Given how much Rebecca is looking forward to seeing Ted stop in (and to get her hands on those biscuits) it's a measure of how terrible he looks that when he walks through the door to her office, the first thing that Rebecca blurts out is, "Good God, Ted, you look like shit."

Ted gives her a crooked half-smile. "Don't sugarcoat it for me now, boss." But even his smile can't distract from the sweat on his forehead, or the unnatural paleness of his face.

"You look like you're about to puke," Rebecca tells him, taking the small pink box of biscuits from his hand but not immediately digging in, instead watching him with concern.

He waves it off. "Not food poisoning, just a bad spell of heartburn. Took some antacids just now, they'll kick in soon."

Rebecca eyes him warily, but Ted doesn't seem worried at all. "If you're sure," she says. "Just sit down here on the couch, take a minute."

Ted waves the offer off, which is typical for him—Rebecca once saw him try to coach a Champions League match through a fever of 39C, it just figures that he wouldn't want to take it easy over some heartburn. "Nah, I'm fine, I just wanted to drop off your biscuits and see how that breakfast meeting with the minority owners went."

Rebecca sighs and bites into her biscuit, sighing with pleasure as the buttery shortbread melts on her tongue. "In a word, hideously. Half of them think the club will be ruined if we don't sell naming rights to the stadium, half think the club's traditions will be destroyed if we change the name from Nelson Road to, I don't know, Virgin Airlines or whatever. Not that I'd ever dream of selling the naming rights to Richard Branson, mind you."

Ted wrinkles his nose. "Virgin Stadium? Doesn't really give off the right image, does it."

Rebecca laughs, and does her best to ignore the way that Ted is rubbing at his sternum. He hates being fussed over, she knows, so she won't try. Better to keep him chatting with her in her office, and keep an eye on him that way.

"And it's not like technically, they could stop you if you did want to sell the naming rights, or force you to sell them if you didn't want to," Ted continues on. "You're still the majority owner. Seems like a lot of commotion over nothing."

Rebecca pulls a face. "It is and it isn't. The issue is that ever since Bex decided to 'take an interest' in the club," she punctuates this with a roll of her eyes, "—she's managed to whip up Rupert's old cronies into kicking and fussing over every little thing. And they aren't wrong to be concerned about how we'll pay for redeveloping the stadium. I just wish I didn't have to listen to their wittering in order to prevent them from leaking bullshit stories to the press."

Ted's nodding sympathetically, leaning against one of the chairs with his arm bracing his weight. "Want me to tag along next time you have a meeting?"

Rebecca smiles at him ruefully. "I really shouldn't take advantage of the fact that you have them eating all out of your hand," she says. The one thing that the minority owners can all agree on is their worship of Ted and their desperate fear that someday, the strange American coach that led Richmond to winning the Premier League title four years ago and has kept them consistently in the race for a Champions League spot ever since will decide to leave, either for another club or worse, for America.

Ted shrugs one shoulder. "Eh, you know I don't mind rubbing shoulders with them, especially if it's for a good cause."

"The only good cause would be to keep me from grinding my teeth into nubs," Rebecca retorts.

"Exactly," Ted says, and laughs—but the laughter is cut off with a grimace, as he presses his fist against his chest again.

"Ted?" Rebecca says after a moment, when his expression doesn't ease up. Ted's gaze flickers back up to her, and he tries to smile.

"It's nothing," he insists, but he's breathing heavier now, and Rebecca sees him flexing his free hand as though it hurts.

"Ted, just come and sit down for a moment," she tries, halfway rising up out of her seat, a prickle of worry running down her spine. If this is another panic attack, like the one she saw in Liverpool years ago...

But then Ted looks at her, wide-eyed, his face absolutely grey, and he utters faintly, "I think—I think I'm going," before toppling over onto his knees.

The next few moments feel like an eternity, even though Rebecca will later know they took no more than a few seconds—her shriek of alarm, rushing forward to catch Ted before he hits his head on the floor, unable to believe this is happening even as she cradles his head in her hands, Ted staring wordlessly up at her, his eyes filled with fear as he gasps for air.

“You’re fine, darling, it’s all fine,” Rebecca says inanely, even as she tears herself away just long enough to grab her phone and dial 999 with shaking fingers.

Everything after that takes on the unreal quality of a nightmare, from getting Ted into the recovery position, the 999 operator on the phone mechanically telling her to stay calm, to see if she can find Ted’s pulse, all the while listening to Ted’s ragged, shallow breathing.

“I can’t find it,” she says, voice rising with panic. “I can’t, he isn’t—”

“If he’s still breathing, his pulse is there, it’s likely just going too fast for you to feel it,” the operator says soothingly.

“Oh God,” Rebecca says, choking on the words. “Ted, darling, just look at me, it’s going to be just fine—”

Distantly, she hears footsteps approaching, and looks up in hope, praying that it’s the paramedics arriving—but it’s just Higgins, shockingly normal in his suit and tie, asking, “Rebecca, someone heard shouting—” and then he sees Rebecca crouched over Ted’s prone body and gasps, the file folder in his hand fluttering to the floor.

“Leslie,” Rebecca chokes out, “Ted’s collapsed, I need you to go downstairs and wait for the ambulance.”

“Yes, yes,” Higgins stutters, “But—”

“Go,” Rebecca orders, and Higgins stumbles over his own feet, rushing out of her office.

Rebecca squeezes her eyes shut, and through a blur of tears, looks down at Ted and brushes away the lock of hair that’s forever falling over his forehead. “It’s all right,” she lies. “Everything is going to be all right.”

*

Ted is unconscious in the ambulance.

As they barrel through London’s streets, Rebecca is counting every second it takes, every second that’s passed since Ted collapsed, from the moment he rubbed at his chest and—

There’s nothing for Rebecca to do. Her phone is buzzing relentlessly in her pocket but she can’t—well, she can’t. Instead, she listens to the sirens and holds Ted’s free hand in hers.

He’s always had such warm, steady hands. Firm and warm, without ever being too rough or cold or clammy—except they’re cold now, cold and clammy, with his fingernails turning blue. She starts to rub his hand between hers, not even deliberately, just…his hand is so cold.

He’d looked ill from the second he walked into her office. He’d looked so ill…and she hadn’t seen it, she hadn’t done anything, and now here they are, in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask over Ted’s face and the paramedics telling her he’s had a heart attack, that he was having the heart attack all the time that she was talking to him, idiotically watching him rub at his chest as he told her it was nothing but heartburn.

Rebecca closes her eyes and grits her teeth against a wave of nausea and fear. She hasn’t prayed since she was a child but she finds herself repeating an endless phrase of, please, oh please, to anyone and everyone in her head, God, the universe, Ted’s traitorous body.

Please, oh please, not this. Anything but this.

At last they’re at the hospital, and Rebecca watches helplessly as an army of people in scrubs and white coats wheel Ted off on the stretcher, and one of the nurses kindly but determinedly leads Rebecca away into a discreet alcove, Rebecca twisting back to look at Ted’s motionless form until he’s finally out of sight.

“Where are they taking him?” Rebecca demands.

“He’s going in for surgery now,” the nurse tells her, guiding Rebecca into sitting onto a cushioned chair. “We’re going to take the very best care with him, I can promise you that.”

“Will he—“ Rebecca chokes on the words, but forces them out. “Will he be right? Will he make it?”

The nurse hesitates before saying, “I can’t say. I can tell you that you did the right thing in getting him here so quickly. Can you tell me what was happening before he collapsed?”

Rebecca shakes her head, saying woodenly, “He came into my office and he looked awful, sweaty and pale. He said it was heartburn, that he took antacids and would feel better soon. We were talking, and he kept—kept rubbing his chest.” Tears are slipping down her cheeks, but she doesn’t bother to wipe them away. “He suddenly got worse and said, ‘I’m going,’ and then he just…dropped down to his knees.”

“I’m so sorry,” the nurse tells her, sympathetically. “Do you need a minute?”

“I need to know that my friend will be all right,” Rebecca tells her, hearing the edge to her own voice and not being able to care. “The surgeons, how good are they?”

“They’re very good,” the nurse responds, not looking as if she’s bothered at all by the question. Rebecca momentarily thinks of pressing harder, demanding that they get a second opinion, before realizing what a fool she’s being—trying to pick a fight with a nurse just to distract herself from how awful this all is. How pathetic.

“Do you know if he takes any medications?”

Rebecca falters. “I, I don’t know,” she says, weakly. “I don’t…we’ve never talked about…”

“That’s quite all right,” the nurse soothes, but it’s not, because Rebecca doesn’t know anything about his health, how can she, she’d thought Ted was in reasonably good health right up until he collapsed in her office with a major heart attack that could…he could…

Rebecca sets her teeth against the sob rising up in her throat, no matter how much it makes her jaw ache.

“Do you need—I mean, is there anything else that I—“

“No, no,” the nurse confirms. “You’ve already done the most important thing, getting him here.”

Rebecca flinches at that, but doesn’t argue. There’s no point, the woman is a professional doing her job. It’s not her job to absolve Rebecca of anything.

Once the nurse leaves, Rebecca inhales sharply and reaches into the pocket of her slacks to start making the calls she’s delayed until now. Her screen is filled with notifications of missed calls and unread texts, but Rebecca ignores them all to call Keeley first.

Keeley answers on the first ring, her voice high with panic. “Rebecca? Oh my God, what is happening, Leslie called and said that Ted collapsed? Where are you, are you with him? What’s happened—“

“I’m waiting at the A&E,” Rebecca says dully. “Ted had—it was a heart attack. He’s in surgery now.” She takes another breath, her voice cracking as she says, “It’s bad.”

She hears a quick indrawn breath, and then Keeley says, sounding strong and determined, “Okay. Okay. We’re all coming there, we’ll all be there right away, Rebecca, understand?”

“Yes,” Rebecca says. There’s a pane of glass nearby, and she stares at her reflection, at the mirrored image of an unfamiliar woman, expensive clothes, smeared eye makeup and a haunted expression. “I do.”

*

It’s Higgins that takes charge. He quietly arranges for them all to be put in a private waiting room, not just because of the sheer number of people from the club that have arrived, but because the news about Ted’s collapse will be leaked to the media, and they don’t need photographers catching them looking distraught in the public waiting area, disturbing not just them, but the patients and doctors and everyone else here.

So they’re in a clean, institutional-looking sort of room—the walls are painted a sort of soothing beige-yellow, there are general prints of landscapes and flowers and posters about vaccination and whatnot.

And in this professionally neutral room, a crowd of people that all love Ted Lasso sit together, praying that the worst doesn’t happen.

“I’ve reached all the players, told them to stay where they are for now,” Higgins says quietly to them all. “At least until we hear…more.”

“Has someone called his ex?” Roy asks, rubbing Keeley’s back as she sits, bowed, in her seat.

“No, I haven’t,” Rebecca says, glancing at Higgins to see if he’s taken charge of this the way he did with the players or with getting this room, but he helplessly shakes his head at her. “I didn’t want—she’s an ocean away, I didn’t want to worry her, not before Ted’s out of surgery at least.”

She glances at Beard, wondering if he’ll protest, but Beard isn’t moving or reacting at all—he hasn’t, really, not since he arrived. He just keeps sitting there, motionless, his ever-present cap drawn low over his eyes, hiding his face.

“We should call her,” Roy says. “If—she’ll want to know as soon as possible, prepare to tell Henry.”

Rebecca shies away from that, from Ted Lasso’s son being told—and because she can’t bear to think of it, she says, sharper than she means to, “Tell her what, we don’t know anything yet.”

Roy, to her frustration, doesn’t look cowed or irritated. He just looks at her with patience and says, “We know he’s had a heart attack and that it’s serious, that’s enough for her to know.”

“But surely, it can’t be that serious,” Colin protests, eyes wide and disbelieving. In that moment, he looks like the rookie player he once was, and not the assistant coach he’s become. “I mean, he’s in good health. He’s young—”

“He’s fifty years old,” Higgins says gently. “People younger than that get heart attacks every day.”

“He’s not that old,” Colin says stubbornly, and in his voice Rebecca can hear the panic that’s been racing through her all day. “He doesn’t smoke, or drink very much, he takes care of himself—”

“He doesn’t take care of himself,” Beard says, very quietly, but the rasp in his voice cuts through the room like a knife.

Keeley finally lifts her head up. Her eyes are red-rimmed, but her voice is remarkably calm as she asks, “Beard, what do you mean by that?”

“If there’s something we need to tell the doctors,” Rebecca begins, but Beard shakes his head sharply, still not looking at any of them.

“No, it’s too late to do anything about it now. But Ted, Ted’s not taking care of himself.” A muscle jumps in his jaw as he says, “His blood pressure’s shit, he’s not getting enough sleep, he’s been—“ Beard throws one anguished look at Rebecca, before turning away and confessing, “He’s been having panic attacks for a while, and he won’t see anyone about it, he’s just been relying on the emergency prescription of Xanax a doctor back in Kansas prescribed for him, last time he was visiting Henry. He is not taking care of himself, at all.”

There is a long, appalled silence as all of them take that in.

It’s poor Colin who’s left stammering, “But that’s not, I mean, we would’ve seen it if…he would have told us if…”

Beard snorts bitterly. “I know you guys think Americans are all too chatty and we share too much about our feelings,” this, from the most deliberately mysterious man Rebecca has ever met, “But Ted’s from the Midwest, okay? They’ve forgotten more about repression than the rest of us ever knew, and Ted—“ He cuts himself off, and lowers his head even more and says, so quietly that Rebecca strains to hear him, “Ted is really good at hiding the things he doesn’t want to talk about, and he’s even better at ignoring the things he doesn’t want to admit to.”

Higgins, sitting next to her at the table, gently reaches out and touches her hand; it’s only then that Rebecca realizes she’s tearing up, and she stares up at the ceiling as she tries, futilely, to blink the tears away.

“I was trying to get him to admit he needed some help,” Beard’s continuing now, voice thick with emotion, “Or to just take a break or something, I know we’re in October but the season’s early enough that, I don’t know, maybe he could take a long weekend or something. But he kept putting me off, and I just…I thought there’d be time to talk sense into him. I thought there would be more time.”

God. As Rebecca tries not to completely lose her composure at that last, horrifying sentence (I thought there would be more time) Higgins is saying stoutly, “Well, there’s going to be time now. Once Ted’s out of surgery, he’ll be needing to make major lifestyle changes, and I know all of us will be there to support and cheer him on, right?” He sends a look towards Keeley, who squares her shoulders and says, in as determined a voice as she can, “Right, absolutely.”

“Right,” Roy says firmly, and is echoed by a shell-shocked Colin, whose quiet murmur is barely audible.

Beard doesn’t speak, and neither does Rebecca.

A moment passes, and Higgins mutely reaches out and takes Rebecca’s hand in support, squeezing it gently.

Rebecca squeezes his hand back, and she doesn’t think of the last hand that she held, how the chill of it sank into her skin.

*

Two and a half hours later, a doctor finally arrives to tell them that the surgery was successful, and Ted is—

(alive, thank you God, oh thank you)

—in recovery, and they’ll be able to see him soon once he’s able to talk.

“So he’ll be okay?” Keeley asks tremulously, hand over her mouth as Roy holds her close.

The doctor nods. “We’ll need to keep him for observation, and obviously we’ll need to watch him for complications, but we’re hopeful he will make a full recovery.” He looks to Rebecca and says, “I understand you were the one that called 999 and brought him in?”

“I was just there,” Rebecca says quietly. “I didn’t do anything except call for the ambulance.” And nearly killed Ted by waiting so long, waiting too long, fuck’s sake, they have an army of physios downstairs, she should’ve marched Ted down immediately and—

But the doctor is nodding, and saying, “You saved his life today. With a heart attack of this magnitude, when the artery is totally blocked, there’s very little time to intervene. You did exactly the right thing in bringing him here so quickly.”

Rebecca can’t let this pass. “I should’ve seen it sooner,” she protests. “He was rubbing at his chest—“

“He told you it was heartburn,” Keeley interjects, looking at her with worry.

The doctor hesitates, and says, “A heart attack like this, while it’s likely he was experiencing symptoms for some time, it’s also, unfortunately, quite easy to mistake the symptoms for something else. Such as heartburn, or a panic attack—“ Beard flinches at that, “—or even something as simple as a pulled muscle. It won’t help any of you to think about the what-ifs. He made it here, and he made it through the surgery, and we’re quite optimistic about his chances. That’s what matters.”

“Of course,” Keeley says. “When can we see him?”

“Soon,” the doctor says reassuringly. “We’re just waiting for him to become more lucid as the anesthetic wears off.”

“That’ll give us enough time to make some phone calls,” Roy says, and he’s looking at Rebecca as he says it.

Higgins leans in closer and offers, “Rebecca, I could—”

“No,” Rebecca says sharply. “No, I’ll do it.” Higgins concedes, but not without giving her a long, sympathetic look that Rebecca turns away from.

*

Rebecca is utterly terrified when she goes into Ted’s hospital room. (A private room, thank God for Higgins discreetly arranging it somehow, because otherwise Rebecca would’ve had to, and she was not capable of discretion at the moment.)

She’s not afraid of what she’ll find, the doctors has prepared her (no oxygen mask, but there would be a tube in his nose, there would be IVs and a heart monitor, so on and so on) she’s just petrified that she’ll take one look at him in that hospital bed and burst into tears.

And when she walks in to find Ted lying there in that bed, pale and exhausted, his eyes sleepily blinking open to look at her—Rebecca does not break down, but it’s a near thing.

She tries to smile. “Hello, darling. How are you?”

A corner of his mouth lifts up in the faintest echo of a smile, and he wobbles his hand back and forth. “Been better.”

“I fucking bet,” Rebecca says, which earns her a quicksilver grin, there and gone in the blink of an eye.

Without second-guessing it, Rebecca settles herself on the edge of the bed. Ted lifts his hand towards her, and Rebecca immediately takes his hand in hers, their fingers automatically interlacing. His hand is cool but dry, and when she looks down, his fingernails are a healthy pink, no tinge of blue to be found.

She has a dozen inane reassurances on the tip of her tongue, and doesn’t say any of them. It's enough in this moment to sit here at his side, to look at him and be reassured he’s alive and safe, with dozens of competent professionals around to keep him that way.

So Rebecca sits there and watches Ted quietly, holding his hand, waiting as he works himself up to say whatever he’s about to say.

“I thought—I thought it was a panic attack,” Ted confesses quietly. “I thought if I could just calm down…”

“I know,” Rebecca soothes. “Ted, I know. It’s all right.” She tries to joke, “At no point did I suspect that you’d deliberately chosen to collapse in my office, believe me.”

Ted doesn’t smile at this. “I didn’t…I’m sorry, for scaring you like that, I didn’t mean—“

“Ted,” Rebecca interjects, cutting him off, “If I hear you apologize to me for your heart attack, I will actually scream, and given that I promised the doctors I would behave myself before they let me in here, let’s see if we can avoid that. Okay?”

“Okay,” Ted agrees. He grimaces a little, eyes flickering back to her as he says slowly, “The match tonight…”

“I don’t give a single solitary fuck about the match,” Rebecca says crisply. “We could lose by ten goals and I wouldn’t care.”

“Rebecca—“ Ted protests, but it’s futile.

“It’s one match, we’ll survive,” Rebecca says, reaching out to rub the crease between his eyebrows away. It’s funny, how her inhibitions about touching him have all melted away. Yesterday she wouldn’t have dreamed of casually touching him like this, today she’s touching him like she has a right to him, like—

Rebecca forcibly takes her hand away, clenching it into a fist in her lap.

If Ted thinks she’s acting strange, he gives no sign. He just blinks tiredly before saying, “I should…should call Michelle.”

Rebecca winces. “I called her earlier, once we knew—” Her voice catches, but she finishes, “Once you were out of surgery. She’s very worried about you, of course—do you feel up for talking to her?”

Ted nods, and so Rebecca girds herself and rings Michelle for the second time that day (although this call can’t possibly be as excruciating as the first one). She hands the phone to Ted, who wearily holds it up to his ear, but shakes his head once Rebecca moves to step away, mouthing, No, stay, and so Rebecca sits back down, and overhears Michelle’s soft “oh God, Ted—”

She looks away, but she can’t help but hear it all, Michelle trying so hard not to cry, Ted promising that he’s fine, it’s nothing to worry over, and Michelle clearly not believing a word of it (of course she doesn’t, the woman isn’t a fool, and Ted sounds absolutely wretched) and then they have to discuss breaking the news to Henry once he’s home from school (it’s only a little past ten in the morning in Kansas right now) and how soon Michelle, her wife, and Henry will be able to get to the UK.

Through it all, Ted keeps insisting he’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about, and after the third repetition of this, Rebecca finds herself gritting her teeth, her fingernails digging into the flesh of her palm as she tries to keep her composure.

But then Ted lifts the phone away from his ear and says, “Michelle wants to talk to you.”

Rebecca cautiously takes the phone, and Michelle doesn’t bother with saying hello, she just says in a choked voice, “He’s lying when he says he’s fine, isn’t he.”

Rebecca keeps her face turned away from Ted as she says, “Yes.”

Michelle takes a deep breath over the other end of the line, and says, more firmly now. “Okay. Look, just—I know I don’t have to ask this, but please, just—just keep an eye on him? Let me know the second that something changes, or goes wrong, or—”

“Of course,” Rebecca says immediately. “I’m not leaving his side.” She catches Ted’s eye accidentally at this and says, to him and to Michelle, “I’m not, they’ll have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming.”

“Well in that case, my money’s on you,” Ted murmurs, and in Rebecca’s ear Michelle is laughing weakly.

Rebecca does have to step out of the room when everyone else comes in to visit Ted, one by one, and the one that takes the longest is Beard, and when he comes out, his eyes are wet.

“Coach Beard—“ Rebecca starts, not knowing what to say, but he waves her off.

“Gotta get ready for the match,” he says grimly, and walks off without another word. Rebecca grimaces—she’d talked with Higgins earlier about whether they could even cancel the match, or postpone, and it’s simply impossible to do. Somehow, the team will have to go and play tonight, and while Rebecca was being perfectly honest in saying that she didn’t give a single shit if they lost by ten goals, she does wish that she could spare them that burden.

But finally everyone else is gone, to manage the team, manage the press, to manage everything, while Rebecca stays with Ted.

Of course, when she comes back into the room, Ted promptly says, “You don’t have to stay.”

Rebecca gives this nonsense the consideration it deserves. “Yes, I fucking do, and don’t think you can sweet-talk me into leaving, Theodore John Lasso.”

His mouth turns up in a crooked smile and he says, “You’ve just been waiting for the perfect moment to drop my full name right on my head, haven’t you?”

Rebecca shrugs a little. “One takes the opportunities one is given,” she tells him, dragging a chair up right by his bedside. “Besides, this is my chance to beat Nora’s score at Style Battle,” she says, pulling out her phone.

She actually doesn’t play very much of the game on her phone at all, her attention taken up with keeping an eye on Ted, answering the text messages she’s been avoiding all day, and stealthily continuing to look up information on heart attacks, her heart sinking with each new fact she finds.

She should have seen it coming.

Rebecca’s gaze drifts away from the NHS website to look at Ted, only to find him watching her, his brown eyes tired but alert. “What is it?” she asks.

He shakes his head a little. “Just wanted to look at you.”

Her throat hurting with unshed tears, Rebecca gives in to temptation and reaches out to stroke his hair. “God, Ted,” she says, her voice choked. “If you ever do that to me again, I will disembowel you.”

“Mm, not planning to,” he promises. His eyes close in exhaustion as he mumbles, “God, it hurt. I didn’t think anything could hurt that much, not and still survive it.”

“But you did,” Rebecca whispers, her fingers still carding through his soft hair. “You did make it.”

“Hmm,” Ted agrees softly, eyes still closed. “Yeah.”

He falls asleep quickly after that, and Rebecca does her best not to disturb him. She keeps an anxious eye on the heart monitor at all times, but it looks (at least from her frantic Googling) stable enough, and surely someone would rush in if he started taking a turn for the worst.

She even has to take some calls, mostly from the minority owners—Alistair Crane alone has called her five times today, and she could wish the old devil would take a long walk off a short pier, except that he sounds genuinely worried about Ted when she gets him on the phone, and he’s always been a favorite of Ted’s.

“Christ above,” Alistair says, his Scottish burr thicker than usual, “How the fuck does this happen? He’s too young for a fucking heart attack!”

“He’s fifty, Alistair,” Rebecca points out.

“Who gives a shit? I’m pushing eighty, all of you are infants so far as I’m concerned,” Alistair immediately retorts. “They’ve got decent people looking after him? We can bring in specialists. Or get him moved to Royal Brompton, that’s the top place in London for cardiology—”

Rebecca is tempted, but says, “I don’t want him disturbed just yet. The ambulance ride was petrifying enough and that was only five minutes, I can’t imagine transporting him across London just now.”

Alistair grumbles but concedes, asking next, “His family been told?”

“Called them earlier,” Rebecca says.

“Hmph. They have difficulties getting over here, let me know, we can get the family jet round there and bring them over.”

Rebecca smiles a little, imagining Alistair traveling over to Wichita, Kansas and personally ferrying Michelle and Henry over in his private jet. “I will, thank you, Alistair.”

They hang up a few minutes later, Rebecca already knowing that by tomorrow Alistair will be here, shoving his weight about and demanding they fly in the top specialists in the world to consult on Ted’s case. And when she thinks about it like that, Rebecca is actually looking forward to it. Even Ted won’t be able to talk Alistair out of making a fuss, the man’s famously as stubborn as a mule.

The afternoon trickles into the evening, Rebecca making phone calls, answering texts, easing the ache in her back from this uncomfortable chair by pacing around in the small private room. Doctors and nurses come in from time to time, checking Ted’s vitals, asking Ted how he feels when he’s awake, speaking quietly to Rebecca when he’s dozing (and he’s mostly dozing).

At seven o’clock exactly, Rebecca does not turn the television in the room onto the Richmond-Aston Villa match, instead choosing to focus on Ted’s sleeping, serene face, and the five romance novels she’s just downloaded onto her phone at random. She needs absolute nonsense to distract her now, and it works as best as it can, even with the match updates popping up on her phone.

Richmond, much as Rebecca would’ve expected under the circumstances, lose 3-1, with Jamie Tartt getting a consolation goal in injury time.

Ted’s in deep slumber at this point, so, very cautiously, Rebecca does turn on the television to Sky Sports, keeping the volume off entirely. They have the highlights of the game up, the team looking somber in warmups, the fans lifting a hastily-made GET WELL SOON, GAFFER banner that waves along with the usual flags.

She ignores the closed captioning down at the bottom—she has no time for the pundits on a good day, let alone on a nightmarish day like this—but then they cut to the post-match press conference, and Christ, it’s poor Beard out there in the press room, blinking out into the sea of cameras and microphones, his usual owlish expression overcast with pure misery, even with his cap dragged low over his eyes.

She texts Keeley, saying, Poor Beard looks like he’s on the verge of collapse out there.

Keeley, bless her, responds immediately. I know but there was no one else to do it. Colin’s been crying on and off all day, Roy’s in such a state that he’ll start punching the first reporter to even ask a question, and Beard was named caretaker manager for the match. And the fucking league wouldn’t let us skip the post-match media duties, I checked. >:(

Rebecca winces. I should’ve pushed harder on canceling the match. To hell with the fines from the league.

It would’ve been impossible, babe, Keeley responds. But I’ve never hated being at a football match until today. Not even when I was dating that one Celtic player, and he convinced me that the Rangers-Celtic derby would be a good time. HAH.

Not even the reference to Keeley’s checkered dating history can bring a smile to Rebecca’s face.

How’s Ted? Keeley asks.

Rebecca’s gaze automatically shifts to Ted, even as she’s typing out, As good as he can be, considering. He’s sleeping now. Doctors say he’ll have to be here for five days, at least.

God. We’ll have to sit on him to make him stay in bed that long.

Rebecca grimaces, and types out, her fingers pressing so hard into the screen that she has to go back and erase three typos, I will personally tie him to the goddamn bed if he tries to leave before the doctors clear him to go.

I’ll help, I’m VERY good with knots. I’d tell you about where and how I learned, but now’s not the time.

As Rebecca’s composing her reply, Ted stirs a little. “Becca?” he mumbles softly.

Her heart leaping, Rebecca immediately reaches out to take his hand. “I’m here, Ted.”

His hand closes around hers, and Rebecca could cry at how warm it is, finally finally finally. “We win the match?”

For half a beat, Rebecca considers lying, but says instead, “Lost three to one. No injuries, no red cards, I don’t care.” She rubs her thumb along his knuckles, adding, “Everyone sends their love. Alistair Crane’s threatening to fly your family over in his private jet first thing tomorrow.”

“Hmm. Good ol’ Crane.” Ted cracks an eye open and surveys her before saying, “Suppose there’s no point in telling you that you don’t need to be here right now.”

“I will personally beat you with my handbag should you even try,” Rebecca tells him.

Ted’s eye closes again. “Hmm. I know how much you carry in that purse, I’m not riskin’ it.”

“Good man,” Rebecca says very softly, and continues to hold his hand as he falls asleep.