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After 232 days without a game, Zander Fagerson, one of the great Scottish indispensables, is back.
No more calf tears - three is enough for one year. No more freaky knee injuries - the one in the gym lifting weights was sufficient, thanks.
Against Tonga on Sunday, the tighthead prop returned for his first game since April and to say he enjoyed it is putting it mildly.
"It's been a few dark months," the 29-year-old said after Scotland's 56-0 win. "But don't get me wrong, the lungs need a bit more adjusting."
Fagerson's 2025 has been the toughest of his rugby life. Going well in the Six Nations, he damaged his calf in training with Glasgow Warriors in April. Still, he was named in the squad to tour Australia, a tour he never made.
One calf tear led to another, which led to another. In September, rested and ready and over his Lions disappointment, his knee blew in the gym. Back to square one.
After the Tonga game, while beaming, he talked us through the torment.
He has 76 caps now, but the time away made him sound like a man who had just won his first. Was he nervous making his comeback? Yes, but he was more nervous for his family that they wouldn't have to sit through something else going wrong.
"I'm doing it all for them at the end of the day," he says of his wife, his four children and his extended family. "All those dark times of the summer, they've been with me the whole time. So it was more of a celebration for them as well, not just me.
"It was really special, but I won't lie, I saw them at the anthems and I got a little bit of a wobble, but it was all right. It was good.
"I was just buzzing to be back. I was a bit rusty, but hopefully I can build on that."
The summer had been hard. Selected to go on his second Lions tour, he went south to get suited and booted.
The excitement level was through the roof. At tighthead, there was himself, Tadhg Furlong and Will Stuart.
Furlong was the favourite for the Test jersey, but Fagerson was flying. Or, at least, he had been flying.
No tighthead had played more minutes in the Six Nations than the Scot. Those who saw him playing regularly knew he was a proper contender, but the first of the calf problems had surfaced by then, so there was uncertainty in his own head.
"I felt I was in good nick, playing all right," he said. "And it all got taken away from me pretty quickly. I think I could have given a good account of myself over in Australia.
"I had that first calf tear and then I was coming back from that and I got back to running and it was going well. And then I got the green light to keep pushing on.
"And then the same calf, I had another tear of a different muscle because of a bunch of other things that we didn't pick up. So that was brutal.
"I then got back to a point where that calf was grand, but because I've been compensating so much on my left side, that flared up as well."
Fagerson withdrew from the Lions squad in early June. "There was a point where I was going to go out with the national team [Scotland were touring in New Zealand] and then I was going to possibly get called out [for the Lions] afterwards," he recalled.
Injury destroyed all of that. "I'd had such a mental rollercoaster I just said, you know what, I just want to have a break and get on with it," he revealed.
To escape, he went to Asia for a month with his wife and children, including the twins, who have just turned one. Ambitious. They had help. His mother and father-in-law travelled, too. All hands on decks as they ventured around Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
"We did some incredible stuff, memories I'll have for a lifetime and time I won't get back," he said. "The twins won't remember it, but the other two definitely will.
"We had a blast. I sort of put it [the Lions tour] to the back of my head, but when the first Test came around, it really just ate me up a little bit. So that was pretty dark."
The trials of an elite sportsman and the things we do not see. Fagerson returned from holiday with a clear head and worked on making his body healthy again. Then, the wounded knee.
"The knee was the worst one," he says of his fourth injury in mere months. "I came back fully fit and ready to go. I was buzzing to get back to the boys.
"In the gym, doing some squats and then [lifting] weights that I'd been doing all summer, the knee just didn't feel right. Couldn't really walk on it. I got a scan. Not ideal. The worst time in my career, 100%.
"The missus [Yasmine] was like, you know, 'we need to have a chat. You've been pretty dark for a while'.
"So the knee was the hardest one because I'd had my break with the kids, I was refreshed, ready to go, ready to start the season with Glasgow. And then that got taken away from me as well."
He worked away in the shadows, hoping to make it back for the All Blacks game but falling just short, then hoping to face the Pumas but not being quite ready.
"I couldn't fully train with the squad until about three weeks ago," Fagerson revealed. "All the boys were away, on holiday or on tour, so it was pretty morbid coming in every day and just seeing the physios."
Slowly but surely, the hard work paid off. "I got a tap on the shoulder from the missus," he added. "She's like, 'you're ready to go back to the day job now, your ironing skills and your dishwasher skills are garbage'.
"She has to pick up the pieces when I'm really down. And, when I'm on a high, she helps me stay humble, put it that way. She's been great. So, yeah, I've missed it a lot. My cup is full. I'm ready to get back playing."
