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Rebecca’s brain doesn’t start functioning correctly again until she wakes from a blessedly long sleep in her own bed. The bus ride home from Amsterdam the previous day remains hazy in her memory, the blur of laughter and colors making her dizzy when she tries to force it to clear.
She finds her phone charging on her nightstand (god bless Ted Lasso and Leslie Higgins for having the foresight to have a new one delivered via courier last night, with all of her things imported from the cloud and ready for use) and upon seeing the time lets out a sigh and drags herself out of bed. She clicks on a music playlist meant for days that she needs a little help putting some pep in her step and makes her way to the en suite to begin her arduous morning routine.
She brings her phone into the bathroom with her, firstly for the music she will at some point begin to sing along with as she showers, and secondly to have nearby in case of emergency. She started that little ritual once she was living alone again, the fear that she’d slip and injure herself enough that she was unable to move with no one around to find her fueled the development of her new habit.
She’s undressing when she notices them, a myriad of small bruises scattered across her thighs. When she examines herself closer she finds that a good many of the blue and purple spots live on her inner thighs, some larger than others and number a dozen or more altogether. She finds a couple more on her lower legs, these ones a bit larger but appear to be less painful. She can see one or two on her arm as well and notes that her joints ache and her muscles are incredibly sore.
With that in mind she turns the water in the shower to as hot as she’ll be able to manage, planning to let the heat work the pain out of her.
She’s seen bruises like this before, she’s had bruises like this. But never when she couldn’t remember. She removes what’s left of her clothing as she goes through every scenario other than the obvious one as to where the bruising and aching could have come from.
During her accident the day before last she fell quite a long way before she hit the water, and surely the impact itself could have caused some damage. The railing on the bridge and the places where the bikers had rammed into her were valid excuses, but overall none of that explained away the small finger-sized bruising that littered her inner thighs.
She’s resolute to ignore them for the moment, eager to get into the shower and feel clean again. She quickly washes her hair and after massaging the conditioner into the ends she twists it into a clip, pulling it out of the spray and allowing it to work its magic on her dry ends. The energy to lift her legs up to shave escapes her and the pounding in her head is enough that bending over isn’t much of an option either, so she elects to sit on the floor of her shower instead.
Rebecca makes the necessary adjustments to warm the water even further, knowing that once she’s on the floor and it takes longer to get to her she’ll need it. Sinking to the floor and leaning forward to grab something to lather her legs with forces her legs and the extent of the damage she still can’t account for back into her line of sight. It’s worse than she initially thought. The hot water has revealed the red bruises that had been hiding in her tanned skin, these ones larger and deeper than the rest. She hadn’t realized how much they hurt until she knew that they were there, and now that she does she can no longer force herself to ignore it.
Tears fill her eyes and her breath becomes short as she is finally forced to consider the worst. Rebecca had been alone in a strange man’s house with gaps in her memory prior to waking in his bed. And though he’d told her that he slept elsewhere and that nothing physical had happened between them, she had always felt there was something not quite right.
She blindly reaches for her phone just outside the shower, set blessedly in reach. She sobs when she realizes that Keeley is still away on her spontaneous holiday with Jack and is expected to be incommunicado for another few days. She wants the safety that a close female presence could provide; she needs someone who will understand her terror and what she needs without having to explain it, someone who she knows won’t hurt her any more than she already has been. It’s for that reason that Sassy is immediately kicked off her list of potential next calls, not desiring nor deserving a lecture from the woman at the moment.
With her options limited and her fear rising she elects to call the only non-female safe person she has. The only person in her life that she can guarantee has the power to make it better without the risk of hurting her further.
She doesn’t call right away, she doesn’t know if she can speak. So she sends a text, a quick,
Are you busy?
To which he immediately responds with
Never too busy for you Boss
Can I call you?
His call comes through within seconds and she swipes to answer, putting the phone on speaker before she pulls it into her chest and curls into a ball around it.
“Rebecca?” He asks when she doesn’t say anything.
“I’m here,” she says, her breath coming out in pants. “I’m sorry if you can hear the shower I’m just—“
“Rebecca, you're okay. The shower is a great place to be. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” she whimpers, dropping her head to her chest.
“Okay. I’m here okay?”
She sobs and attempts to hold the phone closer, as if she could hold onto him and his strength through it. She’s vaguely aware of Ted telling her that she’s safe, that he has her. He’s repeating the sentiment over and over until she thinks she hears him ask her what she can see. That jerks her out of her state and she looks around her and asks, “what?”, her mind latching onto the question of what she can see, followed by a vague memory of a grounding exercise using the various senses.
“I said you’re safe, I’m proud of you and you’re safe now.”
She somewhat ignores him, though she’s thankful that he keeps talking, and attempts to use her senses to ground herself. She can’t remember how many of each thing you’re supposed to do but she focuses on the easy ones first. She can see everything, now that she’s actually looking at it. She sees the faucet, her various shower products, her hands, her feet. She feels the scalding water hitting her shins and her chest as she begins to unfurl from the ball she’d reduced herself into. She feels the tiles at her back and the texture of the floor under her bottom and her fingertips ghosting along her skin. She can hear the patter of the water and the comforting lilt of Ted’s voice through the phone still held in one of her hands. She can taste the toothpaste from her pre shower rituals. When all this is done she’s feeling a little better but still unmoored, though she’s with it enough now to acknowledge that she’s still not fully there yet. She realizes that the one sense she hasn’t covered yet is smell and she lurches forward to grab something off of her shelf. She pops the lid to whatever she’s found open and brings it to her nose, gently squeezing the bottle to get a whiff of whatever’s inside. The moment the coconut scent hits her synapses she feels herself snap back into place.
“Ted,” she interrupts her friend who is still providing words of comfort and encouragement.
“Yeah?” He asks, stopping the flow of words he’d gotten into.
“Thank you,” she tells him, infusing as much sincerity into her voice as possible, though she isn’t able to muster more than a whisper.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice breaking.
“Ted?”
“Yes, Rebecca?”
“I’m not okay.”
She can hear the shaky breath that he lets out. “I know. Can I come to you?”
She almost laughs at his politeness and lifts her face up in lieu of rolling her eyes. “Please,” she begs, “please do.”
“Good. Because I’m almost to your house.”
A broken little laugh bubbles up and she thanks the universe for bringing this man into her life.
“You gonna be able to get the door or do I need to let myself in?” He asks.
She lets out a deep breath and steels herself to stand again. “I think you’ll need to let yourself in, if you still have my spare key. I just need to rinse my hair and I’ll be down to meet you in a moment.”
“‘Course I have it,” he assures her. “I’ll put the kettle on while I wait, no rush. Do you mind,” he pauses for a moment, “do you mind if we stay on the line? I just wanna make sure you’re okay until I’m able to lay my eyes on ya.”
“Okay,” she concedes and they both go quiet. She can hear the faint sound of his keys and the opening/closing of her front door through the phone and she quickly rinses out her nearly forgotten conditioner and dries herself off, careful to not look at the bruising for too long.
She doesn’t bother putting on real clothes and opts for only a robe, knowing but carefully not acknowledging what comes next.
She finds him in the kitchen just as he’d promised, meticulously making a cup of tea. His face is expressionless, as if he’d drained every bit of himself away and is pouring it out into her teacup. The lack of emotion seems out of place on his beautiful face. The smile lines and the places where the worry creases his forehead are smooth and unnatural.
When he finally notices her standing in the doorway with her arms wrapped around herself he offers a smile, holding out the drink he had prepared for her. The smile that he gives her is wrong, the place where it meets his eyes holds only a portion of his usual warmth and is missing all of him . His determination, his joviality, his kindness; all of it is gone.
She takes the offered cup from his hands and sets it on the counter in front of him. He watches her in confusion and she is relieved to see the slight emotion grace his features. She takes hold of his hand and tugs him into the next room, nudging him to take a seat on the couch. He does as she directs, the silent question remaining on his face.
She stares down at him for only a moment before crawling into his lap. His arms immediately welcome her in, holding her tightly to his chest as she buries her face in his neck. Her tears fall silently and slowly at first before the dam fully breaks and she is drenching the collar of his undershirt.
She wants to tell him, wants to ask him for help with the next steps but she can’t bring herself to actually say the words. Instead she lets him hold her while she cries, letting the soothing hand he uses to rub her back comfort them both.
Eventually, her tears stop. She hasn’t cried herself dry yet, she knows there is more where they came from, and she isn’t too tired and she most definitely isn’t feeling better; she just stops. With her tears subsided for the moment she is able to speak, her face still turned into his shoulder. “Something happened.”
His hand stutters on her back briefly before resuming its careful comforting arc. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I’m happy just holdin’ ya if that's what you need.” She doesn’t respond and so he asks, “Do you want me to know?”
She nods, still finding words somewhat difficult. Instead of speaking she sits herself up in his lap and inches the hem of her robe up her legs to show the beginnings of the damage littering her skin. She stops about mid thigh and lets out a little sob.
“Do those mean what I think they mean?”
“I think so,” she tells him, her voice as small as she feels.
He makes a sound she can’t decipher and she finally looks up at his face. Gone is the void mask he had adopted, in its place is shock, and anger, and a man that looks broken.
“I don’t remember much about that night,” she continues. He doesn’t ask for any additional details, but she finds herself telling him a little bit anyway. As she goes through what she can remember of her night in Amsterdam she feels his hand clench into a fist where it rests on her back and he presses firm kisses to her temple. She starts noticing a pattern with that, the kisses pressed to her head every time she says something had been her fault and lingering ones every time she laments that she should have seen the signs.
Eventually when she is done with her story he opens up about his thoughts on the matter. “I don’t wanna yell at ya, because I’m not angry with you at all Rebecca and I need you to know that. But baby, none of that was your fault. It will never be your fault. Now I wish you hadn’t been alone, but you should have been able to be safe regardless. I need you to acknowledge that the blame rests squarely with the man who hurt you, even though I know it’ll take time for you to believe it. You did nothing wrong, okay sweetheart?”
She nods, grateful that he doesn’t expect her to be all the way there yet, but ultimately thankful that he cares so much. She presses a light kiss to the scruff on his cheek and rests her head on his shoulder again.
“Can I take you to the emergency room?” he asks, not an ounce of hesitation in his voice.
Her arms tighten around him, “You don’t know how to drive.”
“I assure you that I do.”
She snorts, “Ted you can’t even look in the correct direction when crossing the street, there is no way in hell that I am going to allow you to drive us both into oncoming traffic.”
She feels the huff of laughter in his chest underneath her and he concedes, “I can’t argue with you on that honey. You mind if I give Walter a call?”
Her smile lifts against his skin and she tells him that would be alright, so long as he doesn’t leave her side.