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From the beginning, Warriors had known it was only temporary. They had all known; after the adventure was over, it was inevitable that they'd have to part ways and return to their own times.
He had known, and he had been ready for it, keeping it in the back of his head from start to finish.
This is temporary. You won't have them forever. Don't forget you'll have to say goodbye one day.
So he did his best to help where he could while they were in his life. He helped those who needed it to figure out what their next steps would be when it was time to go home. He gave battle tips where he could. Whatever Warriors could do to make their futures easier, he did.
It was the least he could do.
And then the day came, and Warriors - no, Link - had been ready for it. He had done it once before already, after all, saying goodbye to Mask and Tune and hoping they'd be okay wherever they went. It was a feeling he was accustomed to. Honestly, he was more worried about how the others would fare. Legend in particular; that boy had lost a lot already.
Not much had changed back home. For all the many months they had spent traveling together, it had only been about a single month in his time.
There were still complaints about his absence, of course, and he wasn't surprised about it. People always found things to complain about. Princess Zelda, the kind soul she was, had made up some excuse or other about having sent him on a journey to inspect the borders of the kingdom, which thankfully helped settle the response he got from some upon his return. But not everyone was satisfied with the reason.
Why would you waste precious time checking the borders when we need assistance here? There were never issues with the borders. If another kingdom was going to take advantage of our weakened state after the war, they'd have done so five or six years ago.
As though it were his fault. As though, had he actually been doing what Zelda's excuse had said, he had chosen to do it on his own, rather than carrying out an order.
But that was alright; he'd rather the heat on him than the princess. He'd just work hard to make up for lost time.
Several lords were starting to withdraw their aid, stating that enough time had passed since the war had ended for things to recover, but Link knew the economy was still reeling from it all. Castle Town looked beautifully restored now, yes, but there were still areas that hadn't healed yet: farmland still yielding an insufficient amount of crops from land still struggling to shake off the dark magics that had scorched their soil years ago, families still finding their bearings in a world devoid of loved ones that had been the pillars of their lives, soldiers still needing monthly compensation for loss of limbs, elderly needing assistance, having lost the ones who had once cared for them, and a greater number of orphanages than ever needing funding to care for all the youths left behind. Prices were still abnormally high. No one wanted to waste time churning butter when they could sell larger quantities of milk instead, and the smaller yields of cotton meant less fabric to be woven. Even undyed fabric was much more costly than it should have been.
The kingdom was still in desperate need of the cooperation of the nobles.
So Link started there.
Zelda asked repeatedly if he was doing okay, having lost his new companions, but he dismissed her worries. He hadn't lost them; he had never truly had them in the first place. It was always going to end. He was used to it. He was prepared for it.
Impa was even sent to check on him, and he couldn't fathom why. He always made sure not a hair was out of place. Any circles under his eyes were carefully covered up. His scarf didn't even have any wrinkles.
He looked fine.
He was fine.
He was fine as the lady of one of the noble houses put a hand on his arm and told him she'd be more than happy to convince her husband to lend his help again, if only Link came to visit her sometimes. He'd figure a different method out, he usually did.
He was fine as a few soldiers that had invited him to the tavern pushed a foaming drink his direction with grins on their flushed faces that told him the alcohol had, at bare minimum, been spit in, if not something worse. They had hated him for years; it was nothing new.
He was fine when several members of the royal council pulled him aside and told him to keep away from the princess for a while, because she needed to find a husband soon and he was a distraction. He assured them he still had plenty of traveling to do, so he'd do what he could to give them the desired space.
It had happened at the most unexpected time. He'd been on the road to visit a town complaining that the repairs done to their bridge hadn't been good enough, as it had lost part of the railing in a storm. Someone had gone to examine the bridge and confirmed that the weather had done it in, not the hands of people hoping for compensation, so he had been sent to smooth over the ire until enough workers were free to come fix it. They wouldn't be happy that it would be another week minimum; they'd surely complain about the dangers it could create for children and make demands to milk whatever they could out of the situation.
It was, in summary, just like dozens of other trips he had made around the kingdom. Flash a pretty smile, say nice things, make nice, and maybe do some haphazard boarding of the gap until real repairs could be made. People liked seeing the Gero of Hyrule do work like that with his own hands. It made them feel special, made them feel good.
So there was nothing about this journey that should have been different, but as he got a fire going for the night and bit into some hardtack as he had on every other trip he had taken, the back of his mind suddenly chose to remind him of the face Wild had made the first time he saw Link eating it. There had been a bowl of stew in his lap in a matter of moments, the champion looming in front of him, demanding he eat real food.
He missed Wild's cooking.
And letting himself, for just a brief moment, miss Wild's cooking had taken a hammer to the boxes he had carefully built around those memories to store them safely away, away where they wouldn't haunt every second of his day.
He missed Wild's cooking. He missed Legend's laugh. He missed Wind falling asleep wrapped in his scarf. He missed the sound of Sky's knife eating away at wood as he carved. He missed watching Hyrule masterfully dodge questions when accused of mischief that, to the day they had parted, he had never been officially proven to be involved in. He missed Four berating people on weapon care like it was a personal offense. He missed the twitch of Time's mouth when he found something amusing but wasn't about to say he did. He missed Twilight's god awful singing - more howling than singing, Sky had once said, even when he wasn't Wolfie.
He missed them.
He missed them even more than he had missed Tune and Mask back when they'd gone home right after the war ended. Maybe because there had been some solace in knowing the kids wouldn't have to face the war-torn world anymore. Maybe because wrangling kids those ages on his own had been hard. Maybe because he'd had even more to do back then. Maybe because none of them had been his peers like he'd had in this group, or maybe he had just been stronger once upon a time.
But he missed being around people who he knew wouldn't intentionally hurt him for anything in the world, around people who treated him like one of their own, around people who saw him as more than a title or role or scapegoat or pretty face.
He should have done more for them. There was more he could have done. They had done so much for him, and he hadn't done enough in return.
And just like that, on that random night on the road, he let himself dwell on it, and he broke.
He couldn't do this.
Lying awake, he thought about how many times he'd find Wild just staring into the fire in the middle of the night.
As he mounted Epona the next morning, not having slept a wink, he thought about how Twilight once caught him sneaking the rancher's Epona some sugar cubes and told him he was as bad as their cook.
The road was too silent without Wind telling a story, without someone suddenly piping up to ask where Hyrule went, without someone pulling out an instrument to play it for a while as they mosied along, without an argument about who even knows what starting up.
When he reached his destination, his smile was too thin. He could feel it. He could practically see it reflected in the eyes of the townspeople.
Twilight would have been at home here. There were quite a few kids, and the man probably would have been able to fix the bridge himself, saying that a railing was a lot like a fence, and he'd fixed a lot of those.
There was a forge, too; Four would have liked that. Legend would have sat kindly with the older woman on that porch and asked her about what she was knitting, listened to her talk about the older days with a patience the captain didn't have. And when that younger lady complained that her jewelry wasn't selling well anymore and that she was running low on supplies, Sky would have bought several pieces for his Zelda as Wild generously handed over a fancy, large gemstone that he had an alarming number of.
Without even trying, he could see the group fanning out, exploring, chatting, getting information, and Link found himself excusing himself with a lack of grace he hated showing, stumbling out of town and crouching in the dirt while he tried to remember how to breathe in a space that didn't hold a cacophony of other heroes.
He missed being Warriors.
He couldn't do this.
He couldn't come up with the words he needed to say, fumbling through responses to their questions, hitting his thumb with the stupid hammer when putting up the board to block the gap, the result of which was lopsided and wrong and something he should probably fix but couldn't bring himself to. He saw himself in it. He hated it.
He left, knowing the townsfolk were disappointed in their interactions with him. He was disappointed in his interactions with them. He could do better. He should have done better.
He didn't return to the castle.
Link had never been the type to beg; he was too proud for that. The only times he had ever begged had been in silent prayers, at first begging for the war to end, then begging to lose as few people as possible, then begging that their deaths, at the very least, be as painless as possible.
He had stopped begging, eventually, but now he found himself begging once again, on his knees at Lana's door, pleading for her to use her powers in a way he knew was selfish and wrong. He was making her worry as she pulled him to his feet, guided him to a chair, and fretted, and that was selfish and wrong of him too. He shouldn't be putting his problems on someone else. He should have figured out how to stuff down the losses as he always had and continued doing the things he needed to do, being the person he needed to be.
He couldn't pull himself together.
She told him she couldn't. The timeline had been messed with enough; it was dangerous, it wasn't her right, a thousand reasons he didn't care about.
Just once. If he could see them just one more time. To make sure the vet was doing okay without the others. (He was strong. He'd be fine.) To see if Malon and Time were expecting a child yet. (What did it matter? He knew it would happen one day, whether or not he saw it for himself.) To meet the baby goats Twilight had said would be coming along soon. (He didn't even care about goats, not really.) To see if Wind had found land yet. (It wasn't his business.) To see where the traveler had been traveling these past few months. (It wasn't his business.) To ask Sky if he'd gotten around to proposing to his Zelda yet. (It wasn't his business.) To see what book Four was reading. (It wasn't his business.) To know how far along Wild had come in his plans for the future. (It wasn't his business.)
Their lives weren't his to meddle with anymore. They weren't his concern anymore. He was the only one clinging pathetically to what was already over; he was sure of it.
Something inside of him had broken, and for once, he didn't know how to pave over the issue and smooth it out like it never existed as he'd always done before.
He knew he needed to let go and move on. He was good at that. He'd always been good at that.
Maybe, he thought as Lana pressed a glass of water into his hands and urged him to drink, I just need a couple of days. Just long enough to clear my head.
He had climbed over countless hurdles before. Taken a breath, turned off the part of him that wanted to scream and claw, and focused on what needed to be done.
He could do it again.
Come to think of it, maybe it was the travel that had gotten to him. Too much time on the road to just think, with not enough to keep him busy.
He'd make the council unhappy if he spent too much time around town, going back on his word to try and stay out and about, but if he was going to pull himself together, maybe a couple days to clear his head wasn't the right choice - after all, days of quiet travel were essentially the same thing, and that was what had gotten him here in the first place.
Yes, work was what he needed. Work without travel, without intervals of silence, without lulls in activity. He could find something; there was always something, and once he got too busy to dwell, everything that was threatening to tear him to pieces right now would fade away like it always did. Any gaps he'd ever had could always be filled with accomplishments, with fixing things and helping people, and he didn't see why that would be any different now.
He'd be okay.
Zelda needed him to be okay.
Hyrule needed him to be okay.
So he took a drink, stood on shaky legs, apologized for making a scene, and left despite Lana's concerned urgings for him to stay. He had imposed enough.
It was time to go back to Castle Town and be the person everyone needed him to be.
Be the person he needed himself to be.
He'd be okay.