Author Notes: Hello again, everyone! This is a story I've been wanting to write for a while, especially when I couldn't fit SongXiao into For the Love of Two Boys. Originally, XY was meant to die, but I've decided to try my hand at redeeming him instead, too much tragedy in canon. This story will involve time travel, be told mostly by A-Qing and shouldn't take more than ten chapters to write. Please wish me luck and enjoy the tale :)

Setting: This AU is based on The Untamed and takes place in the Yi City Arc (episodes 36-39) so spoilers up until then.

Summary: A-Qing wants to make things right. She isn't the only one.

Rating: M (for canon typical violence)

Disclaimer: The Untamed series is based on the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation novel which belongs to Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.

- Story Start -

A-Qing floated above her freshly dug grave and watched the small group praying for her. It was nice to finally be able to see again after so long! Wei WuXian had such a melancholic look on his pretty face that she took the liberty of imagining HanGuang Jun felt the exact same way. Because really, that perfect but very blank face didn't say anything.

As for the younger disciples whom she had almost given up over - was it so hard to tell she had been doing her best to lead them out of Coffin Town instead of around it?

Not a single braincell between them! Even if that chatty Ouyang boy turned out to be quite cute. And no, it wasn't because she had overheard them taking turns to describe her and his words had been the most pleasing of all.

Wait - she had gotten distracted. What was she - oh yes, the other disciples were crying with actual tears running down their cheeks. The spoiled Jin boy, the one they called Young Mistress Jin, was the loudest of all, uttering wobbly threats of wanting to get some fairy to bite Xue Yang.

A-Qing awarded him a point for that but took it away again because it was an empty threat. Xue Yang was already dead. Injured and maimed by HanGuang Jun and then finished off by Song Lan. She was dead too and so was Xiao XingChen, her sweet and innocent Daozhang who could see better than most people with eyes... except that he was worse than blind when it came to Xue Yang.

How on earth could anyone mistake evil for mischief, sadism for teasing and psychotic for misunderstood?!

It made her want to whack something really hard. And stamp her foot hard too. It didn't work. It just made her flip upside down and she had to flap her arms like crazy to right herself again.

Xiao XingChen had been blind to that evil gremlin's faults and look where it had landed him! In a coffin!

If only she had pulled him away when they came across Xue Yang lying by the road three years ago. She would give anything to go back to that day and do the right thing. Or if not the right thing, then the logical thing because she now had proof that kindness didn't always beget kindness in return. Then her beloved Daozhang wouldn't be gone, body dead and soul shattered. He would be alive and that other Daozhang in black would be able to make him happy.

Hey, she wasn't blind, alright?

Well, she hadn't been blind then. She had seen the guarded longing in Song Lan's eyes when he asked her about Xiao XingChen, and how that had turned into leaping hope when she promised to bring him to her Daozhang.

Were they soulmates?

But if they were then why hadn't they traveled together?

What had happened between them?

Song Lan was tall and strong and serious; the perfect foil for Xiao XingChen who was also tall and strong but pretty and always smiling. They should have been together. Could have been together if not for Xue Yang! Ooh, how she wished she had stomped on him then, bashed his head in, and slammed the end of her bamboo stick into his evil heart that fateful day!

Part of it had been her fault too. When Xiao XingChen offered to carry her on his back after she had lied about spraining her foot, she shouldn't have accepted. Then he wouldn't have crouched on the ground and smelled blood and gone to investigate. When Song Lan found her three years later, she should have bided her time and waited until Xue Yang left before taking him to see Xiao XingChen.

Movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned to see HanGuang Jun and Wei WuXian assuring the others they would be right back before walking away. The juniors were still sniffling especially that Ouyang boy - ugh, not so attractive now with snot pouring from his nose and worse still, wiping it on his sleeve!

Alright, that's it. Crush over and done with. Wrinkling her nose, A-Qing floated after the other two cultivators walking towards Coffin Town.

- o -

Song Lan was standing beside Xiao XingChen's empty coffin. The look on his face was heartbreaking. A-Qing floated nearer and saw Wei WuXian handing over the qiankun pouch containing the fragments of Xiao XingChen's shattered soul. She saw Song Lan's hands tremble as he accepted the pouch like it was the most precious thing he ever beheld and and carefully tucked it inside his robes.

They spoke for a while, Song Lan writing his replies in the dirt since he could no longer speak. His plans consisted of nothing more than traveling the world and exterminating evil alongside Xiao XingChen even if the latter was nothing more than a few fragile fragments in a pouch. After HanGuang Jun presented him with ShuangHua, Xiao XingChen's sword, Song Lan thanked them and left Coffin Town with both swords strapped to his back, his long strides sure but his face looking like there was nothing more to live for.

It made A-Qing want to weep. If only she could go back to that day when they found Xue Yang. She would never let Xiao XingChen know he was there. She would keep her Daozhang safe and watch over him until Song Lan came.

With her hands clasped in prayer and her eyes squeezed shut, she wished as she had never wished before.

I wish I could make things right.

A thousand voices seemed to echo around her. Voices borne of a thousand unuttered wishes, unrealised hopes, unlived dreams of the souls long gone, collected in this place by the craftsmen and craftswomen who laboured over gifts for the departed to ease their lives in the afterworld.

I wish I could turn back time.

The voices echoed again, joining their strength to hers, lifting it and giving it power and life.

I wish I could go back to that same day.

She didn't hear a familiar voice among the thousand, as shaky and as desperate as hers.

She didn't see the perennial fog of Coffin Town rolling away.

She didn't notice the ramshackle houses fading from view.

She only felt herself falling and falling until she was in a body that was solid, a body that was, in fact, walking. Shocked, she stumbled and fell, bamboo stick clattering to the ground as she ended up on her hands and knees, feeling the resultant sting on her palms.

"A-Qing, what happened? Did you fall down?"

Sucking in a breath, she turned to see Xiao XingChen standing beside her, head tilted down to her in concern, and a breeze teasing his hair and robes.

Xiao XingChen. Here. Alive!

Her heart skipped a beat or three and then began racing in her chest. She looked around. It was day. The sunshine was bright and warm. Heart thudding in her chest, she grabbed her stick and scrambled to her feet.

She couldn't believe it. She was here. And - she took a quick, frightened look at the half hidden body sprawled facedown beside the road not twenty feet from them - she had gone back to that very same day!

"A-Qing, are you alright?"

Xiao XingChen sounded worried. Not good. If he started sniffing around... Tearing her gaze away from Xue Yang's inert body, A-Qing took a deep, steadying breath, her heart pounding away.

"Yes. I'm fine. Let's go."

"You sound... did you injure yourself?"

Another deeper breath.

"No," A-Qing said firmly. "Let's go, Daozhang."

Her heartrate only returned to normal after they passed through the gate of Coffin Town a half hour later.

- o -

It was late afternoon when she made her way back to the village to buy food. Xiao XingChen wanted to follow her, but he finally relented and said he would clean up the place a bit. He asked for his pouch back, gave her some of its meager contents and made her promise not to steal anything.

A-Qing would have promised the moon just to have him not follow her, and even then, she didn't know if he still would. They had just met, but he was already protective of her like an older brother.

He was truly the sweetest man she knew.

A-Qing started walking faster as soon as she was out the gate and then she was running down the dirt trail. She had to stamp out the Xue Yang problem once and for all before something else happened or before she lost her nerve. She had spent some time earlier scraping one end of her bamboo stick to sharpen it, in case she couldn't find a rock to bash his head in and had to resort to spearing him like a rat instead.

But when she came to the same spot as before, her breath stuck in her throat and her soul almost left her body.

There was no one lying there.

She spun around a few times, eyes wide and hands gripping her bamboo stick like a lifeline. She half expected Xue Yang to jump out from behind a bush or a tree and ambush her. Ridiculous, of course, recalling how badly injured he had been.

But still...!

When nothing happened over the next few minutes except for the sun getting lower and lower in the horizon, she loosened her grip on her stick. This could only mean one thing. Someone had found him first.

Great. She hadn't accounted for someone else coming across the roadkill and saving him. But perhaps he was already dead. Perhaps that someone had just flung his dead body onto their cart or horse and hauled him away for burial.

Oh, that would be good. That would be wonderful. Knowing her luck, that would also be too good to be true.

A-Qing looked around her again, teeth digging into her lower lip.

Now what should she do?

- Chapter End -

A/N: Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you enjoyed it and take care :)