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“Tartt!” Roy shouted. “Why the fuck are you back out here?” Jamie just ran right by him, though, unfazed by the question. Roy looks at Ted and Beard for confirmation that he was seeing what he was seeing.
They’d all just watched Jamie get led off the pitch and out of sight, seemingly into one of the treatment rooms. He’d taken a hard hit and landed face first in the grass. There was protocol they had to follow, so the minute Jamie’s head hit the ground, his training session was over. The physios had escorted him off the pitch and the rest of the team resumed training.
Not ten minutes later, though, out jogs Jamie, blood still dripping from his nose. There was a nasty bruise blooming on his forehead as well.
Jamie, to his credit, seamlessly rejoins the drills. Realization slowly dawned on his teammates, though, confused glances being thrown about.
“Whistle!” Roy shouted. He stormed over to where Jamie was looking around at his teammates, unsure why they stopped. “What the fuck are you doing out here?”
Jamie doesn’t respond. He glances around him, waiting for someone to answer Roy’s question.
“Tartt,” Roy tries again, a bit softer this time. “I’m talking to you, you muppet.”
Jamie furrowed his brow. “What?”
“What?” Roy repeats in a mocking approximation of Jamie’s accent. “Why are you out here? You’re supposed to be getting checked out.”
Jamie grins. He lifts his kit and flexes his abs. “Go ahead,” he says.
Roy nearly walks away. Jamie’s antics were too much to handle sometimes. But he takes a deep breath and reminds himself that these particular antics are borne of a particularly nasty concussion. “Not by me, you twat. By the physios.”
Jamie looks confused. “Why?”
“You got hit, Jaime,” Dani says brightly. “You bumped your pretty little noggin.”
“What? When?” Jamie asks.
“Okay. Before we have to cycle through who and where, I’m gonna head inside with Jamie,” Ted said. He and Beard had jogged over when Jamie didn’t immediately follow Roy back off the pitch. “Come on, kiddo.”
He holds out a hand to Jamie who grabs it immediately and shockingly allows himself to be led away from the group by Ted and Beard. They were nearly off the pitch when Jamie digs his heels in, pulling his hand away from Ted. “Where are we goin’? S’not time to go home yet.”
“All we’re missing now is a ‘who’,” Beard comments.
Ted chuckled. “Come on, Jamie,” he said, holding a hand out again. This time, though, Jamie would not be moved. He sat down in the grass instead.
“Trainin’s’not done, yet, coach,” he whined. His words were starting to slur together a bit, making the accent stronger. “Gonna get in trouble.”
Beard gestured for Will to run off and find the physios that Jamie had somehow slipped away from.
Ted sat down in front of Jamie. He was kicking himself a bit. He’d been amused by Jamie’s antics at first, but the confusion was concerning. “Hi, Jamie. How’s it going?”
Jamie frowned. He started to try to get up, but Beard pushed him down by his shoulders. “Nope.”
“Hang on a minute, kid. You hit your head during training. You’re not gonna get into any trouble. I’m your coach and I’m telling you to sit it out. We need to get you inside to get checked out by the medical staff. They’re gonna want to take a look at your nose too, kiddo.”
Ted winced when Jamie wiped his sleeve across his nose, blood staining the sleeve. Jamie seemed baffled by the red.
“Doesn’t look broken but that’s gonna bruise like a banana,” Ted finished.
Jamie looked like he’d caught maybe half of what Ted had explained, but not the half that told him to stay put. He stood up again, and this time Beard let him. He stumbled a bit, but Beard steered him in the direction of the locker room, taking advantage of the momentum he’d built from standing up.
Ted jogged to keep up. “Well played, Coach,” he said.
“Things in motion stay in motion,” Beard answered, continuing to nudge Jamie in the right direction.
The team physios came jogging out before Jamie had made it very far. Ted was about to inquire as to how they’d lost him in the first place, but Roy beat him to it.
“What the fuck happened? No fuckin’ way you cleared him already.”
Ted sighed. He was planning on approaching them a bit differently. They were used to Roy, though, and didn’t seem phased.
“Turned our backs for one second and he was gone,” Mia said.
“It was my fault,” Oscar interjected. “Couldn’t find the equipment I was looking for, so Mia stepped away to help me find it. Turned around and he’d somehow slipped out of the treatment room, and back out here, apparently.”
Roy just growled before returning to the rest of the team.
Jamie was growing frustrated by Coach Beard trying to corral him in the general vicinity of the medics, trying to shove past him. When he didn’t budge, the fight left Jamie. He wrapped his arms around the coach, burying his still bleeding face in his chest.
Beard’s eyebrows shot up but he accepted the embrace, wrapping his arms around Jamie’s shaking shoulders, patting awkwardly.
“Alright, Jamie. Time to go with these lovely people back to the treatment room,” Beard said abruptly after a moment.
“Who?” Jamie mumbles into Beard’s chest.
Beard pointed him in the direction of the waiting physios, who held their arms out, leading him off the pitch.
“Bingo,” Ted said, winking at Beard.