The tunnel smelled of rain and liniment.
The air was thick, restless, alive.
Her shoes left small prints on the concrete, dark circles that disappeared as she walked. The sound of the crowd still echoed faintly through the walls, a living thing, breathing and bleeding into silence.
The door ahead was half open. Through the gap, she saw him.
Oliver.
Hands flat on a table. Shoulders braced. The muscles in his back moved under the fabric, tense, shaking with a control that looked close to breaking.
Someone spoke, a quiet, cautious voice, the assistant maybe. She couldn't hear the words, just the rhythm. Gentle. Reasonable. Wrong.
Oliver didn't answer.
The whistle in his hand twisted once. Then he threw it.
A sharp crack against the wall.
The sound hit the walls and stayed.
He stood there, waiting for the world to start again.
No one moved. The assistant shifted, tried again, words about sanctions, press statements, next steps.
"I know what I did." His voice was rough, unsteady. "I know."
Then louder.
"I know!"
He shoved the table hard enough that the towels slid off and hit the floor.
The sound hit the walls again and stayed.
Someone flinched.
No one said anything else.
Daphne stepped forward before she thought about it. The movement was small, instinct, not choice.
The smell of wet earth came with her, trapped in her hair from the rain.
He looked up.
It wasn't shock. Not even surprise.
Just that flicker in his face, the kind that happens when the person you've been avoiding suddenly becomes real again.
He blinked once. Then again.
Didn't speak.
Didn't move.
The assistant's eyes went from her to him and back again. He muttered something and left quickly, closing the door behind him. The sound clicked sharp. The lock slid.
Silence folded over the room.
She could hear water dripping from his hair. The air carried it.
He turned away from her, hand on the back of his neck, fingers pressed deep into skin. The motion was restless, almost frantic.
He dragged both hands through his hair and let them fall to the table again.
"You shouldn't be here."
The voice that came out of him didn't sound like him.
Tired. Stripped raw.
"I saw the match," she said. Her own voice was barely there.
He laughed, a single sound, low and short, cracked halfway through.
"Of course you did. Everyone did."
He didn't turn.
"That's the point of falling apart in public."
"That's not what I saw."
He froze, hands still on the table. Then, slow, he looked at her over his shoulder. His eyes were dark, rimmed red, unfocused.
"Then what did you see."
"You."
A pause.
Something in him shifted, not calm, not anger. Something between the two.
He straightened, but not tall.
"I told myself I could hold it together," he said. "For the team. For the press. For you."
He rubbed his face. The stubble scraped.
"Turns out I can't even keep a bloody ball in a ring."
He said it like it hurt to speak.
She didn't answer. The words came too fast, too heavy.
The rain outside had slowed, but inside him it was still pouring.
"I'm tired," he said.
She didn't move.
He took another breath.
"I know that's not interesting, but I am. I'm tired of being careful. Of pretending we're fine. Of pretending you're fine. I'm tired of walking into that house and hearing nothing. I keep thinking if I move softly enough, it won't hurt you. It always does. It hurts anyway."
He dragged a breath in and out. It didn't steady him.
"I didn't cast," he said suddenly, like she'd accused him. "I didn't. I wanted to. I didn't."
"I know," she said.
He moved. Sharp.
"Do you?"
He reached for his jacket, missed the sleeve, cursed. Tried again. The zip caught on his collar and bit skin. He yanked it down. His hands shook.
He laughed, short, bitter.
"Do you want to tell me I'm an idiot? Pansy already did."
"I don't."
"Because you agree."
"Because I'm not here to humiliate you."
He turned then.
Properly.
The look that hit her was made of everything he hadn't said in months.
Anger. Shame. Love. All broken up and wrong in the same place.
"That's generous," he said.
"No," she said quietly. "Equal."
He stood there for a second too long, chest rising fast, throat tight. His mouth opened, closed, opened again.
Then it came.
"I'm angry with you."
The words landed like something being thrown.
He didn't stop.
"Not because you cried. Not because you needed space. I'm angry because you closed every door I tried to open and left me on the other side, hands on the wood, like an idiot. I'm angry because I waited, night after night, and the only thing that didn't feel like breaking you was leaving warmth outside your door and walking away."
He caught his breath. Shook his head. His voice turned raw.
"I hate that. I hate that I couldn't make it better. I hate that you wouldn't let me."
He stopped. Only for a second.
"And I hate," he said, quieter now, "that part of me understands why."
He started pacing.
The space wasn't big enough. His shoulders brushed the lockers, the edge of the table.
He stopped.
Started again.
Hands through his hair, palms over his face, voice breaking in small, uneven bursts.
"I've been holding it together for everyone," he said. "For the lads. For the sponsors. For the headlines. For you."
He dragged the word out, quiet and wrecked.
"And none of it mattered. It's like everything I touch ends up…" He stopped. "I don't even know what's left to break."
He turned back to her.
"You think I'm angry because you cried? I wish you'd screamed. I wish you'd thrown something. You didn't. You just went quiet. You stopped being there and I…"
His hand hit his chest, a single gesture.
"…I didn't know where to put any of it. So I played. I trained. I shouted at people who didn't deserve it. I waited for you to let me in."
He laughed, the kind that had no humour left.
"And the whole time I told myself you were healing. That I was helping by staying away. But you weren't. And I wasn't."
He pressed his palms to the table.
"Do you know what that feels like? To love someone so much that you're scared to stand near them."
He said love without saying it. And somehow that hurt more. Because now she couldn't pretend she hadn't heard it.
The room pulsed with silence.
She could hear her own breath, thin, controlled.
She wanted to move. She didn't.
"I keep trying to make sense of it," he said. "How something that was supposed to save us just hollowed us out instead."
He looked at the floor. His voice fell to almost nothing.
"I wanted to fix it. I wanted to fix you. But every time I tried, I felt like I was digging at a wound that wouldn't close."
He looked up then. His eyes were glassy and wild.
"And I know that's selfish," he said. "To want the pain to stop because I can't stand it."
He laughed again, small, unsteady. "But it's true. I can't."
Daphne's throat ached.
The sound of him cracked something open in her chest.
She held it.
Didn't touch him.
Didn't blink.
"I'm tired of waiting at doors," he said. "Tired of pretending I'm strong enough to do this forever. I'm not."
He raked a hand through his hair.
"I'm not even angry anymore. I'm just…"
He stopped.
His breath came sharp.
"Empty."
He pushed away from the table.
The motion was too sharp, made a bottle fall and roll under the bench.
He didn't look at it.
He just stood there, breathing hard, like the air itself was fighting him.
When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse.
"I can't find us in this anymore. You and me. It used to be simple, you'd look at me and it was there. And now I look and I see… nothing."
He laughed once, bitter.
"I think that's the worst part. The nothing."
Her palms felt damp.
She wiped them on her coat and realised she was shaking.
He didn't see it.
He was still trying to hold the words in.
"I miss the sound of you moving around the house," he said. "The way you used to hum when you thought I wasn't listening. The way you called me Oliver like you were warning me. I miss…"
He bit the word off.
"I don't even know what I miss anymore."
She took a step forward.
He didn't move back.
Her voice came quiet.
"You're not the only one who lost something."
He blinked, as if the words had hit somewhere he'd been avoiding. His voice came rough, almost small.
"I know," he said. "I lost it too, Daph."
He looked at her then, not angry, not even pleading.
Just lost.
For the first time in months, she could see how thin the line was between love and ruin.
"I burned the paper," she said.
He blinked, slow.
"Good," he said.
It wasn't forgiveness.
It was recognition.
The room seemed smaller now.
The noise outside returned in waves, whistles, shouting, the storm trying to start again.
He pressed his thumb to the cut on his wrist, the one left by the referee's charm.
"I'm suspended," he said, voice low. "Three matches. Maybe more."
She didn't say it was fair.
He didn't expect her to.
"Do you want me to tell you I'm fine?" he asked. "I can. It'll sound convincing."
"No," she said.
"Good."
The word broke in half.
She walked to the table.
He didn't move, but his shoulders shifted, like he was bracing for a blow.
She stopped across from him.
Close enough to smell the sweat, the metal, the rain in his hair.
"I don't know what we do next," she said.
He shook his head.
"Neither do I."
"Then maybe we just stand here."
He huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh. Almost.
"Standing's easy," he said. "It's staying that's hard."
Her eyes stung.
"Then stay."
He looked at her, really looked, and for a second she thought he might.
Then his voice dropped to something smaller.
"I miss the house. I miss us."
She didn't answer.
She couldn't.
He dragged a hand over his face and said, "I'm sorry I'm not stronger."
"You don't have to be," she said.
The words hit him like air after drowning.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
The silence that followed was heavy.
The rain pressed harder against the roof.
They both stood there, wrecked, breathing, alive.
He didn't touch her.
She didn't move.
And maybe that was what healing looked like tonight,
not forgiveness, not comfort,
just surviving the storm in the same room.