The Year We Had (MCYT AU)

24: Return

The Watson's spent the night in their own beds, and they were so unbelievably grateful for it.

It was a sense or normal that had been missing for far too long. It was nice to finally trundle off to their own rooms and get a break from being in eachothers faces. It was even nicer to have their phones and computers back.

Tommy had wanted to text Tubbo immediately, but Wilbur advised him to wait until there wasn't any weed in his system anymore, and for once the little shit had actually listened. He had passed out almost immediately when he went to bed, reassured that tomorrow he would go back to school.

Techno watched an unhealthy amount of Netflix for the remaining hours before sleep took him. It had only been five days that they were gone, but it felt unending and finally getting his laptop and the internet back helped to break that feeling. He was itching to get back to normal, but for now he was satisfied with a simple distraction. He glanced over at the photo on his nightstand, and smiled a sad smile. It didn't fix things to be back home, but it was easier.

Wilbur sat alone in his room, writing a thousand apologies in his head and trying to force sleep to finally take him. It wasn't a very good tactic. But he was in his own room for once, so nobody was there to try and fix his problems for him. It was relieving, in a way.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, before the sun had risen, Techno went for a walk. He wanted to sleep, really he did, but it wasn't happening, and he needed to clear his head. He made his way to the cemetery across town, and spent a few hours there, clearing his conscious before returning home and passing out almost immediately.

None of them really slept all that well, but when they each made their way out to the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, there wasn't a single complaint between them. They ate and conversation flowed as though everything was back to normal, and when they were done they collected their things and climbed into the car for the two and a half hour journey back to Montville.

Phil had offered to give them more time off-- as long as they wanted, within reason-- but the three of them had all decided that the sooner that they got back to normal the better. They had done the whole upheaval thing time and time again, and they didn't like it. Any chance at getting back to how things were was golden, and they weren't planning on wasting it.

The drive was filled with Hamilton and three repeats of Mr Brightside, at Tommy's request. When they finally pulled into the all-too familiar parking lot it was a little past midday, almost an exact week since they had left so abruptly.

The Watson's piled out of the car, taking their bags with them and looking out across the oval, where the PE class was once again running drills. Wilbur turned to Phil, negotiating rights to the car for the next hour so that he could go and apologise to Sally. It was all he'd talked about all week.

In some sort of weird cinematic parallel, one of the boys spotted them and immediately dropped what he was doing to rush over. But this time instead of a concerned frown, his face held a relieved smile. "Tommy? Techno?"

"Dream." Techno said, slightly more of a smile to his voice than usual. That was pretty much his equivalent of jumping for joy.

"Jesus man, how many green hoodies do you own?" Tommy scoffed, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes, though not doing the best job of keeping the smile off his face.

"You're back!" Dream smiled, coming to a stop in front of them.

"We're back." Techno confirmed with a nod, his eyes slightly brighter than usual. "And we're staying back, right Tommy?"

"Right." Tommy grinned, giving his brother a nod. He looked to Dream. "How's Tubbo?"

"He's good, yeah." Dream said with a nod, leaning on his lacrosse stick. "Worried about you, but other than that he's great. He'll be so glad that you're back. All of them will."