Work Text:
"I'm going to take Ludger to the veterinary office today," Klopp announced. He made a mark on his calendar, circling the time of the appointment in red pen. "This is unlike any sickness I've ever seen in him."
Henderson frowned slightly, casting his gaze to the owl in the cage. Ludger stared blankly out from behind the bars, his feathers ruffled irregularly. Ludger had been running a temperature for the past few days, and he'd refused to eat anything, even chicken. At first, Klopp had thought Ludger was just being stubborn--which wouldn't be too out-of-character for the owl. But now he was starting to worry. He had already tried giving Ludger a few drops of vitamin supplements, but so far there had been no improvement.
Klopp didn't even bother to wear the leather glove that he always wore while handling Ludger. Instead, he took a small blanket and lifted the owl out of his cage manually, holding him in one arm as he took the cage in another. "I'll be leaving at two to drive to the office. Pep's here if you boys need anything right away, but you're in charge. You can always reach out to me, okay, Hendo?"
Henderson hesitated. He'd not been left in charge of the team for almost a year now. It had always been Milner or Lijnders, or even one of the others. Henderson had always been busy with something else, and now was his chance to prove that he still had what it took to be a true skipper-boss.
"I will."
"Also, watch out for Dominik." Klopp seemed distracted as he grabbed Ludger's cage and his backpack of things, struggling to close the door. "His things are due to come tomorrow, but he's supposed to arrive today. If I'm not back by then, you and Pep are in charge of welcoming him and giving him the tour."
"But you always do that, boss!" Henderson protested. It was true; Klopp was always there to welcome new players to Liverpool. It had never changed.
"I'm sorry Hendo, but I have to go now. I'll try to be back as fast as I can. In the meantime..." Klopp pointed to a tablet on the table with a slight smile. "Milly will be calling at two-thirty to do his daily checkup on the place, so there's that to attend to. You know how Milly hates being late."
Henderson tried his best to smile, even though he couldn't help but worry about Klopp. He waved his gaffer off before settling down with some paperwork.
*
At exactly three-fifteen, a car pulled up outside Kirkby Ground. A young man, dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a T-shirt, stepped out of the car with a backpack in tow. It was stuffed to the brim with his things, so much that the neon green zipper barely closed.
He surveyed the scene in front of him. On the outside, the Kirkby Ground looked like any regular old football training ground. But he knew that Kirkby Ground was more than just a training facility; it was home to almost fifty adults and children. It was a place where things happened, as the team group chat had shown him earlier.
"Dominik Szoboszlai, I assume?"
Szoboszlai turned around, wondering who that could be. As soon as he saw Henderson, the team captain, he relaxed. "Yes. Nice to meet you, sir."
"We already met before, and you can call me Lijnders. Those are Florrie, Kairo, Grace and Tristan." Henderson gestured to the lawn, where four kids were playing some sort of game. He smiled fondly at the toddlers, who smiled back with toothy grins. "They're the kids of some of our medics. Come on in, kids!"
The four raced towards Henderson, laughing and shouting at the top of their miniature lungs. Tristan nearly fell over his own feet, but Henderson caught him just in time and swung him up over his shoulder. The others grinned at Henderson...but their faces fell when they saw Szoboszlai.
"Who's this?"
"What is he?"
"Is he supposed to be here?"
"Wat dat?"
"FOOD!"
"Settle down, kiddos!" Henderson called out over the commotion. He rested an arm around Szoboszlai's shoulder, drawing him closer. "This is Dominik Szoboszlai, our new player. He's going to live here at Kirkby Ground with us."
The kids didn't seem so sure as to how to react to that idea. Eventually Florrie stepped out from behind Henderson's legs, offering her hand to Szoboszlai. "I'm Florrie.”
Szoboszlai smiled and shook her hand, his expression warm and friendly. "I'm Domi.”
Henderson looked relieved as the tension between them melted away. If the kids were warming up to Szoboszlai, there was a good chance that the others would, too.
I've got this, he thought, leading Szoboszlai and the four kids inside. I can do this.
As soon as they entered the cafeteria, everybody pounced upon Szoboszlai, asking a million questions while introducing themselves.
"OI MATE! I'm Andy, welcome to the club!"
"I'm Alexis, also known as Lexi or Ale. Want to see my snails in real life?"
"What's your favorite color?"
"What's Austria like?"
"Are Hungarians hungry all the time? Or are they Hungary?"
"Harvey, callate ! So, how do you feel about Shakira?"
"What's the best way to have a midsummer's disco party?"
Szoboszlai greeted his new teammates one by one with a strained smile on his face. He fidgeted with his backpack straps, stepping back towards the wall to gain some personal space. Henderson could tell that if Szoboszlai answered one more question, he would start to hyperventilate from the chaos.
"Lads! Settle down!" Henderson roared above the excited chatter. "I know we're all excited that Dominik's finally here, but if you keep bombarding him he's going to explode!”
The Liverpudlians quieted down, exchanging glances with each other. Then they erupted into excited chatter once again.
"We're so sorry!"
"Apologies, mate."
"Of course you need time to settle down, you must be exhausted from the flight!"
"Plus, the airplane food must have been horrible!"
"We didn't mean to hurt your ears, Dominik." Gakpo stepped in front of the crowd, keeping the more talkative members of the team at bay. "And trust me, I know how it feels to have your ears hurt. I got an ear infection just a few weeks ago, and it hurt like nobody's business. Want to sit down?"
Szoboszlai wordlessly accepted a seat on a bench. Thiago handed him a plate of what could best be described as doughnuts, coated in cinnamon sugar.
Szoboszlai's weary and overwhelmed expression disappeared when he saw the pastries. "How did you know that I love fánk ?"
Thiago shrugged, but the faint blush on his cheeks was impossible to hide. "Just a lucky guess. I almost made cream doughnuts, but Stefan reminded me at the last minute that paczki are a Polish tradition. Dios , that would've been embarrassing."
Szoboszlai chuckled, more relaxed than he'd been before. "You're right. We don't want to mess with tradition, now do we?" He winked and bit into a fánk . "These are amazing. Where did you learn to cook so well?"
Thiago, Szoboszlai, Mac Allister and a few others launched into a lively discussion about doughnuts and their recipes. Henderson watched on from the sidelines, enjoying his teammates' camaraderie. He smiled and grabbed a fánk from the plate, munching on it contentedly.
Maybe he still had some of his captaining skills, after all. He had been able to bring the new members of the team together with the more senior ones, even if it was only for something as small as discussing doughnuts. He felt a familiar, yet long-lost sense bubbling up inside him: pride.
*
At four o' clock, most of the team was hanging out on the training pitch, engaged in a friendly game of adults vs. kids. The rule was two kids for every adult, so Florrie, Kairo, Henrietta, Grace, Ella, and Tristan were playing against Gakpo, Robertson and Thiago. Alisson was in goal on one end, and Moana stood on the other end with her tiny goalkeepers' gloves. Next to her was Arwen, in her sports wheelchair with an attachment at the end.
Henderson, though, was waiting for Klopp at the door. Their boss was supposed to be back at three-thirty, but it took until a few minutes past four for his car to appear in the driveway. When Klopp came out of the car, he was wearing black aviator sunglasses even though it was threatening to rain. That was how Henderson knew something was wrong--Klopp never wore sunglasses unless he was in a bad mood. Sure enough, as he walked towards the door with Ludger--who was still wrapped up in his blanket--his expression was grim.
"It's not good news, is it?" Henderson reached out to Klopp, stopping his boss from walking straight past him.
Klopp said nothing, only cradling Ludger closer to him. The owl hooted weakly, feathers still ruffled haphazardly.
"Gaffer?" By now, Henderson knew when Klopp had something on his mind. But he'd never seen anything like this before. "What's going on? What's the diagnosis?"
Before either of them could say another word, Ludger managed to wrestle his wings out of the swaddling, beating them with some of his old vigor. Klopp removed his sunglasses and placed them in his pocket before letting Ludger fly to the ground. Ludger hopped around a bit before walking away, slower and with more struggle than he'd ever done before.
"Is it arthritis?" Shenedon felt guilty for probing, but Klopp still wasn't responding to his question. The sooner he knew what was wrong with Ludger, the better he could help both the owl and his owner feel better.
"It isn't arthritis." Klopp's voice cracked mid-sentence, as he stared out the window. Two large birds flew by in the distance, their wings beating strongly against the breeze.
Henderson stood next to Klopp, taking his slightly wrinkled hand in his younger one. "You can tell me, gaffer."
Klopp sighed, still not looking directly at Henderson. The birds flew away, disappearing into the clouds. "Barn owls are only supposed to live up to fifteen years in captivity. I've had Ludger since 2003, and he's twenty years old. That's like a human living to be one hundred and fifty years old."
"So what you're saying is..." Henderson's eyes widened. "He's a miracle."
Klopp nodded. "He's a real miracle. But...Ludger's dying."
"Dying?!" It didn't sound right to Henderson. In his eight years of knowing Ludger, the owl had battled three infections, a sprained wing and a chipped beak. Every time he'd bounced back as healthy as before, maintaining his larger-than-life—and larger-than-him—attitude and swagger. But a lot of that energy was now absent, and Ludger seemed to be growing weaker by the day.
"From old age. He only has a couple of weeks left, tops." Henderson could only remember Klopp being this quiet a few times in their eight years of knowing each other. He wrung his hands together, flinching as a bolt of lightning struck through the air. "Maybe if I'd caught it earlier—”
"Boss." Henderson spoke firmly, grasping both of Klopp's hands. If there was one thing worse than Ludger dying, it was Klopp blaming himself for it. "You took care of Ludger since he was a tiny owlet, for twenty years. He could've died several times, but you nursed him back to health without fail. Ludger knows how much he is loved by you, even though he prefers to maintain his 'tough owl' exterior!"
Klopp slowly nodded, holding Ludger's cage up in the air. Some of Ludger's wing feathers were still in there, left over from after the last cleaning. He stared at it for a while before he put it down, making eye contact with Henderson for the first time since arriving.
"We can't do anything about Ludger dying," Henderson went on. Now that Klopp was looking at him, Henderson could see his blue eyes leaning more towards a tone of bluish-gray. He now understood why Klopp had worn sunglasses when he first came in. But Henderson knew Klopp far too well to be fooled into thinking that everything was fine. "But we can enjoy the time we have left with him. I mean, if Ludger saw you like this, he would give you a sharp peck on the arm."
As if he'd heard Henderson, Ludger slowly hopped into the room. He flew up onto Klopp's shoulder and hit him hard on the arm with his beak. Klopp didn't laugh, but he reached for Ludger and hugged him tightly. As usual, Ludger hooted and wriggled in protest, perching upon the windowsill and hooting again.
“You know what? I like your attitude, buddy." Klopp ruffled the feathers on top of Ludger's head. He then did the same thing to Henderson's hair. "If you're going to go down, at least you'll go down with attitude and the history of tearing apart Jose's horrendous tank top."