Chapter Text
“And you’ve told no one of what you’re doing?”
Rebecca worries her thumb against the other as her hands settle in her lap. She is well aware that the woman in front of her is watching and reading her every move and word to get a sense of her. Of where that invisible line is drawn to push Rebecca that much closer without unravelling the effort they’ve made thus far.
She starts to say something but pauses and then looks up as she shakes her head slightly.
“I’ve told one person,” Rebecca says, her voice just above a whisper.
The woman tilts her head, waiting.
“T… my donor.”
Rebecca watches as a patient smile lifts the therapist’s mouth momentarily. The woman’s been waiting weeks for this revelation, even though it's not really a revelation at all considering the therapist was recommended by her practitioner after the first round of in vitro fertilisation had been unsuccessful. She knows it’s been a rough go of opening up, but she’s come back for the last six weeks and feels like that’s enough of an accomplishment. She hasn’t abandoned the idea of therapy after one go.
“We’re not together,” she gets out quickly, almost stumbling over her words to get it out, knowing the next logical question would be now that she’s granted a sort of permission to probe the depth and breadth of her support system. “But he’s not just a name and a photo to me. We’re… umm, friends.”
'Friends' seems inadequate for what he is, but it’s the only term that’s close enough to the truth without giving everything away.
“There are many people who make a conscious decision to have a family in a single-parent household, Rebecca. I make no judgements. I’m here to help you find the tools you need to help you through the process,” the woman reminds her again. The therapist said those words to her in the second session when she finally got around to why she sought someone to talk to.
Rebecca nods, worrying her fingers against her palm as she breathes steadily in and out.
“Would you like to tell me about him?”
‘I’m quite sure I’m a little bit in love with him,’ she thinks, but hopefully it doesn’t show on her face since she won’t be saying that bit out loud. It’s just enough that she’s thrown the thought into the universe. Instead, she looks over the therapist’s shoulder to the little tchotchke that sits on the shelf behind her. Its current use is as a paperweight for her books, but the little sunflower dish that’s smaller than her palm reminds her of the photo Ted sent a few days ago that Henry had taken as the father-son duo explored Kansas City and its surroundings for three of the five weeks that Ted was back in the States during the summer break as they shifted back into the Premier League thanks to their second-place win in the Championship League that promoted them back to where they rightfully belong.
“He’s the sort who would define our friendship starting on day one of our introduction to one another.” Rebecca feels the unconscious smile on her face that she tends to get when discussing Ted Lasso.
“And you?” The therapist prompts without really needing to.
“It took a few months for me.” Rebecca bites her lower lip for a moment. She started counting the days from the night he forgave her for being a bitch who was quite shit at sabotage. “He won me over with biscuits.”
It was far more than that, and as she looks the therapist in the eye, she knows the woman can see right through the facade.
“My father died this year,” Rebecca reminds the woman of the third session, when she opened up as to why at age 43 she was only now attempting to have a child. “I had gone to a family friend to discreetly run the anti-Müllerian hormone test and talk about options if I had enough of a reserve left and was able to have a child of my own. I received the call a few days later, and rather than wallowing in my office after the call, I somehow ended up walking around his neighbourhood. He was passing through with takeaway, and I suppose I had my head in the clouds or whatever the saying is. So, he caught me by the arm and took me to his flat, and I sort of… unloaded on him.”
She takes a breath, remembering Ted slipping off the ridiculously tiny couch to crouch in front of her and grab her twisted, entwined hands, telling her how he does a 6, 7, 8 breathing routine and to just breathe with him. Back in the therapist’s office, Rebecca shrugs a shoulder in an attempt to be aloof.
“He’s why I’m here today, I suppose.” She waves an arm around to mean this whole in vitro fertilisation thing rather than specifically here in this office. Although he might be pretty proud of her for sticking with it, she thinks. Despite what they had told one another at the beginning of last season when Higgins hired Sharon Fieldstone, they both ended up in therapy anyway. Perhaps for the better. “He told me maybe a second opinion was warranted considering how I knew the doctor. He even offered to help Google the best fertility specialist for the job.”
Rebecca hears the faint hum that hides what she assumes would be a laugh if the woman wasn’t her therapist.
She’s not quite ready to discuss the ins and outs of their agreement, born from weeks of dinners at his and hers. Early morning walks around the grounds of Nelson Road as he fills her in on how co-parenting is working and Henry’s likes and dislikes of the week. How his kid is counting down the days until a winter holiday rather than his summer holiday because he gets to come to London. He’s excited to see Ted for a few weeks, of course, but apparently nothing beats a Richmond visit in Henry Lasso’s eyes. How each little kindness he extends to her makes her fall just a little more in love with him. And then he had to go and seal her fate by offering himself up as a donor if she wanted to know the father of her child beyond just what the genetic tests and generic donor profile would tell her.
“And it’s day fifteen of your second attempt?” The woman asks, gently probing.
Rebecca nods.
“I assume you haven’t tried a stick test?”
There are over-the-counter tests that promise results after day ten, which was when she technically could have gone in. But last time, she’d gone in at day seven rather than day sixteen, and there was no change in her hormone levels that would indicate there was a viable embryo. So, she promised herself this time around, she’d wait until her provider’s preferred check-in date rather than fit it to her schedule now that the season was over.
“No,” Rebecca answers as her voice overlaps the ‘stick’ part of her question. “I’d rather not give myself false hope.”
She watches as the woman picks up her pen but looks down and fiddles with the ring on her middle finger instead of trying to guess what highlights her therapist found in the simple statement. She’s read up on the statistics of accuracy of the test, but she already unsuccessfully made it to this milestone test almost three months ago. Plus, her medical team that completed the transfer advised her not to buy an over-the-counter product anyway.
“But your donor knows you’ve gone through with it again? He’s helped you through the process?”
Rebecca nods slowly.
“He’s,” she trails off. 'Kind' is accurate, but it doesn’t encompass enough of him. ‘Generous’ feels more monetary than what she’d intend it to be. But then she remembers the words he said to her on his first day almost a year and a half ago. “A godsend.”
The woman nods with a tap of her pen on the pad of her A4 notebook filled with squiggles of writing she’s done through the session that Rebecca can’t read but knows exists to be typed up later.
“Good,” the woman nods.
Rebecca begins to breathe a little easier.
--
He’s sitting on the front porch when the phone lights up next to him. It’s only a text, which means he could let it sit, and he could continue staring out at the way the rope of the tree swing floats ever so slightly in the breeze. He sets down the hot chocolate in favour of picking up his phone, though. After all, he got the milk a little too hot, and he’s already burnt his tongue once this week with his impatience for a sweet treat after Henry’s settled in bed.
Rebecca, aka ‘Da Boss’: Could use one of your pep talks.
His brow furrows, and he’s tempted to just press her contact photo to hit the call option, but he might spook her if she expects him to be busy or asleep. Although, looking at the time and counting six additional hours, she’s the one who should be asleep.
Ted Lasso: Free now. Any time for you, boss lady.
He debates whether to go inside as she reacts to the message with a little heart, and before he grabs the mug from the porch, her contact photo lights up his screen. And she’s there with a fake moustache on her upper lip. Those sold like hot cakes at the fan shop before their last Championship League match.
“Hey ya, boss,” Ted greets her. A grin settles on his face even though she can’t see him since it’s a phone call rather than a FaceTime.
“Hi, Ted,” she answers back in the way she always greets him whenever he calls her or she calls him.
He listens as she sighs down the line, and he takes his own breath in, letting it out as his mind silently counts 4, 5, 6.
Other than Beard and Henry, she’s the only other person in his life where a void in conversation doesn’t seem awkward, and he doesn’t feel the need to fill said void with small talk. He reaches his free hand over to his left side to grab the mug of hot chocolate.
“How’s Henry?” She finally asks, genuinely curious, considering he was mad at himself for missing a deadline for a sports clinic signup, even though Henry asked to go to said clinic after the deadline had already passed. She made one phone call and got him in, touting her success by yelling through her office window the moment the phone call was finished.
“He’s passed out right now, but that Sporting KC clinic you helped with is by far his favourite thing about me coming over for the summer. And there were bonus points since the KC Current ladies were also there to do some neat drills today.”
He listens as she laughs quietly down the line.
“And before I forget, he said that he needs to have a chat with you to discuss how AFC Richmond needs to have these clinics when he comes to visit. Heads up, though; I think I already told you, I get him for Thanksgiving, Easter, and his summer holiday this time around. I know we don’t do Thanksgiving and all, but we have a bye week, so I was thinking maybe a little optional team shindig or something if everyone is sticking around town.”
She hums, imagining it would be just as jolly as the Higgins family dinner they hosted this year for Christmas, where far more players than they anticipated brought a dish and cheers of good tidings.
“What’s got your wheels spinning at half three?” He emphasises the unique way they keep time across the pond, knowing a little levity always helps.
There’s another pause, but he knows she hasn’t hung up, considering how he can hear her slow, even breaths.
“What if it doesn’t work again?” She asks. It’s faint. As if the question blew in on the summer breeze, and if he wasn’t listening as intently as he was, he might have missed it.
He closes his eyes, taking a moment to make his jumbled feelings make some sort of sense so that the jumble of words will make sense.
“What if it is the hope that kills you?” she whispers.
He thinks about it in the quiet of their phone call. Something that would put her mind at ease for a little bit.
“I dunno, Boss.” He uses the term as a nickname since he always gets a fond smile out of her when he calls her that, even though she technically is his boss. “I’m team faithful over here. Well, the one that believes in belief and ghosts and aliens and all that stuff. Not the team Faithful from the Claudia Winkleman classic reality show, The Traitors. Although, if I’m ever on that show in, like, some sports celebrity edition, I’d ask to be a faithful there, too.”
He hears a faint, stunted, muffled laugh, and he knows that it's from his ‘Traitors’ tangent.
He listens as she takes a breath in and releases it. And he can’t help but do the same as he tries to find something to say that won’t spook her but will give her enough hope to last until tomorrow afternoon’s test.
“Maybe making a mini-you that’s a little of me and a little of you is sort of like when we first met, you know?”
A curious hum is all he gets.
“Maybe the first time our DNA got all mixed together was like when we first met, and you thought I was an absolute wanker of a fella. You didn’t want to vibe with that, and I understand. I’m a whole lot for quite a few people.”
She doesn’t deny it, but he can hear the scoff now that she’s got to know the real Ted Lasso underneath all that first-day painted-on enthusiasm and sabotage blinders.
“Since there were five good embryos, and you froze the other four of ‘em the first round, maybe our DNA just needs a second chance at really sticking. Get a little do-over to meet properly. Make some metaphorical biscuits. And then in however many weeks, because I still don’t understand the math that all those docs use, you’ll get a mini Welton out of it. And, well, I know it's happening to you and not me, but between you and me… two is my lucky number.”
There’s a sniffle that he can barely hear, but then she starts to speak.
“In a roundabout way, I said the same thing to my therapist about you and me and how we first met today when I went to see her. I told her that you were the only one who knew I was going through this, and she asked if I wanted to talk about you. So, I did.”
“Shucks, boss,” he lets out a relieved sort of laugh and then lifts the hot chocolate to his lips and sips. Of course, it’s now the perfect temperature.
“How do you do it?” She wonders, and she doesn’t have to spell out how he’s so positive about how this will go.
“You know that book you were reading that night I came over?” Ted asks, knowing at this hour, she’s certainly at home. He doesn’t know where she is in her house, but he assumes she’s either sitting up in her bed, in her cosy corner of the couch wrapped up in that throw that feels like a cloud, or staring at her reflection in the darkened telly as she sits at the island countertop. He’s got a feeling it's the couch.
She sounds out a quiet ‘mmh’ as her yes.
“Check that last page.”
She doesn’t have far to go, but he listens to her pad along the hardwood floor as she searches for the book in the study she uses as her home office on the days she doesn’t come into the training centre.
She finds Great Expectations right where she shelved it as the last Dickens novel in her collection and opens the last page to find a bright yellow note card a little larger than a credit card stuck in the spine of the last page. His familiar blocky letters spell out the word ‘believe’ on the card.
“Christ, Ted,” she whispers as she holds back the tears, although she knows he can hear the fragile hold she has on them.
Her eyes get drawn to the last few sentences on the page when Estella claims to Pip, 'I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.’ And isn’t that fitting for the two of them? But as she closes the book, her fingers pull out the notecard to lay it on the book cover. She’ll find it a more suitable home where it can serve as her own reminder.
“I know it doesn’t change biology or chemistry or whatever science that makes it all happen, but I think it helps to have it written somewhere for you to look at. Maybe a pick-me-up every once in a while when you’ve run out of hope.”
She means to leave the book and take the notecard, but she ends up with both as she leaves the study and finishes her nightly routine of walking through the house to turn off the lights even though she’s already done that hours ago.
“When did you sneak this in there?” She wonders as she finally gets to her room and sets the book on the nightstand but keeps the notecard in hand as she shuffles for the sheets to finally, maybe, get some sleep.
“Oh. Uhh. I think maybe that second dinner? When it was, what, day four of your injections, and we were going to have dinner that night, but you lay on the kitchen floor for a while, waiting for death. And I told you he wasn’t coming for you tonight. So, I made you those macaroni noodles with salted butter because that was the only thing you could handle?”
“Oh,” she whispers, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip to quell the soft sort of sigh that passes through her at the thought of him slipping the note into her book when she wasn’t looking.
“About then.”
He had been so kind about the ups and downs she went through as she did the injections for the egg retrieval process and then, later on, the prep for the transfer. The first hour after the injections always left her feeling queasy enough that she often lay on whatever flat surface was available to her. That night, she’d also felt a little clammy, and the nausea was threatening to overwhelm her. So, as soon as she led him to the kitchen, she sat by the wine cooler and eventually lay flat as he sat down next to her with a frozen bag of peas in his hand that he gently placed on the back of her neck.
Just like with the first round, he had been waiting in a café down the street the day of the transfer as she completed the second round. He’d carefully driven her home after she lay in the quiet exam room for an hour after the procedure. She had called him after she was left alone since he said she could call if she wanted to. He picked up on the second double ring, and while she was waiting the requisite hour, he filled her in on ideas from Henry on how they should plan Thanksgiving in London when Ted is in the States, and they’d need to probably call the resident expert on things Henry would enjoy that aren’t touristy because she’s lived in London the longest. After bringing her home, he had stayed well into the evening, always getting up to get her a refill of her water or snacks and then eventually making her dinner when he asked if she wanted to eat a little something.
And then three days later, he was off to Kansas City and then Wichita for a break to visit with Henry before heading back to Richmond.
“You think you can get some rest now?” He asks quietly, bringing her back out of her thoughts and into the present.
“No,” she half-laughs. At least not a restful sleep.
“Well, if you want to put me on speakerphone next to your pillow, I can tell you a bedtime story about how Henry is never going to be a goalkeeper at this rate with his lack of spatial awareness.”
“You don’t have to do that if you’re busy, Ted. I can let you go.”
“Nah. It’s just me and my hot chocolate on the porch tonight for company. Well, besides you.”
There’s a bit of shuffling as she tells him, ‘just a minute.’ And then there’s a faint ‘okay’ that gets him started on the bit of camp this week that featured goalkeeper skills and his son’s very clear lack of skills.
He sips his hot chocolate between moments. He backtracks and fast-forwards and goes on little side tangents, but it’s all expected from a story told by him. Eventually, his mug is drained of his sweet treat, and he’s sure the quiet on the other end of the line means she’s finally asleep. He whispers ‘sweet dreams’ and hangs up a few seconds later, looking up to the sky dotted with clouds and stars. His deep breath settles him a little.
They don’t say goodbye. Even when he doesn’t talk her to sleep, it's never goodbye. It’s always ‘see you’ or the weird ‘off you pop’, which he still doesn’t quite get. But he’s sure he confounds her when he tells her ‘later, gator.’ But he sort of likes that it’s never a final, closed chapter between the two of them.
A little less than two and a half weeks until he’s back home in Richmond.
—
Ted uses the Do Not Disturb feature of his phone as a way of setting boundaries after Sharon Fieldstone pointed out he often gives more than he receives. That day, he baulked against the suggestion, and she no more than raised a brow, a silent ‘continue’, before he leaned back against the couch cushions and began cataloguing all the little requests he’s received to help with over the phone or text. Sharon didn’t need him to say the words ‘you’re right’, but she did want him to acknowledge out loud that he’ll be more assertive in his ‘no’s when his social battery is drained or the person has never offered to return a favour. There are three numbers that he’s programmed to get through the feature, though—Michelle, Rebecca, and Beard. Henry would be on the list if he had his own cell phone, but the landline and Michelle’s cell phone serve as Henry’s ability to call or text him whenever, too.
He relies on it a lot in the States when he’s jet-lagged and trying to get used to the Central Time Zone for the couple of weeks spent with Henry, and if someone forgets that he’s in the States. Of course, as manager, he’s sort of defunct until pre-season starts at the end of July, just before the transfer window closes and most of the players are gallivanting across the world or visiting their own families for their own holiday from the league seasons. Rebecca had given him some extra days to account for him being there with her during the second transfer. At the time, he claimed it would be okay to come back with the fellas, but now that he’s here, he’s grateful that she refused to budge and gave him five whole weeks with his son.
This morning, though, his phone pings with the familiar message tone just after five o’clock. The first ping doesn’t wake him completely. Almost as if the ping is a part of his dream, he forgets the moment his eyes blink open at the reminder ping.
He rolls to his side, pawing at the nightstand beside him for the familiar rectangle shape of his phone on the charger. With it in hand, he rolls to his back, blinking as the harsh backlight lights up the otherwise darkened room.
“Shoot,” he whispers to himself as his face registers in the Face ID to open the phone. He drops the quick action menu down so the bright screen doesn’t blind him. “Too bright.”
He clicks on the message app since he forgot to look at who was sending something so early. But he’s narrowed it down to one person by the time the message list is opened, considering Henry’s just down the hall, Michelle’s most likely sound asleep in her bed back in Wichita, and Beard is probably just getting to sleep since he’s visiting as many Lisbon EDM scenes as possible on his own holiday.
Still. It's nice to confirm that Do Not Disturb bypass works, considering he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t have sent the text if she knew she was one of a handful that knowingly got past said buffer. Of course, she knows about the buffer and thought it was a good activity for him to separate out acts of service from acts of convenience. She even gently reminded him that her workday never starts before seven o’clock if she can help it for her own buffer of work and a personal life. And that’s the hour he set his Do Not Disturb to turn off after she assured him most things could wait until he got to the club anyway.
He clicks on the message to find a simple but meaningful text. One that she probably thought about crafting longer than it took to send the message if he knows her at all.
Rebecca, aka ‘Da Boss’: +
He leans his head further into his pillow, not fighting the grin and relief that floods his entire being as he reads the single character on his screen again just to make sure he’s got it right.
He taps the message, holding onto it until the reactions list pops up, and he goes for the heart. It doesn’t encompass all the jittery feelings, the way he’s full to bursting to hoot and holler, or the way his eyes water as he feels a thousand different things all at once like he did almost a decade ago, knowing she probably feels that and a whole host of other things he can’t possibly imagine.
He knows she doesn’t want to jinx it. Doesn’t want him telling her any sort of congratulations or best wishes or any luck until she has the physical proof of a sonogram in her hands and then the sound of a heartbeat, which should come in the next few weeks of appointments once he’s back in London. He knows she’ll go to those alone, but just maybe he might get to tag along if he plays his cards right so he can experience her experience right along with her as a first-time mom… mum.
Still, he can’t help but ‘love’ her message, and he hopes it quietly expresses the exuding hope she sought as they talked last night. He might not be able to express it in words quite yet, but he can deliver something else as a placeholder without jinxing it. Or so he hopes.
He chuckles as the Deliveroo app tells him he’s a little far from his default address.
“No kiddin’,” he tells his phone as he uses the arrow by his address to drop down and switch the delivery to her address.
It's a little later over in London. Not quite late afternoon, but late enough that her favourite pâtisserie on the app is closed and no longer accepting orders. It's fine though since her third favourite, and his personal favourite, is still open due to the fact they sell more Americanised pastries and pair them with coffee. The cinnamon roll with lemon cream cheese frosting is added to the order before his fingers catch up with the menu. The cinnamon roll is her favourite after she tried his one Sunday morning last season when they were on a win streak after their FA Cup quarter-final defeat. He’s brought this pâtisserie’s version of a cinnamon roll to her twice when it was his turn to pick the mid-morning pick-me-up. While his belly swooped and fluttered when she remarked that his were superior, the lemon cream cheese frosting oddly hit the spot for her, she told him as he watched her pack up her things for the night before they went to his for some Thai curry takeaway. He might not be able to make his famous cinnamon rolls for her today as a ‘you made it this far, which is something to celebrate’ treat, but he’s quite capable of ordering a little sweet something to make up for the fact she’s been biscuit-less for almost two weeks and just received some good news that probably makes her want to bite into something indulgent.
'It’s not biscuits, but I figured you deserve a little something sweet,' the message reads that will be typed on the delivery receipt. He even ordered a peach lemonade because she tried his once and didn’t baulk at the otherwise odd combination. And he pretended not to notice the way she went in for a couple more sips when he offered it again later.
After ordering and making sure Deliveroo pinged him back, the shop received his order and was working on it; he locked his phone and laid out his arm, surrendering it to the other side of the bedcovers. He still has a few more hours to await Henry’s morning wake-up call of loudly trudging down the hallway with his shuffling steps he considers to be quiet.
He won’t mind if he doesn’t go back to sleep, though. His mind whirring with wonder and feelings and all sorts of things he’ll have to tamper down on before he makes his way back to London. For now, though, it feels like it's a cinnamon swirl pancakes sort of breakfast vibe this morning.
—
He was aware of all the changes being made while he was in the States—Rupert buying West Ham, Nate quitting Richmond to go work for West Ham as their head manager, Keeley opening up her own PR firm, and Rebecca tearing up every trace of Rupert Mannion this club has minus his owner’s photo that’s thankfully hidden behind their second-place Championship League trophy. They’ll have to give it away next season to the ones who take second place this new season, but he’s hoping they can replace it with another, larger trophy from the Premier League anyway.
Still. It’s touching to see Earl Greyhound Training Centre instead of that wanker of a fella… even if they spell ‘center’ wrong, in his humble opinion.
It’s eerily quiet, sort of like when he and Beard would be in their office at Wichita State before all the footballers came back for pre-season training before the school year started. Last season, thanks to their drop in league status, it had been a hive of activity when he came back from Kansas. This year, though, with going up a league and Rebecca not entertaining transfers into the club, it's left today quiet before the team returns to start their daily trainings for the new season.
He putters for a while to re-centre himself to the subtle changes made in the two offices. There’s a ritual he likes to do at the start of the season, and Beard-o thoughtfully cleared off his desk before he left for some tropical place where house music and losing yourself are the key day and night vibes.
He offloads his knapsack from his shoulders and settles the pack on his chair, unzipping the main zip to pull out one of his reusable shopping bags he’d put the supplies in—shaving cream, wet wipes, and paper towels. He knows the club has plenty of paper towels in the loo storage closets, but since this particular activity is mostly just for his benefit, he’ll save the club a couple of rectangles and just use his own.
He uses the wet wipes first. Taking a few from the package as he wipes his desk down. First vertical, then horizontal, and finishes with a wide sort of rectangle as he overlaps to drill down to the centre of the desk.
As he waits for the wet wipe streaks to dry a little, Ted pops the safety seal of the first can of shaving cream, giving it a gentle but hearty shake to pressurise the canister or whatever the heck ‘shake well’ means to the contents in the aluminium can. And when it’s all whipped up, he aims for the top of the desk, pressing the push button to dispense the foaming cream in long, snake-like plops. He supposes he could spell something out, but he ends up making lopsided smiley faces out of the foaming cream.
He spends far too long doing the ‘wax on, right hand; wax off, left hand’ Karate Kid saying as he wipes his palm into the shaving cream as he cleans the desks and makes little whirls and smiley faces to keep it light. It’s one of those routines he’s done since his first coaching job, and at this point, the whole ‘wax on, wax off’ bit really is muscle memory reflexes that Mr Miyagi teaches in the classic 1984 film. After all, the shaving cream cleans the desk without having any of the bleach chemicals that are probably bad for this sort of desk anyway. And after he’s drawn just enough squiggles in the foam, he uses the paper towel to go from one side of the desk to the other in a quick, thorough swipe to mop up the shaving cream. Each swipe gets its own paper towel, and then a careful swipe into the bin as Ted examines the desk. It looks less dull, and he’s still not sure if the shaving cream really does lift the markings from the year away or if it's just a placebo effect and all a part of the wishful thinking, but he enjoys the task nonetheless.
He does the same to Beard’s desk. Instead of squiggles and smiley faces, he does the triangles, circles, and x’s Beard likes to use when he’s mapping out the team plays. And Ted chuckles to himself as he remembers Dani’s new trick play, The Marauder, that was meant to take advantage of the height differences between the midfield and the strikers. It arced the ball over Jan Maas to end up with Colin, who would then pass it to Jamie or Dani, depending on who was open. It had actually worked wonders the last two matches of their Championship League season. And, just like with his desk, Ted wipes away the evidence of shaving cream with the paper towels.
Satisfied with the state of the desks, he packs up the supplies and puts them back in his knapsack. He heads off to the washroom since he doesn’t want to make the Biscuit with the Boss delivery with potential germs on his hands. So, after a thorough washing up, he heads back to the manager’s office and takes her box of biscuits out of the front pocket of his knapsack and makes his way up the stairs.
He finds her on the sofa with her laptop on the coffee table and a teacup perched on her thigh as her eyes close against the mid-morning sun that filters through the windows.
“Morning, Boss,” he whispers as he knocks gently on the doorframe so he doesn’t startle her.
The soft smile that graces her lips makes him feel a little fluttery and jittery, but he’ll explore that later.
“Hi, Ted,” she greets him as she opens her eyes. She motions for him to step inside but doesn’t bother to shift around to make it seem more formal. After all, he still technically has two more days of his holiday between seasons left. “Welcome home.”
He hums as he walks in. She had texted him that same sentiment as he notified her of his return with a little touchdown aeroplane emoji the other night. Still. It’s nice to hear it in her voice rather than the voice he has for her in his head. He still can’t quite nail that accent of hers in his mind. He figures it might be easier to shuffle around the coffee table, so he takes the longer route to stop at where she leans against the arm rather than go feet first and travel up.
“Your biscuits. Hot off the presses. Well. You know,” he gestures whimsically, knowing she’s seen him bake them and knows to let them cool before slicing since she asked if it wouldn’t be a bother if he could perhaps make a batch before he left for his holiday. And he had come over the next day, and she had watched as he turned simple ingredients into her favourite treat.
“You smell like you’ve bathed in shaving cream,” she tells him as she eyes the pink box he hands over before sitting near her feet.
He lifts his arm, an amused grin creeping onto his face as he sniffs at his armpit with comically loud sniffs. She shakes her head at his antics.
“Oh. Yeah. That’ll be the Barbasol. Sorry, I didn’t think. Should I…?” He trails off as she gives him the slightest shake of her head.
She always gets a pinched sort of face when he does that. Mentions something completely foreign, but she knows there’s some sort of interesting story that leads him to why he suddenly smells like shaving cream.
“I dunno why, but I was in Henry’s class when he was about yay high.” He holds a hand out to imply Henry’s age being relatively young. “Anyway, one day they were all causing chaos right before all the folks came to get them for the day, as one does in those years, and the teacher gathered everyone around and asked them to sit at their little desks. Surprisingly, they all did because apparently they knew what was coming.”
Rebecca raises her eyebrow at the dramatic pause.
“Foam desk cleaning time. Hoo boy. Those little fellas and girlies giggled as she squirted that can and deposited little foam piles in the middle of the desks.”
For a moment, she imagines a smaller version of Henry getting the look in his eyes that Ted does when he gets a crazy idea in his head. That little spark of joy that lights up his eyes and colours his cheeks as he works himself into an excitable state that’s infectious but usually in a good way.
“And that’s how they’d clean desks since you can’t use bleach or any of those Lysol wipes in classrooms. Although, I think that’s only when kids are in the classroom, considering all those germs kids pass around. Probably okay to use after they’ve gone and it’s overnight or the weekend. Michelle always made them use baby wipes in her classroom when kids doodled with their pencils on the desk. Not as fun, i-m-h-o.”
Rebecca nods slowly. She’s never been a teacher, but she gathers baby wipes wouldn’t strike the same level of enthusiasm as a pile of shaving foam. Even for Michelle’s older maths students.
“I’ve done it here since last year since we didn’t really have much of a window between getting settled and starting day that first year,” he says as he waves a hand. It was quite a rush from start to finish in those five months that he got to experience the Premier League. Maybe they would have stuck the draw if he had been able to clean away the crud from George and company beyond the brief Wet Wipes showdown he had with his desk before he fell asleep in that chair as Beard hung posters and hunted down everything he needed to study the team before their first official day.
She frowns but hides it as she dips her chin to open the box of biscuits. Her nose wrinkles, and she closes the box before settling it on her thigh with a gentle sigh.
“Did you eat breakfast yet?” He wonders, knowing that during the first round, she often skipped the first meal of the day if she was particularly nauseous but always ate one of his extra breakfasts that he just happened to bring, which ranged from an açai bowl to a warm grain bowl with fruits or roasted veg, depending on the day.
“Peppermint tea,” she says, giving a quick, gentle lift of her thigh that's acting as a table for her teacup.
His brows come down in a furrow as a crease begins to form between them as he looks at her.
“I have that ground chia oat cup thing with the strawberries and raspberries you wrote down a few weeks ago,” she nods to the small refrigerator at the opposite side of the office where she keeps some snacks and her sparkling water. “It felt like it would be something I’d eat last night when I made it, but this morning, I just thought about the texture when I grabbed it, and I felt…”
She shrugs her shoulders.
He pops his hands on his knees for a moment, and her eyes are drawn to them, and she watches as he stands. And then his fingers are wiggling in front of her.
“Come on.” He reaches out a hand for her teacup and manoeuvres to set it on the coffee table before a hand reaches out for her own again. “My favourite barista promised me an almond butter and chocolate croissant when I got back, and I could use a little sugary pick-me-up since the jet lag is still making me loopy.”
She takes his hand, letting him tug her up even though they both know she needs no help getting up from the couch. Still, as soon as she’s upright and balanced, he’s letting go of her hand. But before she realises she’s lost the brief connection, he’s wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into his chest. There’s a moment where she considers that she might be daydreaming, or perhaps she’s still in her house, in her bed, imagining this moment as she has a few times over the past few months as Ted seemed to creep into her unconscious mind. But he squeezes her a little tighter, and she can’t help the quiet sound of relief escaping her lips as she gently wraps her own arms around his form.
He sighs, a gentle, barely audible thing. But it’s against her ear, and her lips turn upwards at the moment, relishing that he’s getting just as much out of this as she is, or so she hopes.
The moment fades as he slowly pulls himself away. His hands linger against her hip before he slides his arms back to his side, and she clocks the way he loops his arms behind him before he folds his hands together.
“I’ll just,” she gestures behind her with an extended arm as she begins to walk backwards, and as he nods, she turns to watch where she’s going.
“Ooh.” Ted hums to himself as he watches her round the desk to grab her bag. “You know what, I think we also need one of those rely-juices.”
Rebecca pauses as she runs the word through, attempting to decipher what he means with his terrible French accent.
“You know,” Ted mimes with his hands what he’s picturing. “The one pastry that has the two buns. The big bun and then the baby bun, and it's filled with cream or chocolate or something and then topped with that ganache stuff? They had them on Bake Off once or twice.”
“Religieuse?” Rebecca tries, with a hint of something in her tone that was mostly amusement but a little sceptical that she was translating his attempt correctly.
Ted snaps her fingers and then winks at her.
“Bingo, Ringo. Yep. I've got to get you one of those to try.”
She wants to remind him they’re called that because they look like a nun’s habit, not because there’s a regular-sized choux bun with a smaller, “baby” bun atop it. But she’ll let him have it just this once, considering he’s been respecting her request to not congratulate her until the day she has her first ultrasound appointment.
“Fine,” she agrees, even though she’s had quite a few religieuses in her time. “But I’m ordering; otherwise, you’ll get us kicked out of the pâtisserie part of the tea shop and then banned from France for your terrible accent.”
“Deal,” he agrees as he watches her step closer, ready for their morning outing.
--
Ted watches as Roy makes his way into the manager’s office offshoot that they fashioned last season for Nate and later for Nate and Roy. It reminded Ted of the office he and Beard shared during their first year coaching together when they were just lowly quarterback and kicker assistant coaches. Back when Beard had a goatee and was a little more than halfway to a mullet. It was small… quaint, if he’s using Rebecca’s terminology when she okayed the space last year, but it suited the needs of the assistant coaching staff, considering most of their time was spent on the pitch or in the gym. He’s pretty sure Roy likes it without the windows facing the hallways, even if Ted can peek in from the other side.
The morning grunt of acknowledgement is more curt than usual. No nod accompanying it. No crazy eyebrows being raised at Ted’s attire or choice of visor. Ted gives a wordless salute back, knowing the morning grunt vibes are a precursor of the rest of the day for Roy. And that sometimes a silent greeting works just as well as a ‘hey-ya, Roy’ in the mornings.
Ted pops his lips a little, making a quiet popping sound, as Roy takes off his leather jacket, hanging it on the coat rack, and Beard does a hem-haw of an acknowledgement of Roy’s presence, his focus on the paperback in front of him.
“Have we heard back on those transfers out yet, or does that happen when the main window closes?” Ted wonders out loud as he leans back in his chair to look over at Beard. “Has the window closed already? I can’t keep those dates in my mind.”
Beard, as always, is nose-deep in a book. Today, the book is something about group tactics in cricket. Ted doesn’t need to know if it's for work or pleasure, considering Beard’s mind can work almost anything into a warm-up or a play for the team.
“Nothing yet. Dundee United has to transfer a player to get the cash to buy out O’Brien’s contract.”
Ted frowns. The last he heard, Rebecca was okay with accepting £40,000 to transfer their third-string keeper to the Scottish Premiership team.
“Even at the pennies the boss authorised,” Beard follows up before Ted can even ask.
“You know,” Ted chuckles as he leans forward and puts his hand in his palm as he props his elbows on the desk. “I was watching QI a while ago, and this fella said that ‘Dundee’ or ‘Dundee United’ was Nigerian slang for ‘idiot.’ A solo or group of idiots, respectively.”
The office is quiet, but he watches as it draws Beard’s attention away from his book. Dark eyes key in on him, and a brow raises a little in question.
“I asked Sam if that was true. He told me it was and that his cousins were often called 'dundees' by his aunts whenever there was a family gathering. He told me that his father only called him that once when he was a little fella around Henry’s age. Apparently he told his mama he wasn’t going to take a bath after playing football all day.”
It’s hard to picture Sam saying ‘no’ to someone, but apparently he once said the word to his mother, and his father called him a ‘dundee’ for even trying to defy her.
“You think they missed an opportunity to use a crocodile for their mascot?” Ted wonders, seeing the attention is still on him. “I mean, they’re known as The Terror or The Tangerines. Could have used green for their home kits and blended in with the field… pitch. Hey, that’d be fun, don’t you think? Blending in with the pitch? Like we’re a team of ghosts?”
Roy’s elongated ‘fuck’ is all Ted gets before the assistant coach gets up and leaves the office.
Ted turns back to Beard, thumbing at the office and then at himself.
“You think it was something I said?” Ted says, only sort of joking.
Beard clicks his tongue and gently folds the book against his thigh. Serious talk, then.
“St Patrick's Day 2007,” Beard says, somewhat solemnly. “Get Rebecca to tell you the story of AFC Richmond’s infamous green kit decision. I’m sure she has all the details the press didn’t release.”
Ted nods and watches as Beard gets back to his book.
He leans towards his desk, wiggling his fingers on the trackpad to wake his laptop up. It's a little early for Biscuits with the Boss, but Rebecca’s calendar looks free. And 08:07 is close enough to their 09:30 scheduled time in his opinion that he leans over his chair arm to grab his knapsack.
—
The knock on his door spooks him for a moment, considering Mrs Shipley usually just knocks the end of the broom against the floor to tell him to quiet down. He has his ‘yacht rock’ playlist on low as he mixes the shortbread ingredients for the coming week of Biscuits with the Boss. After all, it's his Sunday ritual, even on match days. He almost shouts, ‘sorry’, but realises he can probably just open the door and do the same thing. Maybe add a pouty lip to see if that garners any sort of sympathy, considering they had a draw yesterday.
“Sorry ‘bout the yacht rock, Mrs— oh. Hey.”
He pauses his apology when he finds it's not Mrs Shipley at his door.
“Hi, Ted.”
“Rebecca,” he shifts behind the door to open it wider, a silent invitation for her to come inside. “I thought you were Mrs Shipley.”
“Yacht rock?” She asks as she makes her way inside and heads to the coat rack to take off her trainers and raincoat.
He observes her as he hums a ‘yes.’ Their match was yesterday, another draw, so he hasn't seen her today since there wasn’t any strategy to go over like if they had lost. He hadn’t planned to see her either, considering she was supposed to have a late lunch with Keeley and might not be the liveliest of dinner companions.
“It’s that smooth sort of rock. You know, a little burst of a saxophone solo, but not Kenny G making a whole album of sax… but enough? You know, lots of Toto. Maybe some Jimmy Buffett. To be honest, it’s just the title of the playlist the music app has, and it’s got some bangers. Not the ‘bangers and mash’ kind of banger, though.”
This time she’s the one to hum, and he closes the door and faces her again.
“So, how was lunch with our not-resident public relations extraordinaire?” Ted tilts his head towards the kitchen, and she follows, sitting on the barstool as he goes back to the bowl of biscuit dough.
"We didn’t get the chance," Rebecca sighs as she peers into the bowl. "Honestly, I was going to cancel because I was having a hard time keeping anything down this morning. But she beat me to it."
Ted lifts his eyes to hers and watches as she puts her chin in her palm as she slumps a little at the barstool.
“I think she might be avoiding me because I was trying vegan stuff when you were in the States. The thought of touching meat was bad enough, and these hormone shots are great for appetite suppression if you’re into that sort of thing.”
He knows her appetite has come back a little. Mostly for vegetarian-forward dishes. Grain bowls. Pastas. Roasted veg and the like. And as long as she didn’t see the chicken being prepared, she gobbled up the tandoori chicken and yellow rice he made the other night.
“But it might also be because she broke up with Roy, and she knows that I know but doesn’t want to talk about it.” Rebecca frowns a little, hoping it's more the latter than the former.
Ted frowns as he tips the bowl onto a baking tray, the crumbled mix spilling out, and he can’t help but say ‘ope’ as he watches a few crumbles fall onto the countertop. He knew she suspected the breakup happened because, on the day he went up to ask about St Patrick’s Day 2007, he told her Roy’s morning greeting had been grumpier than usual.
“Still can’t believe they broke up. It’s like… like Miss Piggy and Kermit. Like Bert and Ernie. Meant to be.” Ted sighs, still a little sad about the inkling of unconfirmed news.
She hums, watching as he picks up the fallen crumbles of dough and tosses them into the now empty mixing bowl before using his knuckles to gently spread the biscuit dough around the baking tray.
“Are you feeling okay now, though? This ain’t going to upset your stomach?” Ted gestures with his chin to the tray.
“I’m fine.” Rebecca drops her elbow from the counter to join her hands in her lap as she twirls her fingers together in a knot. “It seems to hit in the mid-afternoon these days.”
Ted can’t help the smile that creeps into his expression. He tries to hide it by turning to the oven and settling the biscuits in for their oven bake, but he knows he’s been caught.
“Sorry,” he tells her as he turns back. He’s not. Not really. It’s just another piece of proof she has that the little clump of cells is growing into a little Welton, even if she hasn’t seen a picture of the itty bitty embryo yet.
He lets the quiet settle over them and gathers the dishes to make a little more space if he’s going to start on his dinner anytime soon. He turns from setting the mixing bowl and spoon in the sink to find her staring at the oven, where her biscuits will remain for the next 45 minutes.
“Oh. Hey. How’d you get in, by the way? I always have to use my key for both doors,” he starts to trail off as he finds her gaze moving towards him, and she already has a raised brow with the tiniest hint of a smirk playing at the corner of her lips.
“I own the flat, Ted,” she tells him after a beat.
“Right.” He clicks his tongue. Of course she has a set of keys to all the flats and any entry doors.
And then tilts his head. His tell is that a follow-up is coming, and it’s one that hasn’t been thought all the way through.
“Is it you, as in Rebecca Welton, or you, as in AFC Richmond?”
The continued raising of her brow allows him to draw his own conclusion.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” He gestures to the refrigerator to segue into another topic. “I was going to bake some barbecue chicken and those, uh, jacket potatoes? Nothing fancy, but I have enough for leftovers and then some.”
It’s becoming a habit to buy more than a single portion at the market these days. If he had to pin down a day, he’d probably say the few weeks after his panic attack during the Tottenham match. He hadn’t called her back, but it didn’t stop her from checking in on him the following day.
“I promise, I didn’t come here just so you could feed me dinner,” she tells him even though she nods, consciously or not, at the question.
They’ve gone through this before whenever she’s shown up here, or when he shows up after they’ve chatted on the phone. When he can hear that familiar, lonely sigh after he’s enquired about what she’s doing with her day on the days she didn’t need him to come over to help with the IVF injections. He almost always graced her doorstep with a bag of goods he turned into a meal, which turned into a few hours of telly on her couch, before he left to catch the second to last train back to Richmond Green.
“I did something,” she tells him, wringing her hands for a moment before she stills them. There’s a beat before she clarifies. “I have something.”
His face is round with curiosity as she steps back into his living room, heading for her coat on the rack. For a moment, he panics and wants to go after her, but he stays rooted to the spot when he finds she’s only sorting through a pocket.
Her steps are slower than they were as she comes back into the kitchen. Her bottom lip is almost permanently set between her teeth as she looks up at him and then back to whatever is in her hands.
“Here,” she says quietly, holding out the folded piece of what looks like fancy paper in her hands.
Ted’s torn between looking at her to gauge her reaction to what she’s just handed him and finding out what it is she’s given him. The latter wins out, and he unfolds the small rectangular-shaped glossy paper.
He remembers the last time he held a sonogram. It was printed on a stock card that reminded him of a Polaroid that you had to flip through to see what all the technologist had captured in the ultrasound. These days, apparently, there is an all-you-can-print version. The whoosh of a thousand and one different emotions isn’t any different, though, he thinks. Just the card it's printed on.
The blob of grey looks alien… foreign. Almost like a kidney bean on steroids if he’s truthful. The ‘BABY’ with the arrow helps when the sonogram field widens and the tiny bean-like thing gets gobbled up by the inky black field of the uterus. There’s a bunch of gobbledygook numbers and references in each of the upper corners, but the ‘Welton, Rebecca Anne’ at the top makes his insides flip-flop like he’s just pulled as many G's as a rocket scientist going to space.
“Holy shit,” he says, still staring at the sonogram.
Rebecca covers her mouth at the expletive, hiding the laugh that sputters out. He’s rarely one to curse, but when he does, it diffuses the tension and accurately reflects what she’s thinking, too.
“Baby Welton.”
“Embryo Welton,” Rebecca corrects as she watches the moment his fingers hesitate to touch the sonogram where the arrow points. She’s not yet ten weeks when the embryo transitions to a foetus designation.
“I mean, no shade or shame to the name, Rebecca,” he tries with a straight face as he looks up at her. “But that’s the sort of name that’s askin’ for a whooping even if they’re going to attend one of those fancy private schools we got over here.”
“Arse,” she claims through the giggles she can’t hide as he chuckles at his own joke.
Ted looks down again, his eyes cataloguing every little bit of the black and white and greyscale in front of him before setting the sonogram sheet down on the countertop next to them.
“Ooh-wee,” he hums as he gathers her up in his arms. And just like that time he forgave her for her terrible sabotage attempt when he was first hired, the bear hug he gets in return has him closing his eyes and soaking up every ounce of love he can feel.
He pulls away, just enough that he can tilt his head and catch her eyes.
“Hey,” he whispers just loud enough that it registers he’s said something. “Can… can I say it now?”
Ted watches as her eyes peer to the countertop before zeroing in on him again. A single, slow nod is all he gets. And for a moment, the butterflies in his belly flutter enough to make him pause. He has to get this grin to tone itself down if he wants to get the words out, but looking at how green and sparkly her eyes are as she continues to hold all those feelings in makes it near impossible.
“Congratulations, Mama,” he whispers against her temple.
Her laugh catches in her throat. A watery sort of lump of a sound comes out, and the tears spill. Happy tears, she would promise him if her voice worked. But it's all stuck there right in her chest. She doesn’t have to say it. Not to him. He knows what this moment and those two little words mean to her.
“C’mere,” he tells her in a watery sort of tone as he pulls her back into a hug in the middle of his kitchen.
She breathes out. A long, deep sort of sigh against his shoulder that turns the fabric of his jumper warm for a moment. Her forehead presses into that spot a moment later as she tries to hold him tighter against her form since it's the only way she knows how to convey how thankful she is for him without ruining the moment.