hand. 

…………………………………………

Chen looked concerned when he met her the next morning.

‘How’re you doing?’ he asked, purposefully casual. His eyes flitted all over her, as if looking for any sign that she might be hurt.

She nodded, avoiding his eyes. ‘I’m okay.’

He looked at her closely. ‘You sure?’

‘Yup…’ She looked at her feet, willing him to move away. It was painful enough to feel all of his worry for Star pour into her every moment of the day without facing him as well.

‘Are you sleeping alright? Did you have any nightmares?’ he persisted, stepping close.

Rose stepped back, feeling her heart jump into . She wanted to lash out at him, tell him to stop talking to her like he cared when both them knew he didn’t, when she knew he only cared for Star.

Maybe her face was more expressive than she’d intended. His gaze turned sad.

‘Rose…’

‘I have to go,’ she said, trying to step past him. He made as if to grab her hand and she pulled it back before he could touch, staring at him with wide, pain-filled eyes.

‘Please…’ she said, willing her voice to not tremble.

He observed her for a moment before nodding. ‘Okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t…’

He didn’t get to complete the sentence because Lay peeked out of his room just then, voice carrying loudly. ‘Rose, I’d like to have a word!’

Grateful for the reprieve, she hurried towards the healer with fast steps, only stopping once they were inside his room and she felt like she could breathe again.

Lay closed the door gently. He didn’t speak, waiting for her to catch her breath.

She sighed eventually. ‘Sorry about that. What did you want to talk about?’

He smiled, shaking his head. ‘I just thought you’d appreciate the interruption.’

She eyed him for a moment. ‘Was I that obvious?’

He shrugged.

She sighed again, shoulders slumping. Her legs felt suddenly very weak, so she sat on the nearest surface, covering her face.

‘I’m so stupid…’ she mumbled eventually, staring down at her hands. He didn’t say anything.

‘I know he doesn’t like me… I know he only cares for…’ She barely stopped herself from blurting Chen’s secret.  Stupid, she thought.

‘I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear me babbling about my stupid feelings…’

He smiled gently. ‘I don’t mind… and your feelings aren’t stupid.’

‘Aren’t they?’ she asked sardonically.

‘They’re feelings… right or wrong, smart or stupid… these things don’t apply to what we feel. If they were so rational, they wouldn’t be feelings, now would they?’

She smiled sadly. ‘That’s a nice way to look at it.’

He smiled back just as sadly. ‘It’s okay to feel what you feel. Liking someone isn’t wrong.’

‘But I know he loves S- someone else,’ Rose protested. ‘And he doesn’t like me… he never will.’

Lay sighed. ‘At the risk of coming across as extremely cheesy… we can’t choose who we love,’ he said gently.

She gave a half-hearted chuckle. ‘That is cheesy.’

He smiled, eyes crinkling. ‘Indeed.’

A comfortable silence followed before he spoke again. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

Rose just then realized that she was inside his bedroom, sitting on his bed. It was unmade and his books were scattered over it, obviously abandoned midway. She flushed.

‘I’m really sorry for barging in like this, you were probably busy.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s no biggie. I was about to take a break anyway. So, drink?’

She appreciated his efforts of distracting her. ‘Yeah sure, why not?’

She leaned back, taking in her surroundings while he got up. Far as she remembered, Baekhyun and Lay shared rooms and she’d kind of expected Baekhyun’s room, at least, to be some sort of a disaster zone.

It wasn’t. Their room was cluttered but in a very homey way. There was a guitar resting beside the study table which was piled with medical texts, and music sheets overflowed the keyboard in the corner. She spied a couple of cute plushies here and there.

‘Your room is very nice,’ she commented when he handed her the glass.

‘Thank you!’ There was a lilting note to Lay’s voice. She wondered if he always sounded like he was about to laugh. They sat comfortably while she sipped.

‘Do you want to watch something?’ he asked, gesturing towards the screen as she put the glass down.  

‘I should probably get going,’ she said, ‘I promised Lily I’d visit her on the weekend.’

He nodded, and opened his mouth to say something but the door opened and Baekhyun stepped in, coming to a halt at the scene in front of his eyes. He smirked gleefully.

‘Oh, my bad,’ he said, immediately backing out, but not before winking very obviously at his Shadow. ‘Please carry on!’   

‘Uh… what?’ Rose turned to look at Lay questioningly.  

‘Nothing, you know Baekhyun, he likes to tease…’ Lay responded casually, even though his ears were pink. ‘Um, so you’re going to visit Lily?’

Feeling like she was missing something but not able to put her finger on it, Rose nodded. ‘Yeah. I thought I’d walk since it’s nice out.’

It would give her space to clear her head, get some much-needed reprieve from Chen’s relentless presence in the mansion, and maybe figure out what Star was up to.

‘Is it okay if I walk with you?’ At this point, the Legends had forgone any illusion of keeping her under supervision. She did what she wanted and whoever was available kept her company.

‘Sure,’ Rose replied with an easy smile. To her surprise, Lay blushed, scratching his ear. It was unexpectedly cute.  

‘Okay. I’ll see you outside.’

She nodded, a bit mystified at his obvious nerves, and left.

…………………………….

Baekhyun burst in soon as Rose left, dropping the illusion so he was visible, to find Lay patting his clearly red cheeks.

‘Oh, ho ho…’ Baekhyun pounced on Lay, rolling them both off the bed.

‘You have to tell me everything!’ he all but yelled at his Shadow, who made a pained face but that was probably because Baekhyun had accidentally kneed his crotch.

‘Ow…’ he muttered, sitting up. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

Baekhyun rolled his eyes.

‘Right.’ He poked Lay’s cheek. ‘You’re blushing.’

‘It’s nothing, she just caught me off guard…’

Baekhyun narrowed his eyes, trying to peek into Lay’s mind. Lay let him, comfortable with his Shadow poking around. Baekhyun latched onto the memory of Rose’s smile, and felt like melting into a pile of goo. He squished his Shadow instead.

‘Stop being so disgustingly romantic,’ he chided, planting a kiss on his cheek. ‘She’ll come around soon.’

Lay gave a small sideways smile, humming noncommittally. Baekhyun was well-versed enough in his Shadow’s body language to know this wasn’t an agreement. ‘She will. She came to your room too, didn’t she?’

Lay shook his head, smiling. ‘Our room. And no, I called her here because she was trying to avoid Chen.’

Baekhyun’s smile fell off. ‘Oh.’

Lay smiled again, though it looked kind of sad.  Baekhyun hugged him. ‘I’m sorry, man.’

‘Not your fault,’ Lay murmured, hugging him back.

Baekhyun pouted. He hated situations like this. First with Kai and Luhan, now this… why couldn’t things be simple?

‘It’ll be alright,’ Lay said. Baekhyun wished he could have his Shadow’s faith and patience. He pushed him towards the door.

‘Go for your walk,’ he said, raising his finger warningly. ‘And I’ll hear all about it, so you’d better do something.’

……………………………………

Rose’s curls stood out in stark contrast to the snowy vista, impossible to ignore. Even if he wanted to, his eyes couldn’t look at anything but the pretty figure she cut against the backdrop. Despite himself, he felt heat rising to his cheeks once again.

Knowing the things he did, he was perfectly willing to wait until the whole thing between Rose, Star, and Chen settled, one way or the other. But he was a Legend and he had met his mate, so the fever was bound to happen sooner or later.  

And while getting overpowered by his beast had never been a concern for him – like what would they do, heal everything? He failed to see a bad side to that – Lay supposed he should have seen this coming.

In excess, his power made others . In his case, it turned him into a romantic sap, apparently.

He put his thoughts on the backburner, smiling in welcome at her. She returned it distractedly, clearly lost in her mind. Lay suppressed a sigh, switching to the beast’s vision that allowed him to see beyond the physical.

Rose’s soul glowed brightly within her, golden like dripping light, encircled by the speckles of black and deeper gold that was Star.

He frowned, noticing that the pulsating golden light seemed dimmer, the black more prominent, darker, than it had just a few days before.

That wasn’t good.

Had Evil touched Star? But wouldn’t Rose know about it? More importantly, wouldn’t Evil’s darkness bleed into her soul?

And yet, Rose’s light golden was purer than ever, stronger than before. Star, previously indistinguishable from Rose, was now surrounding her soul like a halo, almost as if she was protecting her.

‘Lay?’ Something waved in front of his eyes and he blinked, the switch back to normal momentarily disorienting.

‘Hm?’

Rose smiled at his dazed face. ‘We’re here.’ She gestured behind her and Lay noticed that they had indeed reached the Black Pearl.

‘Thank you for coming with me,’ Rose told him, turning to move in. ‘Xiumin’s here, so…’

Lay grabbed her hand. ‘Wait!’

Her touched burned, more than just the visceral response to his mate’s touch, as his vision whited out completely, overwhelming him with a sense of impending doom.

He bent over, trying to gather his wits and make sense of the white noise filling his head, look past the distortion to See what was causing it, to no avail. Finally, desperate, he pushed his energy into her, trying to touch Star.

She responded immediately, spikes pushing out and forcing him back several paces, her body falling into a defensive crouch, black bleeding out of her eyes.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, trying to catch his breath.

She tilted her head, not answering. Lay straightened, shaking his head.

‘I know you are trying to do something. I can See it… what is it? I can help…’ He stepped closer, reaching out towards her. 

‘Let me help you,’ he said cajolingly. If he was right, Chen and Star were working together and if he could do anything to help, he would.

Star regarded him for a few moments before reaching out. Lay took her hand curiously, then blinked as he felt her energy reach out to his, connecting them together.

Chen trusts you, she said, holding his gaze. Can Star?

‘Of course!’ he said, gripping her hand tightly, careful not to let his energy touch her. ‘Of course you can!’

She bit her lip, hesitant. Lay tried to convince her.

Whatever you are trying to do, you can’t do it alone. Evil-

I can handle him, she interrupted, the cadence coming off from her soul far more mature than he would’ve expected in the small time she’d been with them.

Fine… She sighed. Just… keep them alive when the time comes.

Clearly, whatever she was planning, it was dangerous. ‘There has to be another way-’

Will you risk your brothers or their mates?

He fell quiet. She nodded.

I know what I’m doing. But if you’re going to help, promise me that you will save them.

Lay frowned, not liking the implications of her words. ‘Star…’

Promise?

He held her gaze for a long moment before nodding. ‘I promise you.’

………………………………………………….

Rose came to with a gasp, feeling disoriented.

‘What?’ she asked, trying to recall what had happened. Something had, she was sure of it. Lay…

 She looked up to find the healer looking at her with such sad tenderness, red prominent in his eyes, that she flushed. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?  

He shook his head. ‘Say hello to Xiumin and Lily for me.’ He still looked sad as he opened the door for her, waving goodbye.

Rose wondered why it felt like she’d lost moments of time… but she was still outside the Black Pearl and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

She waved back slowly, dropping her hand as soon as she stepped inside. What the hell was going on?

……………………………………………

A/N

Don't know if anyone's still interested in this story but I finally managed to complete it. Took me only two years and then some T_T In my defense, life is a . That's all. Anyway, if you're still sticking around, I'm really grateful for that. I'll do some regular updates, maybe daily, maybe double, so I can mark this story as complete. 

Anyway, that's all I have to say. EXO, Saranghaja!