Chapter Text
The drive to the airport is mostly quiet.
Ed’s got one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift, elbow braced against the window. The sun’s starting to set behind him, casting the road ahead in a soft amber wash, the shadows long and low like tired limbs stretching.
She lands at 6:42. He checked twice. Her last text said “See you soon!” with a little plane emoji and a heart. It had made his stomach turn—not from disgust. From nerves. Something tight. Braced. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Or rather, he does. And he hates that he’s still hoping to be wrong.
The parking deck is half full when he pulls in, the sound of tires on concrete grinding against his skull like static. He parks, checks his phone again, then turns off the ignition and rests his head back against the seat.
Don’t do this again, he tells himself. Just be normal. Just get her and go.
He makes it all the way to the arrival gate before the thoughts start in earnest. She’s not out yet. The board above says “Baggage Delay.” Of course it fucking does. He crosses his arms and leans against the railing, trying not to bounce his leg, but his body’s already humming, overstimulated, overheating under his hoodie. She left two weeks ago. That’s not long. That’s not that long.
Except—it was. It felt long. Not in the literal sense. In the existential one. It felt like someone had stepped out of a shared room and come back smelling different. Wearing different clothes. A different laugh. A slightly different mouth.
What if she gets in the car and looks at him like she doesn’t recognize him?
What if she still smells like Renald?
What if she doesn’t say anything about him at all?
What if she’s too quiet? What if she’s too warm? What if she pretends like nothing happened and just gets in like this was a business trip?
What if she apologizes?
God, what if she apologizes.
What would he even say?
His mind skips to the Backrooms, to simulacrums, to people who just… aren’t right if you caught them out of the corner of your eye.
He’s so deep in it he nearly misses her—doesn’t notice her in the crowd until she’s a few steps away. She waves, she smiles, she says his name in that familiar way, like nothing’s changed. And Ed smiles back, tight and practiced.
“Hey,” he says. “Welcome back.”
They hug, briefly. Her coat smells like a different detergent. Ed tries not to think about it as he buries her face into her shoulder and closes his eyes.
The ride home is uneventful. Winry talks—lightly, easily. About weather delays, bad plane food, some couple fighting behind her row. She says “Renald’s place was fine, but I don’t think it’s gonna work out” like she’s talking about a hotel she stayed at once and maybe wouldn’t again. She doesn’t elaborate. Winry doesn’t mention why, and Ed doesn’t ask. They don’t talk about the Tinder guys. Or the dog with the goggles. Or how she said she missed him. Or how she didn’t call. He nods in the right places. Says “rough” or “damn” or “yeah” when prompted. Keeps his eyes on the road.
They get back to the house just after eight. The sun is gone now, the world tinted bluish gray. Winry drops her suitcase in the hall and stretches like a cat, groaning. “God, my back is toast.”
“Yeah,” Ed rasps. “Long flight.”
She disappears into the bathroom with her travel kit. He stands in the kitchen. Looks at the table. Then the sink. Then the clock.
Al’s not home yet, still out at the store. Ed feels it like an absence of gravity. Like stepping off a stair that isn’t there.
She says goodnight before he’s even sat down.
“I’m gonna crash,” she says with a yawn, rubbing her eyes. “Don’t stay up too long, ‘kay?”
She disappears into the bedroom. Their bedroom. The door clicks softly shut behind her.
Ed sits on the couch.
He stares at nothing for a while. Then stands. Then paces.
His hands twitch.
And before he knows it—he’s in the bathroom. Alone.
He braces his arms on the sink and stares into the mirror. And there he is— the same face. Same tired eyes. Same jaw that he clenches when he wants to scream. Same hoodie. Same weight in his chest.
The tears come suddenly, without fanfare, for the first time since Winry had left. No sobbing, no sound. Just wet.
She didn’t say his name the way she used to.
She didn’t ask how he was.
She didn’t touch him, not really.
She didn’t ask if he was okay.
And why would she? She probably thinks he is. She probably thinks everything’s fine.
And he let her. He let her think that. Because he’s too fucking scared to say it. To say “You hurt me.” To say “I’m not okay.” To say “I don’t think I trust you anymore.”
Because if he says it out loud—then it’s real.
And if it’s real, then he has to deal with it.
And if he has to deal with it, then he might have to leave.
And he doesn’t know if he can survive that.
He sinks to the floor.
Fists his hands in the fabric of his hoodie and presses them to his eyes, hard.
His breath hiccups once, and then again, and then he’s gasping—but silent. Trying not to make a sound.
He can’t breathe.
He can’t fucking breathe.
The room spins.
The walls are too tight.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, the same voice starts whispering:
You’re not enough. You were never enough.
She came back, but only because it didn’t work.
She would’ve stayed, if he’d made her feel the way she wanted.
She came home because she failed. Not because she missed you.
She came home because she didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Not because of you.
When the front door opens softly an hour later, Al doesn’t announce himself.
He doesn’t need to.
He finds Ed on the bathroom floor.
And without a word, he kneels. Gathers him up. Pulls him against his chest.
And Ed—shaking, silent, split open under the weight of what he didn’t say—lets himself be held.
It’s not rage this time. It’s not grief. It’s not even jealousy. It’s the quiet, sick understanding— She doesn’t even know what she broke.
And he doesn’t think she cares enough to ask.
Al doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask what happened. Doesn’t need to.
He just sits there on the bathroom floor, his back to the cabinet, Ed curled tight in his arms like someone holding a shattered glass sculpture and trying not to cut himself on the edges. One of Al’s arms is around his shoulders, the other cradling his knees. Ed’s trembling, breath stuttering in and out of him in little bursts, but he’s quiet. So fucking quiet.
Too quiet.
The tears have mostly stopped. What’s left is worse. Hollow. Wide-eyed.
His gaze is fixed somewhere over Al’s shoulder. His hands are clenched into fists against his own chest like he’s holding himself together by force.
His thoughts are running in endless loops again. Screaming in the voice that always sounds like logic. Like reason. Like self-awareness.
She didn’t ask how I was.
She didn’t even look at me the same.
She didn’t say she was sorry.
She came back because it didn’t work out.
I was the backup plan. The second choice. The safety net.
She came back because the other option didn’t work. Not because I mattered. Not because she missed me.
I’m just what’s left.
And she thinks I should be grateful.
He shudders, sucking in a sharp breath through his nose. He presses his forehead hard against Al’s sternum, trying to stop himself from unraveling again. But it’s no use.
I should’ve said something.
Should’ve said I wasn’t okay.
Should’ve told her I wasn’t ready.
I fucking knew this would happen. I knew it, and I still smiled like a good little boyfriend and said “Have a good trip” like I wasn’t already bleeding.
He’s vibrating under Al’s hands. Not moving, not squirming—just radiating a kind of quiet, frayed distress that Al knows better than to push on.
And underneath the louder thoughts, the worst ones start to creep in. Slithering up from the deep parts of him, the place he keeps sealed like a panic room.
You’re so easy to leave.
They always leave.
And it’s always your fault.
You’re clingy.
You’re a mess.
You’re embarrassing.
She came back and you still folded for her, didn’t you?
Still opened the door. Still carried her bag. Still pretended like you didn’t fall apart in this exact fucking spot two weeks ago.
Ed curls tighter in on himself, arms wound around his ribs, knees pressing in. His breathing’s gone shallow.
Al shifts behind him to adjust, careful not to spook him, and one of his hands starts rubbing slow circles into Ed’s back. He doesn’t say a word. Just breathes with him. Waits.
And Ed wants to scream. Wants to collapse. Wants to smash something just to hear it break.
But instead, his voice comes out flat. Quiet. Stuck behind his teeth.
“I don’t think I’m okay.”
It’s a whisper. Like he’s scared of the words.
Al’s hand stills briefly, then resumes its slow rhythm. “Okay,” he says softly. “Then we work from there.”
Ed chokes on a bitter laugh. “I thought it’d help. Seeing her. I thought maybe… maybe it would be enough.”
Al’s breath brushes the top of his head. “What part?”
“I don’t know.” His voice cracks. “Maybe just knowing she came home. Maybe thinking if she saw me again, she’d… I don’t know. Remember why she loved me.”
Al says nothing. Just keeps rubbing his back.
“I thought it’d feel better. It doesn’t. It just feels… worse. Like the second she walked in the door, everything I’ve been holding together just went slack. And now I’m trying to glue it all back in place before it slips.”
His arms tighten around himself, nails biting into the fabric of his sleeves.
“She didn’t even ask if I was okay,” Ed says again, the words thin and flat and brittle. “Not once.”
Al hums. Low. Not agreement, not dismissal—just acknowledgment. Just presence.
“I feel stupid,” Ed mutters. “I feel so fucking stupid for hoping. For thinking maybe she’d say something, anything, to make it easier. And instead she just… acted like it was any other day.”
His voice is cracking now. Splintering under the weight.
“I can’t do this. I can’t keep doing this. Pretending it’s fine. Pretending I’m okay. I don’t know how to be normal around her anymore, but I don’t know how to not be either, because if I stop pretending—if I actually say what I’m feeling—I’m scared she’ll leave again. For real this time. And maybe that would be better, I don’t even know, but I can’t—”
He cuts himself off with a gasping breath and finally lets his forehead fall to Al’s chest, shaking.
Al’s hand slides up to the back of his neck. Warm. Steady. Anchoring.
“You’re not stupid,” he murmurs. “You’re hurt. And you’re scared. And you’re doing the best you can.”
Ed doesn’t answer. Just breathes hard, knuckles white in his lap.
The silence stretches, but it’s not cold. It’s thick. Charged. Al doesn’t fill it. He waits, always waits, until Ed’s ready.
And after a while—quiet and ashamed and barely audible—Ed mutters,
“…I think I resent her.”
Al’s fingers pause in their rhythm. Just briefly.
Then he says, “That makes sense.”
“I don’t want to,” Ed says quickly, defensively. “I don’t. I’m not trying to. But it’s like—I see her, and I just… I feel this tight, angry, ugly thing in my chest. And then I hate myself for it.”
“You don’t need to hate yourself for how you feel.”
Ed shakes his head. “It’s not who I want to be.”
“Maybe not. But it’s where you are. That doesn’t make it permanent. It doesn’t make it wrong.”
Ed doesn’t respond. But something in him unclenches. Just a little. Just enough to exhale.
They sit there for a long time. Ed curled into Al like a tide pulling inward. His thoughts are still loud, still clawing, but quieter than before—muffled by the blanket of Al’s breath and the way his thumb keeps brushing slow circles into his spine.
Eventually, Al shifts, voice quiet. “C’mon. Let’s get off the floor.”
Ed nods, limp, and lets Al help him stand.
They don’t talk as they move through the house. Don’t name it. Don’t dissect it. Ed just lets himself be led. He climbs into bed without brushing his teeth, without changing his clothes. He’s shaking a little. Still unsteady.
But when Al lies down beside him and opens his arms, Ed presses in without hesitation. His head on Al’s chest, his hand tucked against Al’s shirt.