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The walk up to Y/N’s apartment had never felt so long before. Ash had no idea how long he’d been away from home, but it felt like a lifetime. Seeing her face before the moment he’d disappeared was just a distant memory now.
He didn’t know how it had happened, but he had ended up in the past. Again. Thankfully, not as far flung as Medieval England, but far enough for him to have to adjust to his surroundings. And not having Y/N with him.
The initial battle with the Deadites was tougher than he thought it was going to be, and seeing them surrounding Y/N had haunted his thoughts the entire time he was away. Getting rid of the demons was a big priority, especially since the people he tried to save this time were less likely to believe in them.
But getting home to Y/N was his number one priority. She was the most important thing in the whole world to him, and he had to get back to her, even if it put his own life in danger.
Thankfully, he still had a tiny bit of potion left to get him back to her in one piece, although with longer hair and a beard that he couldn’t wait to get rid of.
His heart had jumped into his throat when he knocked on the front door. Hopefully, Y/N wanted to see him and would want to welcome him home with open arms, but he’d been gone so long that he didn’t know how she would react.
Please be home, please be home, he thought as he waited for her to answer the door.
Eventually, he heard the locks turn in the door before it slowly creaked open just enough for Y/N to poke her head around. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her, just as beautiful as the last time. Her eyes went wide as she opened the door and looked him up and down, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Ash?” she asked softly. “Is that really you?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said bashfully, knowing how different he must have looked. “Hi, baby.”
She gingerly took hold of his hand and pulled him through the open door into the apartment. The room was the same as it had been before, even down to his side of the couch remaining mostly untouched. A teddy bear took his place, as if it was keeping the seat warm for him.
Y/N stood in the middle of the room, eyeing him cautiously, her brows furrowed and her lips pressed together.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Ash asked as he slowly made his way towards her. “It’s still me, I promise.”
Before he could even open his arms to see that he was completely harmless, a sharp pain spread across his cheek, making him flinch and step back a second.
Did she just slap me? he thought.
“Ashley Williams, where the fuck have you been?” Y/N asked, trying to keep her voice down so her neighbours wouldn’t hear. “You left me to die in those woods six months ago and now you think you can just waltz into here and act like everything’s fine?”
Ash opened his mouth to speak, but immediately closed it again. How could he explain what had happened? Y/N was used to him getting into all sorts of crazy shit, but this was something else.
“It’s a long story,” he said, defeatedly. He had a lot of thinking to do to explain this one.
“Yeah, I bet it is,” Y/N scoffed. “Just go get cleaned up, I need some space to process all this.”
“So, you’re not kicking me out?” Ash asked sheepishly as he shuffled towards the bathroom.
“No, I’m not kicking you out,” she said with a sigh as she sat down on the sofa. “It’s not like you’ve got anywhere else to go.”
While taking the longest and hottest shower of his life, Ash tried to come up with a way to make his story believable for Y/N. Every possible explanation just sounded worse than the last, so he settled for just being honest with her, no matter how badly she took it.
After shaving and getting dry, he changed into his regular lounge clothes and headed back into the living room, looking more like himself. Or what Y/N had always seen him as. It had been so long since he’d been able to have a little moment of vanity that the man looking back at him in the mirror was almost a stranger.
Y/N was still sitting on the sofa, watching something on the TV while cuddling the teddy bear that had been keeping his spot warm. He wished that he could just pull her into his arms like that, but he doubted that she wanted to be touched by him at that moment.
“Hey,” he said softly as he sat next to her. “I know you hate me right now, but you deserve to know the truth.”
“I don’t hate you, Ash, I’m just..” she trailed off, not knowing how to describe her feelings.
Ash nodded. “You’re upset, I get it,” he said. “I would be too if you disappeared for months.”
Y/N picked up the remote and muted the TV so she could hear him better. “So, what happened? Why did you just leave like that?”
He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Time to rip the Band Aid off.
“Remember when we were in the woods and that big portal opened up?” She nodded. “Well, I got sucked into that portal. And I went back in time. Again.”
Ash watched as the cogs turned in her head and she fought to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
“Right. Went back in time again. Sure, Ash,” she said and reached to pick up the remote again.
“No, it’s true,” he insisted as he grabbed her hand. “I ended up in the 20s and I remember there were three Necronomicons and some priest guy was reading from it into a recording in this giant room and-”
“Ash,” Y/N said, stopping him from babbling. “You don’t need to explain yourself that much. I already know that you went back in time once. It’s not that crazy that it happened again.”
“I just feel like you needed a real explanation,” he said and ran his thumb over her knuckles. “I’m sorry for leaving you.”
Y/N tossed the teddy bear aside and shuffled over the couch to throw her arms around Ash’s neck.
“It’s okay,” she said as she held him tightly. “I know you didn’t mean to, just, please don’t leave me again.”
“I won’t,” Ash said and hugged her back, burying his face in the crook of her neck and stroking her back. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Y/N said softly as she pulled away to look at him again. “I’m sorry I slapped you.”
“S’okay,” he said with a lazy grin. “I kinda deserved it.”
“No, you didn’t deserve it.”
“Well, you could kiss it better if you feel so bad about it.”
Y/N tenderly took Ash’s face in her hands and turned his face to gently kiss the cheek that she’d slapped earlier. Thankfully, his skin had gone back to its normal shade so it didn’t look like she’d done anything to him. She let her lips linger for a while, just for a chance to be close to him again after so long.
“Feel better?” she asked when she pulled away slightly.
“Mm, it still hurts a little,” Ash said slyly as he traced her lower lip with his thumb. “Nothin’ a little sugar couldn’t fix.”
At least being lost in time for a second time didn’t change Ash that much.