Archive of Our Own

"I need to be brave enough to let someone... wonderful love me. Without fear of being hurt. Without fear of being... safe." 

"You're sure I shouldn’t stay another day?"

Rebecca looks up from her phone. Matthijs is leaning against the kitchen doorway. She knows he’s packed and ready to leave, waiting until the last minute to get changed. 

"I'm sure," she says. "You have the Rotterdam thing."

"Rotterdam can be rescheduled."

"Matthijs." She gives him a look. "Go to Rotterdam."

He smiles the easy, uncomplicated smile that had been so appealing two years ago, when she'd been raw and hollowed out and he'd appeared, tall and warm and entirely uncomplicated. The first time had been like a fever dream. None of it made sense, and she convinced herself it wasn’t meant to. They were never going to see each other again, and their meeting was just to help her find a new path. 

But then he showed up outside Heathrow, and she finally told him her name. He asked if she was alright, and she hadn't been. He'd bought her a terrible airport coffee and made her laugh twice and by the time she left for home she'd already agreed to dinner.

Ted had just left. Left Richmond. Left the team. Left her. She doesn't think about the timing of that too carefully.

"Fine," he says. "Rotterdam."

He disappears to collect his bag and she tops up her coffee. Well it’s his coffee, technically. He made it for himself and simply made enough, which is Matthijs in a sentence. Not inconsiderate. Just not quite thinking of her either. She's learned the difference slowly, and hasn’t quite decided if it bothers her or not.

She saves her first cup of tea for the office. She always has since Ted initiated Biscuits with the Boss.

Matthijs thinks it's a bit much. He's never said so outright, but she's seen the slight flicker when she mentions it. The microscopic pause before he says of course, that's lovely in a tone that suggests he finds it faintly trite.

So she stopped bringing it up, but she refuses to stop having the biscuits.

She and Matthijs settle at the island in the easy quiet routine they've developed over a year or so of visits like this one. Him reads the paper, and she scrolls her phone or laptop.

It's perfectly pleasant. 

“You have a match this week, yes?”

Rebecca looks over at him. 

“Yes, both teams.”

"Ted was the right call, then. For the women’s team's success." Matthijs asks, not looking up from the paper. 

"Mm." She scrolls past something on her phone. "Seems to be. He's good with the team. They've had a strong few weeks."

Going to Kansas had been her idea. The women's team had needed someone, and she'd known, quietly and certainly, that Ted had needed to come back just as much as they'd needed him. 

It only took her a week of anxiety induced vomiting and fear laden panic attacks before she convinced herself to woman up and go get him.

So she'd flown out with Keeley and Higgins, made the case, and he'd said yes. It had felt like the right thing. It still does.

What she hadn't quite anticipated was how easily Richmond had simply reorganized itself around him being back. The training pitches were full again, the biscuits were back on her desk by eight fifteen, and the club had that particular energy it had when Ted Lasso was in it. 

"Mm.”

Rebecca glances up. Matthijs turns to the sport section where she knows he'll read the rugby and the cycling and skim past the football without slowing down, the same way he always does. A year of weekends and he's never once asked how a match went, never caught a result, never noticed the league table she keeps open on her laptop. He simply doesn't care for football.

She'd thought, early on, that it didn't matter. That it was even rather refreshing. A man whose eyes didn't light up with that particular gleam when he realized what she owned and what it was worth. And it was refreshing. It still is, mostly.

It's just that football isn't something separate from her. It is her, in all the ways that count. AFC Richmond is her life's work, rebuilt from the ground up, and the women's team is something she's made, something she is actively, daily, stubbornly proud of. And he reads past it in the paper without noticing.

Matthijs folds the paper slightly, not quite putting it down. "You seem different lately," he says. He sounds casual, but it feels probing. 

She looks up. "Different how?"

He considers. "Lighter, maybe. More –" He makes a small gesture with his hand, searching for the word. "Distracted."

"It's been a busy few weeks. The season's properly underway now."

"Mm. It’s been a bit longer. But, still." He looks at her for a moment in that way he has, measuring something she can't quite see. "It's good, then. Having things back to normal."

"Yes," she says simply. "It is."

She is, if she's being honest, rather thrilled. It took a few weeks, a few bumps here and there, awkward conversations, a tearful hug, some extremely soft apologies that were quickly waved away. But they’re back, Ted and Rebecca. Leading Richmond together. 

Rebecca can feel the conversation wanting to become something neither of them wants to deal with on a Sunday morning with him about to leave, so she sets her phone down and smiles at him.

"You should make sure you have everything or you'll miss your car."

Matthijs doesn’t push, just nods and moves on.

"Five minutes," he says, and disappears down the hall.

When he comes back, bag in hand, the moment has passed. He says something about the Rotterdam contact being insufferable, she laughs, he touches her shoulder as he passes to sit while he waits for the car. 

She leans across the counter to kiss him goodbye.

There's a moment where it registers as nice. A goodbye kiss on a Sunday morning. Rebecca thinks briefly that leaning across a kitchen counter toward someone has a certain sexiness to it. She can almost picture it going differently. Matthijs ignoring his bag, deciding to be late. His hands finding her waist from behind, her turning into him, the morning suddenly having entirely different plans. 

But not today. 

Because somewhere in the middle of leaning to kiss him, she becomes aware that she has traveled the entire length of the counter. Her feet have even lifted off the floor a bit.

She can see it clearly, like stepping outside of herself for just a second. Her body is stretched over the counter, the weight on her forearms, chin raised to meet him. And he’s simply sitting there. Not cruelly. Just waiting for her to come the rest of the way.

Which she has.

His hands are clasped on the counter. He hasn't even reached for her. It makes her pause, feeling slightly put out. And then she thinks over a million moments.

Does he always just…wait?

She pulls back slowly and smiles.

"Have a safe flight."

He smiles, squeezes her hand briefly, says something warm about calling her, and then he's gone. The front door clicks shut and she is standing alone in her kitchen in the Sunday morning quiet.

She straightens up and reaches for her coffee again.

And then, without her permission, her brain offers her something else entirely.

The pub had been loud.

Not just a regular evening. It was properly, excitedly loud. They'd won four of their last five, but this one had mattered differently. The celebrations had started in the changing room and migrated to the Crown and Anchor. Mae looked annoyed at first, but Rebecca quickly caught on that she was just putting on a face, especially after Rebecca handed over her card for everyone’s first round. 

The women were chanting and cheering and even some of the boys had joined them in their move to celebrate at the pub. 

Rebecca had laughed more in two hours than she had in the past month.

She eventually found Ted tucked into the back corner of the pub, where someone had pushed a few tables together and the noise dialed down from deafening to merely very loud. He was standing with his back mostly to the room, Richmond coaching jacket still on and a nearly empty pint in hand. His hair is disheveled from all the celebrations on the pitch. 

Rebecca felt her face automatically shifting into something when she spotted him that she hadn't tried to stop.

He'd seen her coming through the crowd and his whole face had opened up.

"There she is!" He'd raised his pint in her direction. "The woman of the hour. The architect. The – "

"Don't."

"The visionary."

"Ted."

"Yes ma'am." He'd grinned and turned to flag someone down. "What are you drinkin’ tonight?"

She’d told him, and he’d somehow gotten it on within two minutes like usual. Midwestern charm and something just Ted all working in his favor. 

They’d fallen into an easy conversation right away. The match, the third goal, the look on the opposing manager’s face in the second half. Talking over each other, finishing each other’s sentences, laughing at the same moments.

She had gotten a little too animated at one point, gestured widely, nearly taking out someone walking past. Ted had caught her elbow and nudged her back in, both of them laughing, and he hadn’t let go right away. Just kept his hand there for a second longer than necessary.

They were on their third drink. Maybe fourth. Enough that they were both pleasantly buzzed and caught up in their own bubble. Rebecca said something about the opposing manager and Ted had laughed hard enough to set his pint down, and she felt an immediate warmth come over her.

By the fourth drink, Rebecca was close enough to get distracted by Ted’s hair, and realized she had been thinking about fixing it for longer than she cared to admit.

He'd made her laugh properly at some point, head back, the completely unselfconscious kind, and when she'd come back to herself he'd been watching her with an expression she hadn't examined too carefully.

"You know this is a big deal, right?" he'd said, quieter than the rest of it. "Really. What you've built here. Again."

"We've built."

"What you started," he'd said. "I just showed up."

"You showed up and made it work."

"Because you trusted me to." His eyes had stayed on hers. "That's not nothin’, Rebecca."

A stray piece of his hair was still falling forward, as it had been the entire night. She was just warm enough, just comfortable enough, that she reached up without really thinking and pushed it back.

Her hand lingered there, resting lightly at his temple.

He'd gone very still.

“Oh,” she'd thought. 

His eyes had dropped to her mouth almost immediately.

She still wasn't sure who moved first. She suspected it was both of them, the same moment, the same decision arrived at independently and simultaneously. Only that the space closed, and then his mouth was on hers, and it was…

Warm. Slow and certain and not tentative for even a second. His hand came to her jaw first, tilting her face up, and she gasped softly against his mouth. And then his other hand found her waist and walked her back to the wall, pressing in close, crowding her in a way that should have made her stop them both. But it only made her want more. 

She grabbed his jacket with both hands and pulled him closer.

Ted’s hand tightened at her waist, fingers curling in, and he kissed her like he'd thought about it before. Like they’d done it before.

She couldn’t form a single thought. Could only focus on his mouth and his hands and the warmth of him and the wall at her back and the very distant sound of a pub that had ceased to matter entirely. She melted into it a little more, loosening her grip on his jacket as her hands slid higher, stopping at his collar. 

Rebecca tilted her head and he followed immediately.  His thumb moved slowly along her cheekbone and the kiss shifted with it. 

And all she could think was yes.

Yes, this.

More.

She opened her mouth without any hesitation, and she could feel the moment he realized. 

"Ms. Welton! Coach!"

They pulled apart to find one of the younger midfielders, Molly, bright-eyed and slightly breathless.

"We're doing shots, the whole team, yeah? Coaches included. Cap says it’s mandatory. No morale without more alcohol. She told me to get you."

Ted’s hair was even worse now but he was smiling softly, a new one she hadn’t seen yet, and she thought she’d like to see him smile like that again. 

"We're comin' back to that," he said quietly. Just for her.

"Yes."

Molly had already started back toward the bar, and they'd followed, Ted’s hand sitting gently on her lower back. Rebecca joined her team with genuine pride. There had been shots, something bright and terrible that was apparently the only thing they could all agree on.

But what she hadn't noticed, in the moment before Molly appeared, was Keeley. Catching her and Ted kissing against the wall, with an absolutely delighted look on her face.

By morning it had simply become part of the evening. One warm thing among many warm things, and then it was gone.

Rebeccca picks her coffee up.

It's gone cold but she drinks it anyway, needing to shake herself out of the haze.

         We're comin' back to that.

They hadn't. Weeks had passed and neither of them had said a word about it, which meant one of two things. Ted didn't remember either, or he remembered perfectly well and had decided, simply not to bring it up.

Rebecca isn't sure which option was better.

She picks up her phone.

Keeley.

Babe!

Ted and I kissed.

Oh. Yeah.

And you knew.

Yeah, babe. Practically had a front row seat for a minute. 

Why on earth didn’t you say anything?!

You asked me not to! 

And you actually listened to me?! You kept your mouth shut about something like this?!
Of all things.

It’s just…you seemed serious. Even drunk, while I was trying to get your gorgeous arse into my car. It seemed…really important to you. So, I didn’t say anything. 

Oh.

You just remembered?

Yes. 

Are you going to tell Matthijs?

God, no. Could you imagine?

I mean, yeah. He’d probably get pissy, then act all fine, and then swear at you in Dutch so we can all act like we didn't know he said something nasty even though we don’t speak Dutch.

Well. that was far more specific than I expected you to be.

Sorry. I didn’t actually mean to send that. I typed it and I meant to erase it. But, too late now I guess. I just…I don’t think he would take it well. So unless you want something to change, I think you’re making the right choice not telling him. 

Do you want it to change?

I just need to think for a while. 

🥐

What on earth is that supposed to mean?

Nothing! It's a croissant. I'm having breakfast.

Keeley.
I cannot believe you’re being so calm about this.

I’ve had loads more time to think about it than you have.
I love you. Go think. I'll be here when you're done.

_____________________

Monday arrives too early and with too much on her calendar.

Rebecca is at her desk just after seven, but fortunately Ted arrives with her biscuits at eight fifteen.  

She hears him in the hallway first. Saying something about Isaac and his hamstring to Higgins. 

He knocks easily while coming through the door.

"Mornin’." 

"Morning. What did Isaac do to his hamstring?"

Ted points at her before dropping into his seat.

"Well he walked in a bit ago movin’ like he's an action movie hero that’s taken too many hits, and he tells me he pulled something. Which, ya know, these things happen. So I ask him how, and he says –" Ted pauses for effect. "Sleeping."

"Sleeping."

"Sleeping. Now, I'm not a doctor, and I'm not gonna pretend I know exactly what Isaac gets up to in the privacy of his own home. But I will say that whatever Isaac was doin’, it probably had about as much to do with sleeping as a corn dog has to do with fine dining."

"Did you say that?”

"I tried to say something in that neighborhood. But then I realized I was one follow-up question away from details I was not emotionally prepared to receive. So I just told him to see the trainer and wished him a speedy recovery from whatever definitely-sleeping related injury he'd sustained."

She snorts a laugh, and then looks briefly appalled at herself.

Ted looks delighted. "There it is."

"Shut up. Drop it."

"Dropped. Gone. Never happened."

He passes over her biscuits and she nods.

"How was your weekend? You’re solo this week, right?"

"Yes. Matthijs left yesterday morning," she says, opening the tin. "Rotterdam, then Geneva, then somewhere I've already forgotten."

"Man sure does travel a lot. Guess I thought that was just a thing that was happenin’ when I first got back, but seems to be most of the time. "

"Occupational hazard of being a pilot, one would think."

"Yea, I suppose. Tough gig. You good?"

"Just fine, thank you. I don’t mind the alone time. How were the women Saturday?"

And they're off on their usual track, discussing the match, the plan for training this week, something Beard had said that made no sense to anyone including Beard, a facilities issue that will need sorting, his thoughts on the upcoming match. 

At some point she starts laughing at something he said and she realizes he's grinning at her. Clearly pleased with himself and not bothering to hide it. She shakes her head and reaches for her coffee and thinks how grateful she is that Ted Lasso is extremely easy to be around.

Rebecca thinks about it a little differently today, though.

He'd asked how she was within thirty seconds of walking through the door. 

She tries to remember if Matthijs had asked anything similar yesterday morning. Coffee, keys, Rotterdam, the kiss across the counter.

Not because he wouldn't have, just because he assumed he hadn't needed to. That was the thing with Matthijs. He operates on the assumption that everything was fine unless told otherwise. It was efficient. Sensible, really. She could even call it respectful, in a detached sort of way. He doesn't pry or hover. He also doesn't…notice.

Not like this. Not without being prompted.

It hadn't bothered her before. Not really. It had actually felt rather refreshing at the start. No over-analysis, no unnecessary emotional excavation. Two capable adults moving neatly around each other's lives. And she felt like she still owned herself.

She'd liked that.

She still does, she thinks.

And yet.

" – anyway," Ted is saying, "Beard thinks if we adjust the formation slightly on Wednesday we might have a better shot at –"

"Yes, do that."

He blinks. "I haven't even finished."

"I know. But you're right." She picks up her coffee. "Well, Beard is usually right about the formation things. And you trust Beard, and I trust you."

He gives her a cheeky grin. 

"Well. Thanks, Boss."

"Don't make it weird."

"Me? Never. Not a thing weird about me." 

When Ted finally leaves, he gets almost to the door before he glances back.

"But you sure you're alright? You've got a bit of a – " he waves his hand vaguely in the direction of her face, " – thinky thing goin’ on."

She quirks an eyebrow at him. 

"A thinky thing."

"Don't make it weird," he echoes back at her.

"I'm fine, Ted. Go coach something."

“Okay, okay. Catch you later.”

______________________

By Tuesday afternoon Rebecca has been staring at the same budget spreadsheet for forty minutes and has retained absolutely nothing.

She saves it, closes her laptop, and decides that what she needs is air and a change of scenery that isn't the four walls of her office.

Over the past few weeks she has started coming down every now and then, when the walls of her office get to be too much. The atmosphere is so different from when she visits the men. It’s looser, louder, and somehow both more chaotic and more focused at once. She loves every second of it. Even though they all call her Ms. Welton, she feels much more like Rebecca during these visits. Less like the owner, more like someone who just happens to be here and is welcome.

And the women have taken to her in a way that still catches her off guard sometimes. She'd built this team from the ground up. Fought for the funding, found the players, made the case to anyone who would listen and several people who wouldn't. It’s hers in a way that even the men's team, for all her years with it, had never quite been. 

She'd expected, perhaps, a certain guardedness. 

But they’d just…let her in. Keeley jokes it’s because they all have a crush on her. But they ask her opinions occasionally. Include her without making a big deal of it. Will call her Ms. Welton in the same breath they tell her something completely inappropriate that they'd likely never say to another boss, which she takes as the highest possible compliment.

They're mid-drill and Ted is in the thick of it, whistle around his neck. She doesn't announce herself, and just watches for a bit.

A few of the players wave when they spot her. One of the defenders jogs past and says under her breath, "You know, some of us are trying very hard to be professional around you."

Rebecca smiles serenely. "And I believe in all of you."

The player groans loudly. "See? That's worse somehow."

Rebecca laughs out loud and it must be louder than she thinks, because Ted's head comes up and he finds her immediately. He must have at least sensed her standing there, because he doesn’t have to look around. She sees the moment he sees her properly. Something in his face shifts and he raises a hand in her direction.

Rebecca lifts one back to wave.

She’s about to walk over, taking half a step toward the pitch when she sees him say something to Beard without looking away from her. Beard doesn't even blink, just picks up his own whistle and steps into the drill like he'd been waiting for the handoff. 

Ted crosses the pitch toward her.

"Takin’ a break?"

"Budget spreadsheets."

"Ouch." He nods gravely. "I once spent forty minutes on a per diem form after an away game in Tulsa and came out the other side a slightly different person. Left something behind in that fluorescent-lit break room and I don't think I'm ever gettin' it back."

They stand together watching the drill, their shoulders not quite touching. One of the midfielders makes a mess of something and Ted winces sympathetically. 

"She's been doin’ that all morning." Ted says, nodding toward the midfielder. "But we're working on it. Just a little hiccup."

"She's better than she was in September."

He glances at her sideways, clearly pleased. "You've been watchin’."

"It's my team, Ted."

"I know it is."

Rebecca looks back at the pitch.

She hadn't thought about it until just now. How he crossed the grass toward her before she even finished taking a step. Even in the middle of a drill, the moment he'd spotted her he'd handed it all to Beard without a second thought and come to her. Before she'd even properly decided to go to him.

Not because she'd asked. Not because she'd indicated she wanted company. Just because she was there.

She thinks about how she had to lean over the kitchen counter. The full length of it.

Ted is saying something about the upcoming match that she realizes she missed.

"Sorry," she says. "Say that again."

He repeats himself without a second thought. They watch the drills together for a bit until someone takes a nasty fall and they both wince.

"Shoot. I’ll be back in a sec."

"Go on," she says. "I've got a spreadsheet to get back to."

"Try not to let it win."

"Ted."

Ted looks back at her over his shoulder.

"Good session."

He smiles easily at her. 

"Thanks, Boss."

_____________________

A Wednesday meeting runs long when the facilities manager gets involved. By the time it wraps it's after two and she's had nothing to eat all day other than biscuits.

Rebecca gets back to her office and starts pulling up the emails that accumulated during two hours of east stand drainage discussion, when there's a knock at her door.

Ted pokes his head in, and looks as drained as she feels. He's holding two paper bags with a small container of chips balanced in one hand.

"Please tell me you weren't just gonna skip lunch entirely," he says.

"I was going to get something in a bit."

He gives her a look that tells her he knows exactly what she meant. That she would just ignore her hunger until she gave herself a headache, and shove it down with more caffeine before going home. 

He walks in and sets one of the bags on her desk.

"I figured since we both missed it I'd grab us something. I swung by that Lebanese place you like."

"You didn't have to do that."

"I was already out." He drops into his chair and passes her a bag. 

"And I know you like the fattoush. Got you fries too, before you ask."

"I wasn't going to ask."

"You were thinkin’ it."

She was absolutely thinking it because even though she does love fattoush, and this one especially. It’s still a salad. And she always wants chips after.

When she opens the bag, the smell hits her and she realizes suddenly how hungry she actually is. She orders from this place when she can, when Matthijs isn't in town. She'd realized early on the way he looked uncomfortable around anything too strongly flavored, too unfamiliar. He’d never asked not to order it. She'd just stopped suggesting it one day and adjusted.

Ted is already eating, phone in hand, feet kicked out, completely unbothered. Not waiting for thanks. Not making anything of it.

"Ted?”

“Yeah?”

“This is delicious. Thank you."

"No sweat. How are you after that meeting?"

"Drainage," she says.

"Drainage," he agrees solemnly. "You know, I once sat through a forty-five minute presentation on soil erosion at a youth football camp in Wichita. Coach Hendricks had a laser pointer and everything. Thought that was the limit." 

He shakes his head solemnly. "I was wrong."

____________________

Rebecca is sitting comfortably on the sofa by eight that evening with a glass of wine and a book she's been pretending to read for the better part of forty minutes when her phone lights up.

She answers on the second ring.

"Hi."

His voice is clear for once. Usually these calls sound like he's being transmitted from space.

"Finally at the hotel."

"How was Rotterdam?"

"Fine. Very Rotterdam."

She smiles into her wine, knowing he wasn’t thrilled about going. 

"Hmm, a damning review."

"It's a city committed to efficiency."

"And joylessness?"

"I…didn't say that."

"You implied it."

She hears a quiet hum that passes for amusement from Matthijs. 

"Maybe a little."

Rebecca tucks her feet underneath herself on the sofa. 

"And the rep you had to meet?"

"Less insufferable than expected."

"High praise."

"For Rotterdam? Absolutely."

She hears movement on his end. A zip of a bag, the rustle of his jacket likely coming off.

"Geneva tomorrow," he says. "Zurich Friday."

"And then back here."

She feels the pause before she even hears it.

"Well. About that. I picked up Lisbon Saturday evening."

Rebecca leans her head back against the sofa cushion.

"So you won't be staying this weekend."

"I'll be through Richmond for a few hours Saturday afternoon. So we can have lunch before I head back out. If we don't make it complicated."

Not if we want to…If we don't make it complicated.

She thinks, briefly, about the restaurant she'd mentioned wanting to try. Twice now, actually.

"Alright," she says. "Lunch sounds nice."

"Good. I'll text you once I know timing. I didn’t get the paperwork yet."

She hums her reluctant agreement.

"How has the rest of your week been?"

Rebecca gives him the edited version. The budget meeting that ran long. The facilities manager and his genuinely alarming emotional investment in east stand drainage.

"He had slides," she says. "Matthijs, there were fourteen slides about a drainage ditch."

"Fourteen?"

"One of them was a graph."

"A graph of what?"

"I truly couldn't tell you. I left my body around slide nine."

That gets an actual laugh out of him and she smiles.

"Did the drainage survive?"

"The drainage, yes. My will to live remains unclear."

"Mmm. That’s very tragic. I much prefer you alive."

She smiles to herself and hums as takes another sip of wine before she tells him about scheduling problems and budget approvals and Higgins accidentally replying-all to an email chain again. It’s all easy conversation, familiar.

And then, halfway through telling him about something she saw at training earlier, another story starts to bubble up in her mind.

Ted trying to diplomatically explain to one of the younger players why threatening to fight a journalist was maybe not the ideal post-match media strategy. Beard was fully encouraging it from three feet away and the women were taking bets on who was going to end up on top.

But she stops herself before the story fully forms. It's almost instinctive now.

Not because Matthijs has ever told her not to talk about Ted. He hasn't. He's always perfectly polite about Ted, which somehow makes it worse. Just slightly too still whenever his name comes up. Too patient, his face not giving too much away, but also annoyed. Like he's indulging her need to share something harmless and faintly embarrassing.

It’s always met with a silence, where she actually hears “yes, yes, your very earnest football man. What else about him now?”

So instead she asks him something about Zurich and the conversation keeps moving along smoothly enough.

It's fine.

That's the irritating thing. Nothing is actually wrong enough to point at, or explain why she feels so offkilter

Eventually Matthijs exhales softly. 

"I should sleep. Early morning."

"Of course." She curls further into the corner of the sofa. "Safe flight tomorrow."

His voice is softer when he responds.

"Welterusten, mijn toeval."

She softens immediately at the nickname. 

The first time he'd said it, it had barely registered. Just a quiet observation to himself outside Heathrow after he'd recognized her standing there looking shell-shocked and exhausted and heartbreakingly unlike the woman he'd pulled out of a canal weeks earlier.

And then later, once they'd become something real, it had changed. It became mijn toeval. 

My coincidence.

She'd thought it was one of the most unexpectedly lovely things anyone had ever called her.

She still thinks that, if she's honest.

"Goodnight," she says quietly before they both hang up.

__________________

Rebecca tells him Thursday morning.

After biscuits, before training. She'd nearly done it yesterday, but she'd looked at the clock, decided one more day wouldn't change anything, and conveniently ignored the fact that this was at least partly because she hadn't wanted to deal with the conversation yet.

Ted's halfway to the door when she makes herself stop him.  

"Before you go…I need to tell you something about Amara."

He stops immediately and turns back.

After one quick look at her face, he walks back and sits down again.

"Fulham made an offer," she says. "For a loan. I've accepted."

Ted goes still for a second.

Not upset exactly. Just processing. His mouth presses briefly to one side while he fiddles with the water bottle in his hands.

"Ookay," he says slowly.

"I know what you're going to say."

"Well, hold on now." He points lightly at her over the rim of the mug. "I'm still gettin’ it organized in my own brain here."

She almost smiles but she’s still worried she’s going to upset him. 

"Walk me through it?"

That catches her slightly off guard.

She'd braced herself for immediate disagreement. For Ted to come in emotionally first and thoughtfully second. But instead he's asking her to explain before he decides how he feels about it.

"The loan fee is substantial," she says. "Enough to actually help with the facility costs. I've spent most of this week trying to avoid touching the playing budget at all, but this was the cleanest option."

Ted nods once, listening properly.

"You’ve been sittin’ with it for a while."

"Yes."

"Alright."

He leans forward, elbows on his knees.

"So. I wanna say something, and I need you to know I'm sayin’ it as information. Not me throwin’ a fit."

"I would never accuse you of throwing a fit."

"You clearly have not seen me assemble IKEA furniture."

That gets a small laugh out of her.

Then he sobers again.

"She's close, Rebecca." His voice softens slightly. 

"Like...real close. I've been watchin’ her every day and you can feel somethin’ clickin’. She's reading the pitch better, she's talkin’ more, she's trustin’ herself quicker. Couple more months and I think we're lookin’ at a totally different player."

He rubs a hand over his jaw.

"And selfishly? I kinda don't want Fulham gettin’ that version first."

"I know."

"You know?"

"I think you're right."

That clearly surprises him.

"Okay, so then my follow-up question becomes…why are we helpin’ Fulham?"

"Because the numbers don't care whether I like the decision."

She says it simply. She spent the entire week trying to find another solution, and this was the only thing left standing. Staring them in the face.

"I looked everywhere else first. I pushed everything I could push."

Ted watches her for a moment, and she sees him recalibrating slightly. Hopefully realizing she didn't arrive here casually.

"I wasn't implyin’ you didn't," he says gently.

"I know you weren't."

"And there really isn't another way to get there?"

"If there were, I would've taken it."

Ted leans back with a long exhale, hands braced on his knees.

"I just really hate losin’ players right when they start believin’ in themselves."

Rebecca feels something twist quietly in her chest at that.

Not because he's disagreeing with her, because now she sees what he's worried about.

Not budget. Not politics. Not optics.

Amara.

"She's coming back in January," Rebecca says. "That's written in. So is the first refusal if anyone tries to buy her permanently."

Ted's eyebrows lift slightly.

"Oh."

"And if Fulham spends six months polishing her into a nightmare for the rest of the league, frankly I'm not going to be upset if they do it on their payroll instead of mine."

He laughs. 

“Dang. I didn’t know I missed that when I was gone.”

“Missed what?”

“Watchin’ you figure out how to spin everything to our advantage. Little shark in the water.”

She raises an appreciative eyebrow at that. 

“I’m certain I’ve always been a shark.”

“Yeah, but now you’re usin’ your powers for good.”

She rolls her eyes, but she can feel the last of the tension easing out of her shoulders.

"Okay," he says after a moment. "I still don't love it."

"I know."

"But I trust you." He says it so easily. "And if you say you looked at every angle, then you did."

His words shouldn’t impact her as much as they do. But there was a time where disagreement between them felt like something dangerous. 

Now Ted pushes back without making her feel attacked.

And she explains herself without feeling cornered.

Nobody withdraws. They just...talk it through. 

"She'd better come back terrifying," Ted says, standing and reaching for his jacket.

"That's the goal."

He points at her.

"And if she scores against us, this becomes entirely your fault."

"I'll accept responsibility."

"Darn right you will."

He heads for the door, then pauses.

"For what it's worth? I know you don’t like makin’ these calls."

Rebecca looks up at him.

Ted shrugs one shoulder. "Heavy is the head and all that."

Then he smiles softly at her and disappears down the hall toward training.

Rebecca sits back in her chair after he's gone.

She finds herself thinking about the last disagreement she'd had with Matthijs. She honestly can't remember what it had been about now. Something small, clearly forgettable.

But what she does remember is the feeling of it ending before it was over. Matthijs turning slightly away while she was still talking. Like it just wasn’t worth the energy anymore.

And then it was over.

But Ted had sat back down without being asked to listen to her.

He'd listened, argued with her properly, and then he'd trusted her judgement.

____________________

The Thursday afternoon check-in runs long in the way meetings only can when Higgins has come prepared with handouts.

There are six of them crammed around the small conference table. Rebecca, Ted, Beard, Higgins, the women's team physio, and the head of facilities, who has apparently returned to continue his deeply personal war against drainage issues despite Rebecca’s insistence that it was unnecessary. 

"And if the runoff continues at the current angle," the facilities manager says, pointing to a diagram none of them fully understand, "we risk long-term saturation beneath the east stand."

Ted goes very still next to her and she knows he’s trying extremely hard to behave.

Rebecca doesn't look at him immediately. She can feel it anyway…the tiny shift in his chair, the breath he very carefully does not turn into a sigh.

Higgins nods seriously. Beard looks fascinated, which honestly tracks.

Rebecca finally glances sideways to find Ted already looking at her.

His expression is perfectly neutral except for his eyes, which are very clearly sending her a message. 

Rebecca. I am one drainage graph away from leavin’ this meeting and becoming a cowboy.

She presses her lips together to stop herself from laughing and tries to tell him to behave. 

Somewhere around minute ninety-seven, Higgins starts discussing fixture congestion and recovery windows while the physio flips through injury reports. Ted contributes thoughtfully for several minutes, fully engaged again, until the facilities manager circles back with what he calls "one final point" and what Rebecca privately suspects is actually his seventeenth.

Ted's pen stops moving.

Rebecca doesn't even need to look this time.

"I appreciate the thoroughness," she says smoothly before the man can launch into another explanation. "But unless the pitch is planning to float away entirely, I think we can revisit the rest next week."

The facilities manager blinks, mildly deflated.

Ted coughs into his hand, covering up the laugh she knows he wants to let out. Beard stares very intently at the ceiling, fingers steepled in front of him.

Higgins clears his throat. 

"Right! Excellent. Well. I think that's everything."

Chairs slide back almost immediately and everyone starts to file out. 

Rebecca gathers her folder while Higgins catches Ted with a question about the weekend fixture.

"Now, Ted, about this weekend’s travel timing -"

"Oh yeah, we were thinkin’ maybe leave a little earlier."

Rebecca slips around the end of the table toward the door.

Ted, still mid-conversation, reaches back automatically and opens it for her without looking. His hand lands briefly at the small of her back as she passes, lingering a touch longer than he’s ever let happen before. She realizes he was making sure it didn’t swing back before she was prepared. 

She makes it three steps down the corridor before her brain catches up with what just happened, but keeps walking.

It shouldn’t set her so off-kilter, it was just a gentle hand. But now she's aware of the exact place his hand had been.

And worse, she realizes that this is not remotely the first time Ted has touched her like that.

He's always been casually affectionate. A hand at her back through a crowded room. Fingers brushing her elbow to steer her away from a collision. A quick squeeze to her shoulder after a difficult meeting. Ted is so tactile that she’s just come to accept it. It doesn’t bother her at all, and she was honestly so touch deprived she started to appreciate it along the way.

None of it ever meant anything.

At least it hadn't.

Now, though, her brain has apparently decided to catalogue every single one retroactively.

Which feels deeply unfair.

She reaches her office, shuts the door behind her, and sets the folder down on her desk with great care.

Then just stands there for a second.

It was nothing.

Honestly, truly, objectively nothing.

The kind of thing friends do. Colleagues do. People who've known each other for years do without thinking.

Ted especially.

She knows that.

She also knows Matthijs has never once touched her like that in passing. Never guided her through a doorway without thinking about it first. Never reached for her absentmindedly, like connection was instinct instead of intention.

Rebecca sinks slowly into her chair.

____________________

Rebecca can’t help herself. She wasn’t going to ask. Was going to let it all go after she talked to Keeley on Sunday. 

But she can’t. 

What else did I say?

Three minutes pass before Keeley finally responds.

???

That night. At the pub. What else did I say when you put me in the car?

Oh!
Honestly babe it was a little incoherent. Just that you kissed Ted, and I wasn’t supposed to ask you about it.
You were very insistent though.

Do you think it was terrible? Is that why I told you not to say anything?

I definitely do not think it was terrible.

What does that mean?

Here. This will be easier than trying to describe it.

One second later, her phone pings with another message from Keeley. But this time a photo is attached. 

Rebecca's thumb hovers over it for a second before she opens it.

It's slightly blurry, taken quickly and at an angle, clearly candid. But it's unmistakably her and Ted, in the back corner of the pub. 

His hand is curved around her jaw and her fingers are buried in his hair. They're pressed close together, tucked into their own little pocket of space while the rest of the pub blurs around them.

And the thing that hits her hardest is that neither of them looks surprised.

Ted is leaning into her like he forgot there was a room around them. Rebecca's chin is tilted up toward him, her entire body soft in a way she barely recognizes as herself.

It doesn't look accidental.

She stares at it for a long moment.

You've had this the whole time.

Uh, yeah. Protected it with my life. Roy hasn’t even seen it.
I was worried you might sense it if I told.

Keeley.

You told me not to say anything!! You didn't say anything about photographic evidence!!

That is an extremely convenient loophole.

I thought so too 🥐

Stop sending me that croissant.

Never. I'm putting it as your contact. 
Are you okay?

Rebecca looks at the photo one more time.

     "We're comin' back to that," he'd said.

She stares at the ceiling for a while.

I have absolutely no idea.

______________________

It isn't until Rebecca is in the shower that she realizes she isn't looking forward to lunch with Matthijs.

Not in a dread sort of way. More like there’s an absence of something she would normally feel. She likes Saturday lunches. She likes long meals and nice restaurants and the feeling of nowhere else to be afterward. And Matthijs is easy company, it’s something she has always loved about him. There isn’t any reason for her to not be looking forward to it. 

Rebecca rinses the shampoo from her hair and stands there for another moment, trying to figure out the feeling she normally has before seeing him.

Nothing overwhelming.

Just…pleasantness. Obligation, maybe. Familiarity.

She turns the water off.

A few minutes later she's standing at the bathroom mirror in a towel, hair wrapped up loosely when unexpectedly her brain offers Ted.

The biscuit box on her desk like usual. Ted in the chair opposite hers like he belonged there, making her laugh.  Forty minutes that had somehow become the easiest part of her week.

The way he'd handed everything to Beard and crossed the pitch before she'd even finished deciding to go to him. That soft look that crossed his face when he spotted her unexpectedly.

A late lunch and paper bags on her desk. Her meal was exactly how she would order it herself. 

His hand brushing the small of her back as he passed behind her chair.

But then she reminds herself of Thursday night.

Welterusten, mijn toeval.

Matthijs hasn't done anything wrong. He's kind enough. Thoughtful in the ways he knows how to be. She does care for him.

But this week, an ordinary, busy, completely unremarkable week, she had felt more like herself than she had in months.

Maybe longer.

And Ted had somehow been threaded through all of it.

Her wardrobe is organized the way it has always been organized. By color and occasion and some internal system that would look entirely deranged to anyone else. Rebecca knows exactly where everything is without needing to think about it.

Which is why it catches her off guard.

Her hand goes automatically toward the side she reaches for when Matthijs is in town. Higher necklines. Softer silhouettes. Things that are still elegant, still expensive, still clearly her purchases…just quieter somehow. Smoothed down around the edges.

Contained.

Her fingers hover there for a second before stopping completely.

Rebecca stands very still in the middle of the wardrobe.

When did I start doing that?

It wasn’t intentional. Matthijs had never once looked at one of her dresses and told her not to wear it. Never frowned, or criticized. Never asked her to make herself smaller.

And yet somewhere along the way she'd developed categories.

Things she wore when he was here.
Things she wore when he wasn't.

The realization makes her pause.

She looks past the section of more conservative clothing her hand had reached for automatically and her eyes catch on the pink dress she'd worn to the women's season opener. She remembers exactly how she'd felt in it. Bright and sharp and entirely herself, walking onto the pitch like she'd built the whole damn thing with her bare hands.

Ted had looked at her and immediately said something entirely too complimentary. It was just a dress. But she will never forget the way his eyes lit up when he saw her.

Her gaze shifts further down the rail and Rebecca pulls the brown dress free before she can think too much about it.

It's not revealing exactly, it has a square neckline for god's sake. It's just fitted. Just hers and looks good on her. The kind of thing she'd wear without thinking on any other Saturday. The kind of thing she'd apparently stopped wearing without ever deciding to.

Rebecca holds it against herself for a moment and feels something uncomfortable twist quietly under her ribs.

Because suddenly she can see the pattern of it.

The small edits.

The constant smoothing-over.

Nothing dramatic. Just tiny adjustments accumulating so slowly she'd mistaken them for basic pieces of an adult relationship.

She thinks about Amsterdam and where it all started. That night on his houseboat had loosened something in her that had needed loosening. Matthijs cooking her dinner, the music from the radio, the two of them singing something terrible and laughing about it. She'd been soaking wet and phoneless and completely unguarded and it had been…gezellig, he'd called it. 

And he'd been right. It had been gezellig.

But it had taken falling into a canal and losing her phone for her to be that version of herself with him. 

She has never once needed to lose anything to be herself around Ted.

Rebecca lays the dress on the bed and sits beside it.

She lies back on the mattress and stares at the ceiling.

Matthijs is a good man. She knows that. He'd pulled her out of a canal and dried her clothes and made her dinner and not asked for anything in return, and that was who he was. Even if it was awkward and weird at first. 

He just doesn't see her. Not the way she needs to be seen. Not the way she hadn't even known she needed until she started paying attention to what it felt like when someone actually did.

But goodness and rightness are not always the same thing.

And somewhere along the way she'd started mistaking pleasant for fulfilled. She hasn't been fully herself in this relationship for longer than she'd like to admit. Not because he'd asked her not to be. Just because she'd quietly adjusted a little bit each day to make life easier.

Rebecca sits up and looks at the dress beside her again.

Then she looks at the mirror across the room, seeing her hair still loose and towel dried. Free over her shoulders, just waiting to be pinned back the way Matthijs is used to seeing it.

In that moment, she decides to leave it down and picks up the dress.

_____________________

Forty minutes later she stands on the pavement outside the restaurant.

Through the window she can see Matthijs already at the table,  punctual, as always. Jacket on. Phone face-up beside his water glass, while he waits for her to arrive.

She looks at him for a moment through the glass.

He is exactly who he has always been. That's not the problem. It never was.

She pulls the door open and steps inside.

Matthijs stands when he sees her, the way he always does. Kisses her cheek, holds her chair, like he’s checking boxes on a list. No soft endearment or greeting. 

He sits back down and looks at her across the table.

"I haven't seen that dress before."

She smooths the fabric slightly over her thigh. 

"No. I suppose I haven't worn it around you…I'm not sure why."

"It suits you." 

She thanks him softly and picks up her menu. They order easily and efficiently, mindful of his timeline and schedule. 

"Rotterdam was fine?" she asks.

"Efficient," he says dryly, pouring water into her glass before his own. "Geneva was better.”

"And Lisbon?"

His mouth tilts slightly. "Smooth flight. Good crew."

"Good."

The word leaves her automatically.

Good.

She hears herself say it and suddenly realizes how much of their relationship lives inside words like that.

Good.
Fine.
Nice.
Pleasant.

Not bad. Just…good.

And for a long time that had felt like the right choice to her.

After Rupert, Matthijs had felt like stepping into still water. No games. No manipulation. No exhausting unpredictability.

He'd been calm. Reliable. Even easy.

When their food arrives, the conversation continues easily enough. He tells her a story about a nightmare customs delay in Lisbon that makes her laugh, and it’s all pleasant. 

Rebecca lifts her wine glass, then sets it back down before drinking.

"Are you happy?" she asks suddenly.

Matthijs looks up.

"With us," she clarifies softly. "Honestly."

He goes still for a moment.

Then he sets his fork down carefully beside his plate.

This might be her favorite thing about him. He doesn’t rush to give an easy answer. He considers his words before responding. And because of that, she knows whatever he says will be the truth. 

"I think," he says slowly, "that I am content."

The honesty of it hits her harder than reassurance would've.

Rebecca nods once.

"That's what I thought."

"And you?" he asks quietly.

She looks down at the tablecloth for a second before answering.

"I think I've been calling myself content for a very long time," she says. "And I think somewhere along the way I started mistaking that for being happy."

Matthijs watches her steadily.

"Tell me," he says.

Rebecca takes a breath, exhaling as she considers how to voice her thoughts honestly, but without hurting him. 

"I love who we are on paper," she says first, because it feels important to say that part honestly. "You're very kind. You're steady. You never make me feel small or controlled or managed. After my marriage, that mattered more than I can explain."

He stays quiet, listening.

"And I do care about you," she continues. "Very much. And this relationship is important.”

"But lately..." She searches carefully for the right words. "I've started realizing how much of myself I've been quietly editing without even meaning to."

His brow furrows slightly.

"The clothes I wear when you're around. The things I stop bringing up because I know they don't interest you. The stories I keep to myself. The way I tamp down pieces of myself without ever consciously deciding to."

"Rebecca."

"And you never asked me to," she says gently, shaking her head. “I know that. I’m not blaming you. I just think we've become very good at being comfortable together. But I don't think comfortable is the same thing as right."

"So where does that leave us?" he asks.

Rebecca feels the sadness of it then. An ache of something ending that had once genuinely helped heal her.

She looks at him carefully.

"I think," she says, very gently, "that we've been trying to make a good relationship into the right relationship."

The quiet between them feels endless, but she continues.

"And I don't think it's fair to either of us to keep pretending that's enough anymore."

Matthijs gives her a long, slow nod, but doesn’t respond yet. She can feel her nerves swirling. Not about ending this, but in concern that maybe she hasn’t protected him as much as she could have. That she’s hurt him still. 

“When we met, and then when I found you again at Heathrow, I was exhausted. Everything in my life had become so loud and complicated and painful.”

Rebecca looks down at her hands for a moment. 

"I was so lost. A shell of myself, really. And then there you were. A refuge from my storm.”

His expression softens slightly at that.

Rebecca turns her wine glass slowly between her fingers.

“But somewhere along the way, I started losing myself and who I really am. And instead of finding my way back, I've just let myself wander further and further away."

She pauses there, trying to untangle something that's felt knotted inside her all week.

"This..." She gestures lightly toward herself. "This is who I am."

Matthijs looks briefly confused. His eyes move over her. She watches him look at her dress, her loose hair, the version of her sitting across from him now. A version he's seen pieces of before, but never quite all at once.

"You needed to change your clothes?" he asks carefully.

Rebecca almost laughs, because it’s so literal.

"No. That's the point." She shakes her head. "These are clothes I already owned. I just stopped wearing them."

His brow furrows.

"I don't think I understand."

"I know."

She takes a breath.

"I've been so focused on not rocking the boat. On being easy, or low-maintenance, being the version of myself that fits most neatly into what we are. I stopped noticing I was doing it. And I don't think that's fair. To you or to me."

"Because of Ted."

Rebecca's head lifts immediately.

"No. That isn't why. This is about me."

"But you are yourself around him."

She opens her mouth and stops.

Because denying it would be ridiculous.

Matthijs gestures lightly toward her.

"These clothes. Your hair. You are different with him. More..." He searches briefly. "Present."

Rebecca looks away.

"Yes," she says quietly.

Neither of them says anything for a moment. She looks at the tablecloth, and he waits before finally responding.

"You were different the first night we met."

Rebecca lets out a short breath of laughter. "Well. I had fallen into a canal and ended up stranded on a stranger's houseboat."

"No." A faint smile touches his face. "I mean ja, obviously. But after." He watches her carefully. "Do you remember the word I taught you?"

She looks up.

"The first night. On the boat."

She feels a small ache move through her chest.

"Gezellig."

"That night was gezellig," he says. "You were warm. Open. Entirely there. And we haven't really had that again," he says quietly.

She wants to argue with him. Wants to say real life is different from one strange magical night in Amsterdam.

"No. I suppose not. But, we've been in real life. Not a holiday."

"True." He nods once. "But with Ted, you still have it."

Rebecca closes her eyes briefly.

"Matthijs..."

"I know this is not about him," he says gently. "I know. But I am telling you something difficult because I think you need someone to say it honestly."

She looks back up at him.

"You are alive around him."

Matthijs leans back slightly, studying her with a kind of quiet acceptance now.

"I think maybe I knew before you did."

Rebecca feels her throat tighten unexpectedly.

"I never wanted to compete with that," he says softly. "And I do not think you should spend your life trying to quiet yourself into comfort."

For a moment neither of them says anything.

Then Matthijs stands slowly from the table.

Rebecca looks up at him, startled.

He leans down and presses a gentle kiss to the top of her head.

"It's okay, Rebecca."

She closes her eyes briefly.

"You are mijn toeval," he says quietly. "But you and Ted..." He gives her a small smile. 

"Voor elkaar bestemd."

Made for each other.

Rebecca looks up at him, her heart aching strangely with gratitude and grief all at once.

And Matthijs gives her one last soft look like he is letting her go before she even fully knows how to ask for it.

That a man she’d spent over a year with had seen something in her she still hadn’t quite managed to say out loud herself.

Rebecca laughs softly over the whole situation. 

Only Matthijs could make this feel graceful.

Her mind drifts to a pub and a brick wall and a kiss that her mind had blocked out.

To Ted crossing rooms for her without hesitation. Opening doors. Looking for her first in every space.

Choosing her in all of the small ways that really matter.

Rebecca picks up her bag.

Then she goes to find him.

______________________

Rebecca doesn't call ahead. 

Ted answers the door in a Kansas City Chiefs t-shirt and joggers, holding a mug, looking genuinely surprised but not displeased.

"Hey! This is a surprise. Come on in." He steps back and opens the door wider. "I was just making coffee. Well, I was making coffee and then watching it get cold because I forgot about it. But I can heat some up if you’d like.”

"I'm okay."

"Okay. Yeah." He closes the door, reads her face and sets his mug down. 

He takes her in, and she can feel his eyes trail over the dress, the way her hair is loose over her shoulders. And his eyes soften a bit.

"Hey," he says again, softer this time.

"Hi."

"You look – are you okay?"

"I broke up with Matthijs."

Ted goes quiet for a moment. She watches him as he processes, and sees the slight adjustment in his posture.

"That's…huh. Well – shoot." He looks at her again carefully. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, actually."

"Yeah?" He tilts his head slightly like he’s trying to read her face.

"Okay. Good. I'm glad. I mean – I'm sorry, obviously, if you're – are you sure you're okay? Because you don't have to be."

"Ted. I'm genuinely fine."

She watches him fidget for a bit, his lips twisting before he looks back up at her.

“I'm gonna be honest with you." He spins the mug on the counter. 

“Go on then.”

"It's not, uh. It's not a real huge loss for me, personally. Which I recognize is maybe not the most supportive thing to lead with, and I want you to know I did consider keepin' that to myself."

"And yet."

"And yet here we are." 

He palms the back of his neck and looks at her almost apologetically. Like she’s the one getting broken up with now.

"Look. I tried, Rebecca. I genuinely tried to like the guy. I gave it every shot. Keeley would tell you, I said probably fifteen nice things about him out loud just to see if any of them would stick."

"Did they?"

"He's tall," Ted offers. "And he seems to understand how planes work, which, honestly, good for him. Because you know how I feel about them." 

“Tin can with wings that defy logic.”

“Bingo. But I'll tell you, it didn't exactly help that he isn't real fond of me either. Which, fine, not everybody has to like me, I've made peace with that. But he's still annoyed I can't say his name right. Every single time I try he does that little thing he does with his jaw." 

Ted does a brief, remarkably accurate impression of Matthijs’ polite contained irritation. 

"And I tried. I took a run at it probably forty times, but there are sounds in that name that I don't think my mouth was built to make."

Rebecca presses her lips together to keep from smiling.

"Anyway." He waves a hand. "My point is. Nice and kind aren't the same word, even if they live pretty close together in the dictionary. And he might've been nice enough. But he wasn't kind to you. Not really."

She practically holds her breath for fear of distracting him, because she needs to know. Every thought Ted has about why Matthijs was wrong for her.

“I mean, come on. You've been seein’ him for how long now? And he still orders you things with mushrooms in them. Every time. I've seen it happen. You move 'em to the side of the plate and eat around them like you're defusin’ a bomb and he never even bothered to notice." 

Ted looks positively indignant on her behalf. 

"I clocked it in about a week and a half. I know it, Keeley knows it. I'm pretty sure the boys even know it because they were sayin’ how happy they were that you never set event menus with mushrooms. It's not hard information to learn about a person you're supposed to care about."

"The mushrooms," she repeats.

"And don't even get me started on the Green." He points vaguely toward the window. "That section on the east side? With the old fella and his noodles?"

"God."

"You hate the smell. You cross the street before you even get close, every single time, and somehow the man who is dating you never noticed?” He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but that's not paying attention. That's somebody who isn't watching."

She goes quiet. Something in his voice has shifted from exasperated into something more careful.

"And I never, not once, saw him bring somethin’ to you. A coffee, a snack when you were busy, or givin’ in on a compromise when y’all couldn’t decide. It was always you going to him. Leaning in, working for it, making up the distance. And I'd watch that and think –" He stops. Looks at his hands. "Well. It doesn't matter what I thought."

"Ted."

"I'm real sorry I never said anything. I wasn't sure…I dunno." He looks at her properly. "I've been back a little while now and I'm always worried I'm gonna mess it up. Say the wrong thing."

"Mess what up?"

"Us. Our friendship." The words come out quieter than the rest. "You finally got us back on the track and I'm one wrong step away from going back to Kansas and hatin’ my life. So I kept my mouth shut about the fact that your freakishly tall, overly skilled pilot boyfriend was, in my personal opinion, kind of a jerk."

She looks at him for a moment.

"God. Both you and Keeley." She exhales a short laugh. "Is there anyone else who didn't like him and was just afraid to tell me?"

Ted opens his mouth. Closes it.

“Nevermind. Don’t tell me.”

Rebecca lets the silence settle around them, and his words fall into place one by one.

And before she can stop herself from overthinking it, before she can explain it away, she understands. She understands why she’s been cataloging how Ted has been treating her for the past few weeks. She understands why the kiss the other day disappointed her so much. 

Why nothing with Matthijs ever quite fit the way it was supposed to

"Ted."

"Yeah?"

"We kissed."

Ted looks a bit uncomfortable, but also confused. 

"I mean, yeah. I kinda knew that Rebecca."

"No. You and me. We kissed."

"You didn't hit your head did you?"

Rebecca walks over to him and takes his face in her hands. She isn't even done leaning in all the way when he closes the last inch before she can.

It's slow and soft.

Her hands tighten slightly where they’re holding his face, feeling the line of his jaw shift under her palms, the faint scrape of stubble as her thumbs move over his cheeks.

Ted's arms wrap around her waist and pull her in, and she catches a soft sound from his mouth with her own. 

It’s right, and easy, and she knows instantly she’s made the right decision. Ted follows when she presses in, gives when she eases back, a quiet push and pull that feels less like figuring it out and more like they’ve already got it right.

When Rebecca finally pulls away, she slides her fingers through his hair, drags them along his scalp slowly, and his eyes stay closed for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth starts pulling into a smile.

“We kissed.”

“Mmhmm.”

“At the pub.”

“Yes.”

Rebecca becomes aware, gradually, that her fingers are still moving through his hair.

Ted opens one eye. "You okay up there?"

"I forgot what this was like," she says, almost to herself.

"Kissin' someone?"

"Hair." 

Her fingers card through once more, completely without her permission, but she can’t help herself.

Ted opens both eyes. Looks at her. Looks up, toward where her fingers still are. Then back at her face, slow and knowing.

"I cannot believe I spent all that time workin' on my personality. When it’s my hair that’s doin’ it for you."

"That's not –" She laughs. "That's not what I meant."

"No, no, I get it." He nods sagely. "The emotional availability, the biscuits, the years of genuine investment in you as a person. That’s all fine, sure, but the hair is what sealed it."

"Ted."

"I just want to make sure I understand the assignment goin’ forward."

"You are insufferable."

"Insufferable with great hair," he corrects, and she laughs again, and he looks so pleased with himself it's almost criminal.

"For what it's worth," she says, when she's recovered, fingers still threaded through it, not even pretending anymore, "it is genuinely very good hair."

He goes just slightly pink, which she finds enormously satisfying.

"Well." He clears his throat. "Thank you."

"You’re very welcome."

His eyes are warm and his arms still haven't moved from around her waist and she thinks she could stay here a while. Then his expression shifts, and his eyes fly open. 

“Shoot. Did you break up because we kissed? Did he find out? He didn’t get mad at you, did he? I can talk to him. Let him know it was all my fault. I had too much to drink with the team, got excited.”

“Ted. I broke up with him, remember?”

“You - oh.”

“It wasn’t because of the pub.” She steps back just enough to look at him properly, though his hands don’t quite let go of her.

“I was kissing him that morning, and I had to lean the entire length of the counter to get there. And he just…stood there. Waiting. Making me come to him.”

She watches Ted’s face.

"That's how I remembered we kissed at the pub. It triggered something in me and I kept coming back to you, to that kiss. And I kept telling myself I was being unfair. That I was romanticizing something that wasn't there. That you were my friend and I was being ridiculous. But then I started noticing things. For a few weeks now. Small things, mostly. That I probably should have noticed earlier, but once I admitted them to myself, I couldn’t ignore them anymore.” 

"Like what?" he asks quietly.

"Like how I have never once had to cross a room alone to get to you. Like how differently I carry myself when you're around. How I've never once felt like I needed to perform anything for you, or be a tidier version of myself, or…dress for armor instead of just getting dressed. I'm just…me with you. And you never seemed to mind."

"I very much did not mind," he says quietly.

"And every disagreement I've had with him, he just turns away. Mid-sentence, suddenly he’s done engaging. Like he's already decided the conversation's finished." She shakes her head slightly. 

"You have never done that. Not once. Even when it was hard. Even when I was –"

She stops herself from visiting the past version of herself. 

“You always stay in it. And the only time you didn’t look at me,” she says, softer now, “was the day I asked you to stay. And even then I could tell it was hard for you.”

“Rebecca.”

“I’m not saying that to make you feel guilty. Truly. I’m saying it because I think I’ve been measuring everyone against you for a very long time without realizing that’s what I was doing.”

Ted looks at her for a long moment, before he takes a breath.

"I thought about you," he says finally. "When I was in Kansas. More than I probably should've, given that I was supposed to be focusin' on Henry and gettin' my head right. But I thought about you a lot."

"And?"

"And I came back to Richmond." His smile is slow and a little uneven, and she wants to kiss it off his face. 

“I think maybe I was always comin’ back. You just sped the process up a little.”

“You know,” she says softly, “that’s a little unfair to say to a woman who’s just broken up with someone.”

Ted’s mouth twitches. “Yeah, well. In my defense, I’ve been holdin’ onto that one for a real long time. And I’m startin’ to think you came here for a reason.”

Her laugh is short, but fond, and then she kisses him again.

This kiss is different.

Ted’s hands slide more firmly around her waist this time, pulling her closer until there’s barely space left between them. Rebecca feels the warmth of him through the thin fabric of his shirt, solid and familiar and suddenly very distracting.

His mouth curves against hers when she leans into him and she can feel the smile sliding over his face.

“What?” she murmurs against his mouth.

“Nothin’.”

“You’re smiling.”

“I am kissin’ the woman I’ve been in love with for what feels like forty-seven years, Rebecca. I physically cannot stop smiling.”

Her breath catches.

Ted seems to realize what he’s said about half a second too late. “Well,” he says carefully, “shoot.”

“Forty-seven years?”

“I panicked and picked a number.”

“It’s been five.”

“Then emotionally it has been a very long five.”

She shakes her head, smiling and slides her hands up into his hair again because she just can’t help herself.

When she tugs slightly Ted makes a quiet sound at the back of his throat that goes straight through her.

“Oh,” she says softly, delighted. “You like that.”

His eyes close briefly. “Rebecca.”

“I’ll be making a note of that.”

He kisses her before she can say anything else, The kiss turns slower after that. Unhurried. 

Ted’s thumb brushes once along her side over the fabric of her dress, and she melts a little closer without meaning to.

His forehead rests lightly against hers when they finally part.

“So,” he says quietly, still a little breathless, “I’m tryin’ very hard to be respectful of the fact that you had kind of a big day today.”

Rebecca’s mouth curves slightly. “I didn’t think that would be difficult for you.”

“Rebecca.” His hands tighten gently at her waist. “You just showed up at my door lookin’ like this and told me you picked me. I’m doin’ my best here.”

Her fingers slide into his hair again, slower this time, and Ted’s eyes close briefly on instinct.

“I did pick you,” she says softly.

He looks at her then with something so open it nearly undoes her.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rougher now. “I think maybe that’s gonna take me a minute to recover from.”

Rebecca kisses him before he can say anything else.

When they pull apart, Ted brushes his nose lightly against hers, smiling now, smaller and softer than before.

“Hi,” he murmurs.

Rebecca laughs quietly, knowing she never stood a chance of avoiding this. “Hello.”

And when he kisses her again, slow and certain and happy, she goes willingly, her hands still in his hair while Richmond carries on outside entirely unaware that anything in the world has changed at all.

Ted smiles against her mouth halfway through the kiss, like he physically can’t help it.

“What?” Rebecca murmurs, lips brushing his.

“Nothin’. Just thinkin’ about how mad Beard’s gonna be that he didn’t bet on this happenin’ sooner.”

Rebecca laughs softly. “Keeley’s going to be unbearable.”

Ted pulls back just enough to look at her. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

“She knows?”

“She has photographic evidence, actually.”

Ted goes completely still. “Keeley has a picture of us kissin’?”

“In the pub, yes.”

“Lord have mercy.” He drops his forehead briefly to her shoulder. “That woman is gonna hold this over me till the day I die.”

Rebecca smiles into his hair. “Probably.”

Ted looks back up at her then, eyes bright and a little disbelieving all over again.

“Pretty sure you’re worth it, though.”

And standing there in Ted’s kitchen, Rebecca thinks that maybe finding herself again was always going to lead her here.

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