Chapter Text
Elliott had always tried too hard. He'd been too cheerful, too hardworking, too polite. Not that any of those were bad things—Klopp loved a new youngster who showed up to work with a positive attitude—but it didn't feel natural. It felt like, behind that facade, Elliott tried to hide something.
After Elliott's horror injury against Leeds, Klopp rushed into the triage room. He found the honey-brown-haired teenager curled into a ball on the medical bed, holding his injured foot and sobbing to himself.
He's eighteen years old, Klopp thought to himself as he pulled Elliott in a hug, careful not to move him too much and make things worse. He's a kid. A kid doesn't deserve to have their ankle dislocated so badly that they need surgery.
The medics had told Klopp something about taking Elliott to the hospital, but between the din of the crowd and consoling Elliott and the others, he hadn't heard much. However, Klopp hadn't taken sports medicine for nothing. Elliott would need surgery after this, and it would take at least months for him to recover.
Elliott's sobs, muffled by Klopp's jacket, quieted into small whimpers. Klopp held him tighter, racking his brain for some way to cheer him up.
"I see this world has made you sad...Some people can be bad, the things they do, the things they say..."
Elliott looked up from Klopp's shoulder, more like a small child than a teenager. "Nana Mouskouri?"
"Yeah." Klopp made a mental note to himself to ask Elliott's parents how their son knew a song from 1986. "I'll wipe away those bitter tears, I'll chase away those restless fears..."
The doctors came in, explaining that they were taking Elliott to another room in the hospital. His family was already there and just taking a break, they said; the team could visit later. They loaded Elliott onto a gurney and hooked him on and off various tubes and monitors, wheeling him down the hall. Klopp was left in the triage room, worrying about Elliott and wondering how many tickets the officers would give him for breaking about four minor traffic laws to get to the hospital after the match.