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Rebecca can’t stay in her office after Ted leaves. She feels restless and like she could burst into tears at any moment. She was vulnerable with Ted, asking him to fight, and he hadn’t even been able to answer her, had just looked down at the floor before leaving the room. She cannot fathom what is going through his head, but more than that, she is disappointed with how he is handling things now that the season is starting.
She did not begrudge him any of the time he spent with Henry this summer, especially not after everything that had happened last season. But she had expected more from him now that the season was starting, had expected him to be as passionate about beating Nathan and Rupert as she was. How could he not want to crush both of them?
She’s thinking in circles, her anger growing, and she knows she needs to get out of the office, take a few minutes to get herself back together before the press conference. She knows what she wants to happen during the presser, but she feels like the exact opposite will take place and she cannot think about that now.
She pulls on her blazer and leaves the office, her feet leading her down the stairs and towards the conference room. She runs into some of the team, walking down the hall together, laughing and joking. Seeing them, she feels her chest tighten again. How are they doing with everything, she wonders? Are they prepared to fight?
“Boss!” they call out excitedly upon seeing her, and a smile slips onto her lips almost involuntarily.
“Hello, gentlemen.” She nods and surveys them. “How are you all feeling with… everything?” she asks, unable to put ‘everything’ into other words.
It doesn’t seem to matter though. They know what she is talking about.
“You mean because of everyone projecting that we will come in in last place and be relegated again this season, which, statistically speaking, is very likely?” Jan Maas asks and Rebecca winces. She looks at the boys, but they’ve all got smiles on their faces, seemingly unaffected, even as they shove Jan playfully.
“It is sad that Paddington didn’t give us even one marmalade sandwich,” Colin sighs, “but at least it wasn’t Adele!”
“Eh, it’s all poop-eh,” Jamie declares. “Just gotta let it flow.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Rebecca looks at him as though he’s crazy.
“It is what Coach taught us today on our field trip!” Dani grins excitedly. “As a team, we must be like the sewers!”
Rebecca still doesn’t understand what the boys are talking about, but she does feel her blood begin to boil just that much more when she once again thinks about Ted taking them to the sewers today instead of practicing.
“It’s like this, innit, Boss?” Isaac begins to explain. “We were all blocked up with all the shit everyone was spreading about us, just like London in 1857. But Coach taught us that we should each create an internal sewer system within ourselves, to let it all flow on by. Not let it get stuck in our heads, yeah?”
“And we can connect our internal systems with each other’s, just like all the tunnels in the sewer system, so that we can all help each other to understand fine wine.” Colin continues.
“Not just fine wine, bruv. But yeah, that’s the gist of it.”
“Coach reminded us that we are a team. We have each other and we focus on each other and that is how we will win. All the rest of it, even the comments from Nate and that sweet little Paddington Bear, we can let flow away.” Dani sums it up with his trademark smile.
“That - that’s what you were doing in the sewers today?” Rebecca feels her chest squeeze, as she remembers the way she had spoken to Ted in her office earlier. “I am upset because the team that I own is projected to finish last this season and my manager decided to skip training and take our players into a fucking sewer!”
She should have known, really, that although it seemed crazy, Ted had a reason for doing what he did. But she’d been so worked up by the thought of Rupert laughing at her and Nathan spewing his bullshit that she’d let it all accumulate around her. She is broken out of her thoughts by her phone alarm, reminding her of Ted’s presser.
“Well, I must get going, gentlemen, but…”
“Fuck the haters, yeah, Boss?” Jamie winks at her.
She blinks at those words, remembering saying them years ago at the ridiculous ceremony to uncurse the team, even as she’d been actively trying to sabotage it - trying and succeeding in getting them relegated - and then texting them to Ted after the news of his panic attacks broke in the press. “Yes.” She nods, letting that sentiment sink into her bones for a moment. “Fuck the haters.”
The words continue to echo in her mind as she moves past them to the conference room, where she stands in the back, looking at Ted, sitting in front of all the reporters shouting for his attention. He is so very Ted, with his folksy sayings, and with each moment, she feels her anger rising again, even as she thinks of what she’s learned from the boys. But him saying he thought what Nathan said was hilarious and that he wishes him the best of luck makes her want to scream.
But then suddenly, there’s the turn… and now Ted is making jokes at his own expense, drawing chuckles from the crowd.
And then he says his next words and suddenly, Rebecca feels like she’s been punched in the gut. “Look man, I’m not a great coach. Probably ain’t.” He continues with a joke about handball violations, but Rebecca is distracted by Keeley’s text, by the simple message that feels like another blow.
‘Way to let Ted be Ted!’
Except she hadn’t, had she? She’d allowed her own fears and insecurities to make her doubt him, to make her yell at him and beg him to fight back, when she knew that that wasn’t the way Ted worked. He didn’t take on men like Rupert and Nathan with ire. He taught them lessons with kindness and folksy charm, like he had when he’d beaten Rupert at darts, and like he is right at this moment, making jokes about his panic attacks so that they will laugh at him, instead of at her. She sees it now, as he continues on about how crazy he is, that he is once again doing things The Lasso Way and, if the way her phone is buzzing is any indication, it’s working. Like it always has.
She misses the rest of the conference, lost in the haze of her thoughts, until suddenly she realizes that everyone is gone, except for Ted, who is still sitting there, looking back at her.
“I’m sorry, Boss,” he says when he catches her gaze and, of course, he’s apologizing to her, when once again, it’s her that owes him an apology. “I know you wanted me to fight back but I just couldn’t -”
“You did,” she cuts him off, moving closer to him. “You did it in the most Ted Lasso way possible, offering yourself up as the joke and somehow winning everyone over by doing so. But you were wrong about one thing.”
Ted winces. “Yeah, I shoulda thought that Field of Dreams joke through a little more -”
“No. Ted.” She’s standing across from him now, really looking at him. She’s not seeing him through the red haze she’s been viewing everything through today since seeing those stupid predictions. She thinks of his words - “We got 38 chances to prove all of them folks wrong, though, right?” - and of what the boys told her about Ted reminding them to let the shit flow away and to focus on each other, and she realizes the red is gone from her vision, a familiar pink tinting her gaze instead. “You said you aren’t a great coach. But you are.”
Ted’s eyes immediately go down to the table. “Well now, I don’t know about that. A great coach woulda focused on training and gettin’ his team ready to win instead of - ”
“Instead of teaching them how to handle all the shit that’s building up and distracting them?”
Ted’s eyes fly up to her.
“I spoke to the boys on the way here. Expected them to be as bogged down and angry as I was. Instead, they were upbeat, reminding me to fuck the haters. It seems that I was upset about the wrong thing in my office, Ted. I should have been upset that you didn’t invite me because the boys learned a lesson that I was very much in need of.”
A smile slowly spreads across Ted’s face and she feels her own chest loosening with it. “I bet Iver would be willing to do another private tour if you really - ”
“No, no!” She is quick to cut him off. “I believe the message was received quite well without having to actually experience London's sewer system for myself, thank you.”
Ted chuckles, standing up to move around the table so that he is beside her, his expression serious. “I hope you know that I do understand why you’re upset. And I hope - ” he looks away for a moment, clearing his throat before he looks back, holding her gaze, “I hope you know that I will do everything in my power to make sure that no one ever laughs at you, Rebecca, especially not Rupert. I will always fight to keep that from happening, whether you ask me to or not.”
She feels her throat close, trapping whatever words she might have said, as he looks at her, so seriously. She can only nod, tears filling her eyes. She thinks again of how he’d served himself up on a platter, laughing along with all the journalists about his panic attacks on the day he’d had to say goodbye to his son, all so that he could turn the narrative away from her.
“Ted -” she finally manages, not sure what to even say next. And then, because she can’t find the words, she lets her actions speak for her instead, surging forward to hug him tightly.
Ted’s arms wrap around her instantly, holding her and hugging her back. His voice is low in the quiet of the room. “We’re gonna get through this, Boss.”
She nods against his shoulder, not leaving his embrace, as she remembers him speaking very similar words to her once before in a moment very much like this. “Together,” she affirms.
He pulls back just enough so that she can see the smile that is stretching across his face, his eyes shining with that Ted glint that she realizes she hadn’t seen yet today, not until this moment.
“Together.”