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You had been looking forward to living with Ted since the first night the two of you had spent together. Waking up next to him made you never want to wake up without him again, but the two of you agreed to take it slow—both for the sake of Henry, who would be spending more time in Richmond since Ted and Michelle had worked out a custody arrangement, and for the sake of both of your bruised and battered hearts. After a year together you both felt like it was time.
Despite looking forward to it, moving in together was currently not going well. It was your fault that you had misread your lease and it actually ended a week before you thought it did, so you had to cram all of your things into Ted’s tiny flat while Ted was also trying to pack his things to move to your new shared home. But it was Ted’s fault that he insisted on replacing the oven in the new place himself and accidentally caused a gas leak that delayed the move by an extra day to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. And it was no one’s fault that on the day you actually were able to move all your belongings in, it was pouring rain.
You dropped another soggy box in the entryway and sighed, pulling out a kitchen chair to rest for a moment. Ted came in behind you whistling a tune, a large box in his hands, and his ever-present tendril of hair falling into his face. He sat his box down and looked over at you.
“Well, now, lounging on the job, huh,” Ted smiled at you but you couldn’t smile back. You knew he was playing around but, God, you were tired and damp and generally annoyed with how your week had gone.
“I’m not the one who took a break to make biscuits for their boss,” you responded. You meant it to be playful but Ted’s face fell.
“Well, I suggested you take a break too, I don’t see how—”
“No, no, it's okay,” you cut him off because you knew you were being ridiculous, but your voice still sounded tense and short. “There’s only a few more boxes, let's just finish up.”
You stood again and went to move past where Ted was standing in the doorway, but he gently stopped you with a tug on your wrist. “If it’s all the same to you, I think we should talk about it now. You know my mama always said not to go to bed angry and I really believe that.”
“Yeah well, we won’t be going to bed at all if we don’t move those boxes in,” you retorted without meeting Ted’s eyes. You knew you were being hurtful but you also didn’t know why he couldn’t just let it go.
Ted released your wrist but he stroked your arm up and down. “Darlin’ if there’s something goin’ on—”
“What? You’re going to Oklahoma me?”
It was a low blow and you regretted the words as soon as they left your mouth, but when your eyes shot to Ted’s expecting to see sadness, you saw his jaw clenched with anger. Ted has never been angry at you before, the two of you had never been angry at each other, and you were scared. Not of him—NEVER of him—but that maybe anger was something the two of you actually couldn’t come back from. Maybe moving in together had been a mistake.
“Y/N…what is your problem today? Sorry, I can’t control the weather. Sorry, I made biscuits ahead of time so I could spend the evening unpacking with you. Sorry, I wanted you to talk to me instead of pretending that you were totally fine. What else should I apologize for, hm?”
Ted’s voice was steady, he wasn’t yelling, and he had stepped away from you so he wasn’t overbearing, but every word he said hit at your heart all the same. But it was too hard to apologize, you’d pushed too far and you didn’t know how to back down now, didn’t know how to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
“All you care about is making me happy, huh? No little wants or desires of your own? Do you even want to be here, Ted?”
“You know what,” Ted shoved his hands deep in his track pants, “right now no. No, I do not.”
Ted walked out of the door, brushing past you without looking into your eyes and you let him go. Clearly, you both needed to cool off. You gave yourself time to sit at the kitchen table and mope and fume, but after you calmed down you just wanted Ted back. You’d said things you never would have if moving in together hadn’t just been a series of unfortunate events, one after another.
Ted didn’t come back after 30 minutes of your moping. You finished bringing boxes in, yours and Ted’s, and you started unpacking. The rain had stopped and the sun had set and Ted still wasn’t back. Your anger had long been replaced by worry that he had crossed the street looking the wrong way, or worse, decided he actually never wanted to come back. That he did regret the decision to move in together.
You threw on a jacket and left, firing off a few texts as you did. Beard and Roy hadn’t heard from him, and neither had Rebecca or Keeley. You walked 20 minutes to the Richmond Green to see if he was on his favorite “thinkin’ bench” as he called it. You thought about hailing a cab, but you were sure Ted wouldn’t have. Instead, you walked to the Crown & Anchor. Mae waved as you walked in.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you and Ted here without each other since you’ve started dating,” Mae chuckled, wiping down the bar.
“Ted was here,” you asked, betraying your desperation.
“Uh, yeah, yes. Over an hour ago now. Just had a pint. And he was soaked from the rain, no jacket,” Mae looked at you curiously. “Should I be worried about him? Is he missing?”
“No, no. Well. Kinda,” you sighed, dropping your face in your hands. “I don’t think it's cause for concern. We just got in a little spat.”
“Ah, lovers quarrel,” Mae nodded. “Well if you do need help, I’ll round the boys up to help find him.” Mae gestured to the pub boys watching another episode of Bake Off and you smiled your thanks and headed back out into the night.
You walked everywhere you could think of. To Beard’s, to Rebecca’s, to the stadium. Your fingers were chilly and numb, and your feet ached to high heaven, but it was your fault Ted left. You basically told him too. You didn’t want to stop looking.
It was late—like after the pubs closing late, long after you should have been curled up against Ted surrounded by takeout containers and boxes watching a rom-com late—when the rain started to fall again. As much as you didn’t want to, you had to go home. As you trudged through the rain you made a list of calls you should make: Beard, Rebecca, hospitals, 999, Michelle…maybe not in that order.
You were so engrossed in figuring out your next step you didn’t even notice a soggy, downtrodden Ted sitting on the bottom step of the home across the street from yours until you tripped over his foot and nearly landed in his lap.
“TED. Oh my god, Ted,” you fell to your knees, which you’d regret in the morning, and pulled Ted’s face into your neck rocking him gently. Ted clung to you just as tightly, his hands fisting your jacket and his tears hot against your shoulders.
“Where have you been,” you both asked in unison and looked at each other confused.
“I was looking for you,” you responded at the same time that Ted said, "Waiting for you." Ted chuckled.
“Okay, okay, you first please darlin’,” Ted wiped tears from your face, and you couldn’t begin to describe how much it warmed you to hear him use a pet name, to have him touch you with such affection when you thought you had ruined things.
“I’m so sorry. Ted, I’m so sorry. I love you so much and this week was just hard. And that’s no excuse for the way I talked to you, I should have just told you I was overwhelmed, which was not your fault. When you left I unpacked and I waited for you to come back, but when you didn’t…I walked for hours trying to find you. To apologize and beg you to come back.”
“You…unpacked? So you were inside?”
“That’s the only thing you heard, huh? For about an hour, yeah, until I went to look for you,” you laughed.
“Well yeah, because I was only gone for an hour. I walked down to the Crown & Anchor, had a pint, and then came back. I love you so much darlin’ and I wanted to blow off some steam before we both said things we couldn’t take back. You didn’t need to beg me to come back, because I had already come back. But I realized I forgot my key and my phone was inside. I knocked for ages and I was about to give up and just sleep at Beard’s and tell you how sorry I was in the morning. How much I love you and I want nothing more than to live with you. But then it started rainin’ again so I sat on the stoop to wait it out. I don’t know how we would have missed each other if we were BOTH outside.”
You looked at Ted with a confused face and then you started to giggle. And then that giggle turned into a laugh. Ted was smiling but you could tell he didn’t understand.
“Ted,” you said slowly, trying to catch your breath between laughs. “You knocked at this door? And sat on this stoop to wait?”
“Well…yeah, I thought you were inside furious at me.”
“Ted, sweetheart, this isn’t our house.”
Ted tilted his head and looked over his shoulder at the door and then back at you. You pointed to your actual house across the street, “See? 609? I was so worried when I went to look for you and I was texting Beard and Rebecca, I must not have noticed you across the street.”
At that Ted joined you in laughter, both of you near hysterics on your neighbor’s front porch. “Well gosh,” Ted said, standing up and taking your hand, “I really hope they’re on vacation. And don’t have one of those video doorbells. Let’s go home, sweetpea.”
“Let’s go home, love.”