Niall sighs softly against the fabric of the throw blanket he was offered during his flight, and blinks his eyes awake just as the pilot notifies the passengers of their landing. His fingers brush together in his lap and he suddenly looks down at them with newfound discovery.
He steadily removes the blanket from around his chest and stares in awe at the way his fingers curl into his palm and dig into the softened flesh of his hand. They looked so-tiny. Or big, or long, or rough at the edges. He can't remember what they looked like on their own without another's hand to compare them with.
He could imagine how obviously pale and how obviously bony his fingers would look with a slender hand linked with his own; the way those long fingers would slip through the in-between's of his hand, and the way the worn bandages around those blistered knuckles would feel rough against the calloused pads of his fingers.
He could also imagine tracing the concave dip of the palm, all warm with body heat and the skin soft under the gauze and between the long scars he knew would be there.
The quiet blonde felt a sudden ache to his chest and he sucked in a breath.
Niall forced his eyes shut again and let the murmuring voices around him in the plane drown out the slow drawl of the thickly accented one in his head.
You're almost home, you're almost home, you're almost home, Niall tried to tell himself.
He rested his head on the cold, frosted glass of the window next to him and peered out of the lowering plane. Just before the scene in front of him began to blur in a speedy whirl of grey, he had caught the sight of the busy streets of Dublin below him.
And somehow after making his way through the airport, Niall had managed to catch a cab and kept himself from falling asleep along the drive to Mullingar.
He stared out of the window-as any quiet passenger would-and allowed the static silence of the car to completely fill his head. Soon enough, Niall arrived at his childhood neighborhood and the sight of it was almost enough to make him smile.
But he still sluggishly willed his tired body out of the cab and paid the driver along with a half hearted tip, and knocked gingerly on the door.
He was welcomed as heartily as any closely knit Irish family. Niall kissed his mum on the cheek before he scooped her into his arms for what seemed like the hug he needed the entire day.
"How's my baby boy?" She said happily as he pulled away with a ruffled look on his face.
"I'm doing well, thanks, but how are you? Sean kind of dropped this unexpectedly and it nearly floored me," Niall had let out a laugh, his usual loud laugh that everyone was used to.
"Sorry 'bout that, pumpkin," she squeezed his cheeks all-too-excitedly to see her son again and gave his dad a rather menacing look, "Oi, you should've gotten someone else to call him. Should've known Sean would be a bit blunt about all of this. Probably told you I was dying, eh?"
Niall tried to suppress another smile as he nodded. Maura, the little ray of sunshine that she is, laughed as loudly as anyone and patted Niall's hand, "Hopeless case, that one. You can tell 'im that, too, for all we care. Anyway, I'm fine Sweetheart, just missed you."
She stroked his cheek and gave him another kiss on his pouting lips and made her way to the kitchen.
"What do you wanna eat, babylove, I'm cooking tonight," she called out from among the clamber of the kitchen.
"Anything's fine, Mam, just gonna head off to my room. I'm a bit tired," he replied as he finally set his bags down.
"Right, right, I'll just surprise you then, or maybe make your favorites. Tonight at dinner you can tell me all about London. I wanna hear about all the exciting things my smart boy has been up to over there," she said in a singsong voice.
