Chapter Text
Ted walked away.
Again.
It was a familiar view for Jamie: the backside of one Ted Lasso. He told the American to leave this time, but it didn’t make it any easier to watch. Now, it was just Roy staring at him with a mixture of pity and rage, though for once, Jamie didn’t think the anger was entirely directed at him. Jamie lay on his side, running a finger back and forth over the bandage covering his hand. He hadn’t even noticed when he pulled the IV out of it, but the vein hadn’t wanted to stop bleeding, so the nurse wrapped it up tight to staunch the blood flow before reinserting the IV into the crook of his other arm.
Jamie tried to ignore the feeling of the needle under his skin. Least he thought the needle was still there. Remembered something about another time he needed an IV but the memory disapaited in his mind like smoke in the wind. Didn't really matter. His comfort seemed to matter little today. Surprisingly, his hand didn’t hurt—or maybe compared to Jamie’s head, it didn’t make an impact. He could feel it, his hand pumping in tune with his heartbeat, but it didn’t hurt per se, not when his head felt like someone had inserted a knife in it when he wasn’t looking.
His head continued pounding, though the lovely nurse who wrapped his hand had promised the new pain medication would help. They must’ve given him something else, too, because the fight had been extinguished from him as if he was drenched under a bucket of water. Or maybe it was simply Ted leaving— like a fire losing its oxygen.
Ted's leaving dulled a lot of things in him.
Reminded him of a lot of things, too.
Something thumped onto the pillow by his face, seemingly too loud in the quiet room. It was so noisy that Jamie thought there was no doubt Roy hadn’t heard, but Jamie didn’t hear his coach stir from behind him, so maybe he hadn’t heard after all. Something splattered onto the pillow again. Jamie hoped it wasn’t blood.
It wasn't. It was worse. He was crying.
Jamie tried to count to drown out the pounding, the rushing river by his ears, the symphony of noise that was deafening him, the pain of the ice pick to the side of his head, but it all hurt too much.
“Can we leave?” he asked Roy.
Roy didn’t answer, and Jamie, with his back to him, was unsure if he had even heard. Jamie slowly rolled over to face his assistant coach, carefully moving as gingerly as possible to prevent the room from spinning entirely and pulling the IV too much. His vision only tilted to its side, and Jamie considered that a success as he took a deep breath to steady himself, concentrating on a stain on the wall by Roy’s head for balance.
Don’t think too much about where the stain came from, lad.
“Can we leave?” Jamie asked again.
“What?”
Jamie cleared his throat and tried to push himself to sit up but thought better of it when the room unrighted itself again.
“Can we leave?” he choked out, his voice echoing painfully through the room.
Roy looked–did Roy look sad? Jamie was unsure he had ever seen Roy Kent look sad. Angry? Yes. Disappointed? Definitely. Sad, though? Can't be right, that. Jamie’s head really must be fucked.
“The doctor wants to monitor you overnight.”
“I feel fine,” Jamie lied.
It sounded like an untruth on his lips, even to Jamie’s own ears. He counted on Roy not to care about his well-being and agreed they could leave. After all, this was the man who made him work out until he vomited for an entire week when they first began their 4 am training.
“You look like shit.”
“Fuck off.”
Jamie wanted to insist he was fit no matter what. He tried to tell the coach he looked better than him, that he wasn’t a hairy, tired, old prune like he was, but the words wouldn’t transfer from his brain to his lips—another in a long list of betrayals from his body tonight.
“I wanna go home.”
It was barely a whisper, more of a whimper than a statement, and Jamie was unsure if Roy even heard him. He studied the older man's face for a moment, then another, desperately trying to read it–trying to see if it was filled with pity or anger or something else Jamie hadn’t seen from Roy. But he can’t decipher it, not when the room tilted and dimmed as often as it did. So, instead, Jamie closed his eyes and prayed that he would be somewhere else when he woke up.
Maybe Jamie would even be home in his bed, and everything would have just been a nightmare—the match, the concussion, Zava—all of it.
The team had recently watched A Wizard of Oz when Ted found out most of the team had never seen it. The slip-resistant hospital socks on Jamie’s feet certainly weren’t ruby slippers, but they would have to do it for now as Jamie clicked his heels together under the blanket.
It didn’t work.
Maybe Jamie hadn’t wished to be home—no, Jamie had wished to drop a house on Zava. Maybe Jamie wasn’t Dorothy but the Cowardly Lion. With his brain all scrambled, he felt a bit like the Scarecrow. He couldn’t determine if Ted was the Tin Man or not.
Jamie thought maybe Ted was the Wizard–the Great and Terrible Ted–seemingly all-powerful but simply just a man behind a curtain trying to fool everyone. Maybe that was Zava, and Jamie was the only one who could see through him. The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt, but one thing became clear: Zava was the tornado, leaving destruction and displaced people in its path.
Maybe Jamie was Toto, just along for the fucking ride, no importance whatsoever–other than being fucking adorable.
It didn’t really matter, did it? Jamie couldn’t bring himself to think of anything that did matter at the moment.
The cold air helped.
But not enough.
Even away from the recycled hospital air, Ted couldn’t get enough air into his oxygen-starved lungs. He gulped it down like a fish caught unaware on land. He wanted nothing more than to be a gosh darn goldfish right then. Forget everything; forget all his faults and failures.
So Ted did the only thing he could think of that could calm him down.
Ted called Sharon, again.
Eventually, she was able to settle him from his panic attack, and after he hung up the phone, he did something he thought might give him another one: He called Jamie’s Mom. Ted hated this part: talking with parents, telling them their child–their child who he was meant to take care of, to watch over– was hurt. Jamie’s Mum, Georgie, he had learned earlier, had already spoken with Higgins, so it was more of an update than a notification; Ted was selfishly relieved.
The relief was so palpable that it knotted his stomach. The knot joined the others, heavy and poignant.
It was past midnight, and Georgie and her husband, Simon, were already on the road towards London. Ted was happy to learn there was a Simon, especially on a day like today, but it felt selfish to think about it now. The relief he felt was that maybe he could excuse some of the stuff he had done wrong with Jamie because there was someone else.
Ted reluctantly returned to Jamie’s room, fearing what he would find. As Ted approached, the nurse was thankfully leaving, and he stopped her for an update. Ted felt immediate relief to hear Jamie was sleeping, then guilt at the relief of not having to face him.
He was relieved not to have to face his failures, embodied in the shell of Jamie Tartt.
Zava won’t run decoy.
Ted should’ve listened. He had been so possessed by the need to win a game that he’d ignored Jamie.
Again.
“How is he?” Ted asked Roy as he entered the room, whispering to be as quiet as possible.
Ted noticed that someone had cleaned up the blood. He thought about that a lot, how someone had to clean up the blood. No one thought about that until you needed to think about it. Until you needed to clean the blood up yourself.
“The same.”
Roy didn’t look at him. Ted didn’t blame the man. Jamie and Roy had gotten closer since the latter started doing his extra training with Jamie. Ted worried about Jamie’s well-being with it, especially when he caught him asleep in his locker days after the West Ham match, but Roy had not minced words when he told him to fudge off. So that was the end of that.
Ted wasn’t doing much managing these days anyway. Roy had Jamie. The rest of the team followed Zava like he was about to serve Flavour Aid, and Ted—well, Ted was just a warm body in a visor and a moustache, nothing more.
Ted was merely there. And now he was here, in a Brighton hospital with a concussed Jamie Tartt and an even angrier than typical Roy Kent.
“Think this is my fault?” Ted ventured, hands rubbing up and down his thighs, staring at a sign on the opposite wall, the lump on the bed that was Jamie Tartt blurring as his eyes refused to concentrate on it.
“Yup.”
One word to sum up all his sins.
Ted sat up and raised his eyebrows as he turned to his assistant coach. “Didn’t have to think much about that one, did you?”
“Nope,” Roy said, leaning forward on his elbows, avoiding Ted’s gaze. “My fault, too. And Zava’s.”
“Well, that’s my fault too. I’m the manager; I’m supposed to be above it all. I’ve just sat back and let him run the show. And it worked–”
“Until it didn’t.”
Ted sighed, “Yup. Until it didn’t.”
“Beard and I should’ve never shown the team that video,” Roy said.
“You're right. But that’s my fault, too.”
Roy slowly turned and raised an eyebrow at him.
“How the fuck do you see that?”
Roy sure had a way of asking questions that made you feel rather silly, but in this case, Ted knew he was right. Ted was the manager; he had a higher standard than Roy or Beard. Or at least he should have. He should have concentrated on the one thing he could do, help his soccer team, not the million things he couldn’t.
“I was stuck in my head that week. More stuck than that time my hand got stuck in the peanut butter jar. You ever got your hand stuck in one of those? It’s all sticky, so you think you’d get unstuck, but then you’re just stuck stuck. Shoot, I’ve said stuck too many times, you ever done that? Said a word too much, but now it has lost all its meaning? Stuuuuuuuuuck. Stu-”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Ted. Get it together before I stick my head my head through a fucking wall.”
“Shoot, sorry. What I was trying to say was between finding out about Michelle dating and then Sassy telling me I was a mess, well, I was a mess. And I tried so much to show that Nate wasn’t in my head and that I didn’t care that, well, I let everything else get in my head. I didn’t prepare the team for the match. I was stuck on the Zava-will-take-care-of-it train and missed my stop.”
“Yeah, well, I think we were all on that fucking train. Still are, apparently,” Roy said, dropping his elbows to his knees again and his head to his hands. “And now, Jamie…”
Roy trailed off but didn’t need words to match Ted’s guilt. Ted never thought he would see the day when Roy Kent cared this much about Jamie Tartt, but here they were, and hell had indeed not frozen over. Ted would like to take credit for that, hoping that it stemmed from their shared table at the gala two seasons earlier, but he knew it had nothing to do with him. Roy had watched Jamie, alone and hurting, and had done something about it.
Ted had not.
It doesn’t get much more straightforward than that.
Ted spent so much time concerned about not being a mess, concerned about Michelle and Dr. Jacob, and concerned about missing Henry. But the only thing he could actually do something about was the one thing he wasn't concerned about.
His team.
Jamie.
He could only help the one family he could. And he took such a big step back that he might’ve still been in that sewer telling them to let it flow. In some ways, he was no better than his father. He was here physically, but was he really here? When he was in high school, his English teacher had a big banner that read: Apathy is not an option. Mrs Carroll would surely be disappointed if she could see him right now.
Ted let his gaze fall again on Jamie’s prone form, his back tense under the hospital gown and blanket, even asleep—Jamie, who had done everything asked of him since returning to the team. Jamie, who watched his role on the Greyhounds get chipped away at inch by inch.
Jamie, who had become one of eleven, only to stand in the cold, dark shadow of one in a million.
Jamie, who came to Ted for help, for guidance, for assurance, only to be met with snickers and insults.
Ted should’ve talked to him.
Ted should’ve done a lot of things.
Jamie pretended to be asleep when Ted returned.
He was too angry to fall back asleep, no matter how much his head hurt. Anger jabbed him in the ribs every time he came close to falling asleep, his father’s voice ringing in his ears.
Pathetic, Jamie.
What would Dad think watching them all as extras in the Zava show? Would he have fawned over the superstar the way everyone else had? Jamie didn’t really care what his Dad would think of the team, but it pained him to realise there was a small part of him that did care. The part of him that was happy when his father first showed back up in his life. The part of him that didn’t see his father as the villain in Jamie’s story.
The only thing he knew for sure about his father’s thoughts was that he knew it wouldn’t be good.
It was never good, was it?
And what would his Dad think of him leaving the pitch on a stretcher? Even if he were unconscious, it would somehow be his fault. His head should be stronger, tougher, thicker. Something more. Something Jamie wasn’t. Something Jamie never was. Something Jamie never could be.
Jamie was always just a deficit to James. Not enough of whatever his father decided he was missing that day.
Not strong enough.
Not fast enough.
Not smart enough.
Not tough enough.
Jamie was never enough.
That wasn’t true, though, was it? Sometimes, Jamie was too much.
Too talkative.
Too brightly dressed.
Too much like his mother.
Too easy to hurt.
Too much, not enough. The rules kept changing, and Jamie never knew what they were to begin with. Can’t win if his Dad was always rigging the game against him. Can’t play fair when his Dad had never met a rule he couldn’t break.
The rule that wouldn’t change? Never leave the pitch on a stretcher.
When Jamie was sixteen, he got his first concussion—at least his first concussion during a match. He tried to push through, but the vertigo immediately sent him sprawling back to the pitch. They’d stretchered him off before he knew what was happening, but one thing cut through the pain in his skull: his dad’s sniggers from the stands.
At the hospital, James had squeezed his knee so hard it was tender to walk on for a week; the finger-shaped bruises kept hidden under long pants despite the August heat, and the limp played off as something picked up in the match.
“Your legs stop working, too? You couldn’t even get yourself off the pitch? Pathetic, Jamie.”
Maybe he won’t find out what his Dad thought of him leaving the pitch on a stretcher. Or then again, maybe he will.
What does it say about Jamie that he cares?
His Dad hadn’t contacted him since Wembley. Jamie should be happy. He should feel free, like a painful tumour that had been removed, and he’s cancer-free. But all he thought about was why now? And all he did was wait for the cancer to come back, more aggressive and untreatable.
This may be reason enough for Dad to reach out and berate Jamie for embarrassing him. Maybe his phone was filled with texts and voicemails right now that would turn Ted’s stomach, or maybe Ted would think it was another example of Jamie having a tough Dad. Jamie had never been so happy to have a likely technology ban from his concussion.
Dad was a problem for future Jamie.
His Dad wasn’t here now.
No, present-Jamie had another problem: Ted fucking Lasso.
Ted was here.
Was that worse? Because at least with Dad, he knew where he stood; he knew what was coming. It’s all smiles and confusing words with Ted—pats on the back and insults wrapped in phrases Jamie couldn’t understand.
It had been almost two years, and he still hadn’t figured out what Ted wanted. Maybe Dad was right; maybe he was too dumb for his own good.
Good thing you can kick around a football, lad, because nothing is going in between your ears.
He wasn’t even good at kicking around a football anymore with Zava around, though, was he?
You might as well be the kit man for all the action you saw on the pitch, Jamie.
That was a familiar refrain from his Dad during his time at City when he spent more time sitting on the bench than playing. But at least Will contributed something to the team: hydration, fresh towels, clean kits, and clean boots. What did Jamie contribute?
Hospital bills.
He tried to fist his hands into a shirt only to remember he was wearing a hospital gown, the longer material not giving him the same comfort. He didn’t know where his kit had gone, but knew poor Will would have to deal with it.
Sorry, Will.
Add it to the list of Jamie’s failures lately.
Ted knew Jamie was only pretending to be asleep.
He also didn’t blame the kid. Ted was determined not to make Jamie feel worse than the lad already did. It was the literal least he could do. Doctor Sharon promised to help him set up a plan to work with the Mancunian, and even talk to Jamie with him, but both agreed that discussing anything while he was concussed wasn’t the best idea. Even Ted could see that, and the only letters after his name were C-O-A-C-H.
The relief Ted felt once Jamie’s back relaxed and his breathing slowed, indicating he was actually asleep, was physically palpable. He felt his own shoulders and heart rate lower, though the anxiety was replaced with a crushing guilt. Or maybe it was heartburn.
Maybe he had agita. That was a thing, right? It wasn’t just something his great Aunt Mary always mentioned whenever she visited.
No. This feeling wasn’t a physical ailment. This was an ailment of his heart. A manifestation of his guilt, of his failures. This was his reminder.
It was a warning.
Fix this.
“Can I ask your advice?” Ted asked, turning to Roy.
Roy answered his question with a raised eyebrow.
“I messed up–with Jamie–with Zava. How the heck do I fix this?”
Roy scrubbed a hand across his face, and Ted studied his assistant coach’s face as if it could hold the answers to the universe, or at least the tiny speck of universe asleep on a nearby hospital bed.
“Fuck if I know. I fucked up too.”
“Not like I did. You’re at least trying with Jamie. You’re coaching him now, aren’t you? Giving him the one-on-one attention he needs.”
“Yeah, well, him looking like someone pissed in his cheerios while the team was on a winning streak wasn’t the best look. I told him I could help him be the best again.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you cared about him, Coach,” Ted said, a sad smile ghosting across his lips.
“Fuck off. Him being the best is what helps the fucking team.”
Doth protest too much. Roy Kent, former President of the I Hate Jamie Tartt Fan Club, now had a soft spot for the fella.
Ted hadn’t even bothered to notice.
Roy had come a long way from almost ruining his potential relationship with Keeley because of her previous relationship with Jamie and being willing to give up part of his paycheck not to coach Jamie. Ted thought the two might even be friends now, though he knew better than to mention that to Roy lest he end up in a hospital bed beside Jamie.
Jamie.
Ted was caught up basking in the friendship of Roy and Jamie. He almost forgot why they were there. Typical of him lately, easily distracted like a golden retriever in a room full of tennis balls.
“Look, it’s simple,” Roy said, turning to face him, the plastic chair squeaking with the movement. “You want Jamie to trust you again? Give him a fucking reason too. Apologise for not listening. Be his fucking coach. That’s fucking it.”
He made it sound so simple, but Ted didn’t think he was entirely wrong. It only made his heart ache more at how much he had messed up.
Ted spent the rest of the night into the morning thinking of ways to do what Roy suggested. But none of them fixed the Zava situation. None of them unscrambled Jamie’s head. None of them washed his sins away. None of them made him feel any better at all.
Anything is just a bandaid on a bullet hole, and Ted was all out of bandaids.
Eventually, a doctor arrived, and Ted excused himself to go to the hall, when she went to wake Jamie. They could start the discharge process if Jamie’s condition hadn’t worsened. Ted checked his watch, hardly believing it was almost seven a.m.
Ted took the time to text Jamie’s mum an update. He had convinced her to wait for them at Jamie’s house, not wanting the poor woman to add an extra ninety minutes to her four-hour trip. He texted another update to Beard and Isaac, knowing they would make like a tree and leave the rest of the notifications up to them. Lastly, he texted Higgins, who had promised to set up a car to drive the trio back to Richmond.
Buying an overpriced bottle of water from a vending machine and checking it was flat, Ted went outside to wait for an update from Roy. He wished he could be in there listening to everything the doctor had to say, but he couldn’t risk upsetting Jamie further, not after everything that had already happened. Not after everything he had already done.
Not after everything he hadn’t done.
He sat heavily on a bench and did the mental math about the time at home. Too early, or too late, too something to call Henry, and Ted found himself scrolling through pictures on his phone instead. He paused on one of Henry with Jamie, taken at one of their preseason trainings when Henry was here over the summer.
How good Jamie was with kids had come as a surprise initially, then less surprising the more Jamie put aside his ego. But Ted’s brain hadn’t fully comprehended any of that until now. Jamie being friendly to Henry seemed like a manipulation the first time his son visited. And well, later, Ted hadn’t really thought about it. He hadn’t appreciated it. He hadn’t appreciated Jamie.
A text from Roy informed him that the doctor had cleared Jamie and was preparing to discharge him. The sound of a large vehicle approaching the entrance startled Ted, and he looked up to see the AFC Richmond bus pull to a stop. Ted rubbed at his eyes, wondering if he was so overtired that he began to hallucinate, but then Beard and Isaac stepped out the open door of the bus.
“What’re you still doing here?” he asked, dumbfounded.
Ted thought the team went home last night and spent the night snug in their own beds, not waiting nearby.
“Team refused to leave,” Beard shrugged.
“We didn’t want to leave, Jamie,” Isaac said. “We’re a team, ain’t we?”
Ted nodded at his captain. He didn’t regret having Roy choose the next skipper of the club. Ted knew Roy would make the right choice, and he did. Isaac had been a good captain, looking after his teammates like a mother hen. He had the drive of a Roy Kent but deep down the heart of a Sam Obisanya. He even had the fashion sense of a Jamie Tartt, which was to say, was confusing to Ted, but he assumed he was considered fashionable in the proper footballer circles.
“They’re getting ready to discharge him soon. The team knows to be quiet on the bus?”
“They know,” Isaac answered, and Ted didn’t doubt it. “Can I see him? Brought him some clothes.”
Ted nodded and clapped Isaac on the back as he entered the ER with instructions on where to find his injured friend. Ted watched Isaac disappear beyond the automatic doors.
“They really wouldn’t leave?” Ted questioned, then sighed, afraid of the answer to his next question. “What about Zava?”
“I sent Zava back to Richmond myself.”
Well, that was one slight relief. Jamie had reacted poorly to Ted–he only imagined how he would respond to Zava. And Jamie was hurting enough; he didn’t need to add insult to injury.
“Smart thinking, Coach.”
Beard nodded and continued, “and told him we’d be meeting with him Monday about him in regards to disobeying orders.”
“You think he heard you?”
“He did,” Beard nodded.
“Think he listened?”
“He did not.”
Ted exhaled loudly.
How do you solve a problem like Zava?
Not with a lovely tune like in the Sound of Music, that’s for sure. Ted had no Keeley Jones cheat code to use like he did with Jamie two years earlier. Jamie had become a better team player than Ted ever thought he could be. And he’d become an even better player once he learned the balance between passer and prick–once he realised that being a good teammate off the pitch was just as important as being one on it.
Zava, on the other hand, was unlike anyone Ted had ever worked with. He had spent most of his career with college kids, so adjusting to coaching adults had taken a bit of time. But he had never coached a superstar like Zava. Jamie had purposely and antagonistically ignored him in his last match before his loan was cancelled. Zava was different; Zava just acted like he didn’t even exist.
“What’re we gonna do, Coach?” Ted asked Beard.
On the first day Zava joined Richmond, Ted said they had to make him part of the team. Ted had failed at that. Zava wasn’t any more part of the team today than he was that first day. His selfish attitude hadn’t changed.
Ted had though.
“I don’t know,” Beard admitted, a comforting hand to Ted’s back. “But we’ll figure it out.”
For once, Ted began to doubt his lifelong friend. Things seemed bleaker than a Game of Thrones wedding right now; he wasn’t sure where they could go from there, lost in the darkness as he was. Was there anything that he could possibly do to make things better with Jamie? He couldn’t unscramble his noggin. He couldn’t clear him to play again, something else he knew Jamie would be unhappy about once the time came.
He didn’t think Beard was holding out on him with a time machine, so short of that, he wasn’t sure what they could do.
Jamie would be stuck on the bench for however long it took the medical staff to clear him. Was there anything Ted could do to stop the sinking disaster of his relationship with Jamie Tartt? Or had Zava been one iceberg too many?
Jamie groaned when he heard the door open, knowing Ted would likely be back, but instead of Ted, he was relieved to see the face of Isaac McAdoo amble to the side of the bed. Isaac helped his friend sit up, Jamie’s legs dangling off the side of the bed. Jamie gripped him tightly, the room tipping like a tilt-a-whirl. Isaac held him solidly, wrapping him in a hug that felt like a port in a storm.
Isaac had always been a good hugger, and Jamie closed his eyes until the room stopped. Jamie felt as if he was mush in Isaac’s strong arms. It was like they had removed all his bones to treat his concussion. Jamie let his head drop to Isaac’s shoulder as his friend rubbed his back, left exposed by the hospital gown. Goosebumps prickled his exposed skin, and Isaac rubbed both hands up and down his back, attempting to warm him up.
“You alright, bruv?” Isaac asked quietly.
Jamie tried to answer, but the lump in his throat prevented any answer but a large sniffle.
“You’re alright,” Isaac said, and Jamie desperately wanted to believe him.
The rhythmic circles he rubbed on Jamie’s back lulled him back towards sleep.
“What’re you doing here?” Jamie asked, a sudden memory jolting him awake.
He wrapped his arms around Isaac, tilting his head to remember exactly what he had heard Ted and Roy say.
“Yeah, thought you all went back to London?” Roy asked.
“We didn’t want to leave you,” Isaac answered, only now removing his arms from Jamie.
“Zava?”
Jamie was ashamed at the way his voice cracked when his teammate’s name left his lips. He was aiming for nonchalance, not whatever the fuck just came out of him. Anxiety began to fill Jamie’s chest, and he felt a lump building in his throat at having to spend another bus ride watching the Zava show. His head hurt too much, and his wobbly stomach couldn’t take the vomit-inducing looks his teammates tended to give the superstar, and the relief was immediate and overwhelming. The lump threatened to expel itself from his throat in cries of joy, but Jamie swallowed hard, forcing it down where he kept everything Zava-related clenched around his heart.
“Nah. Beard sent him home last night,” Isaac said and the relief was immediate. Jamie sighed inwardly as Isaac held up a bag. “Brought some clothes for you.”
Jamie looked down at the hospital gown and his feet clad in the non-grip socks. He had left places in worse, but the idea of comfortable clothes sounded like a dream after the nightmare he had been stuck in since the match.
“You want fresh socks?”
Jamie wiggled his toes. These socks were dead comfy. Isaac seemed to understand, putting the socks back in the bag. He pulled out a pair of sweats, slipping one leg over Jamie’s foot and ankle and then the other before pulling them up as much as he could while Jamie was still sitting on the exam table. Jamie should help. But he couldn’t bring his body to follow his commands.
Roy appeared next to Isaac, and they both carefully helped Jamie stand. They each held an arm as he swayed, the room spinning like a top before it evened out. Roy held on tight to his arm, his grip comforting and familiar as his scent, and Isaac pulled the bottoms up the rest of the way. He held the hospital gown to the front as Roy helped Jamie back to sit on the exam table.
The assistant coach left his hand on Jamie’s lower back, comforting and solid, as Isaac pulled the paper gown from him. Jamie shivered with his chest exposed, and Isaac let out a low whistle, and Roy paled slightly. Jamie looked down, surprised to find bruises covering his chest and side.
“Oh,” Jamie said quietly, as surprised as Isaac and Roy were.
“Fuck.”
They all take hits during matches. In one match last year, Jamie’s whole hip was black and blue, like an impressionist painting of an artist he had never heard of—just a part of football, innit.
“‘S fine,” Jamie slurred. Sitting up this long was suddenly exhausting, and he hated the looks Roy and Isaac were giving him as if he were a fragile thing ready to shatter.
Isaac seemingly realised how much he was tiring, carefully sliding a T-shirt over Jamie’s head. Jamie pulled one arm through, then realised that with the IV, he wouldn’t be able to do the other. Isaac left, Jamie trying and failing to follow him with his eyes into the hall. Roy kept him upright, waiting as Isaac returned with a nurse who unhooked the IV. The three of them helped Jamie pull an arm through before pulling a hoodie on as well before she connected him back to the IV.
“Just a bit longer, love, then we’ll get you out of here and home to rest.”
She and Isaac helped him back into the bed, the back of which was more raised than earlier, and Jamie pulled Isaac closer after the nurse left.
“Snuggle?” he slurred, giving Isaac his best puppy dog eyes and ignoring whatever look he knew Roy was giving him.
“Alright, bruv,” Isaac said, walking around the bed so he was on Jamie’s side without the IV.
Jamie slowly shifted in the bed as Isaac toed off his trainers and climbed next to him, pulling Jamie closer with an arm around his shoulders. Jamie shifted onto his side, wincing slightly at the pressure on his bruises, suddenly making themselves known now that Jamie knew they were there. He wrapped himself into Isaac as the older man ran his hand through Jamie’s sweaty hair.
“I’ll give you a fresh cut when your head’s all better, yeah? Getting long, innit.”
“Okay,” Jamie said, closing his eyes, content at Isaac’s lynx scent of choice replacing the sterile smell of A&E.
If Jamie couldn’t be home, wrapped around his skipper was the next best thing. Maybe Jamie had been too dismissive of Toto. He was brave and loyal, everything Isaac was. Jamie could do a lot worse than that.
The sight of Jamie in the wheelchair almost made Ted need one, too. His knees felt weak, and Ted’s legs threatened to give out. Beard, the psychic he was, placed his hand on Ted’s lower back, his steady presence calming as always. Isaac and Roy helped Jamie from the chair. Ted pulled his visor down low and stared at Jamie’s feet, watching as they shuffled slowly and painfully towards the bus.
Ted thought he would feel better once Jamie was released from the hospital, but it was becoming increasingly clear that Jamie and his noggin weren’t in the clear just yet—and it might not be for a while yet. Ted had dealt with more players with concussions than he cared to admit, American football being what it was and all.
Sharon’s concussion last year had been minor compared to this. Sure, she sang him the entire West Sid Story soundtrack for him, but she had come back to her rational self shortly. Jamie looked like death on a stick. His skin was tinged green, and he was sweatier than when he played the full ninety, shuffling around like Ted’s great Uncle Clarence.
Ted felt the familiar tightening of his chest and constriction of his throat. His hands trembled, and he quickly clenched them into fists, shoving them into his khaki pockets and forcing his breath to a steady rhythm.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
“Are you coming?” Roy was standing in front of him. Ted wasn’t sure when he got there.
Ted wished he could pull his brain out, blow on it like a Sega Genesis cartridge, and put it back in, reset himself, reset this day.
Reset his life.
But he couldn’t.
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” Ted forced cheerfully.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Roy turned without a word and climbed onto the bus. Beard waited for Ted to follow. His feet dragged towards the bus, though he wanted nothing more than to be home, away from this nightmare. He climbed the steps slowly, then scanned the bus for Jamie. Eventually, his gaze found the Mancunian lying across the seats in the back, his head in Isaac’s lap. Ted took the seat closest to the front, Beard sitting heavily beside him.
Ted tried to tell himself it was for Jamie’s benefit. He didn’t want to believe it was for his own.
To their credit, the team was quieter than a mouse in church—everyone reading or with headphones on. Ted couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride filling his belly for them and all they were doing for their teammate. All they were doing for Jamie, someone barely a year ago they hadn’t even want back on the team.
The pride gave way to guilt. What had Ted done for Jamie since he was injured other than cause more pain? That and Ted was the reason Jamie was injured in the first place.
They were barely on the highway before the whimpers from the back of the bus started, followed by the unmistakable sound of retching.
Any parent knew the sound–usually heard in the middle of the night from a child’s room and felt a mix of terror and empathy. On a bus on the way to London, as the sun began to rise over Brighton, Ted felt a guilt so overpowering that he thought he might be sick himself.
He chanced a glance to the back of the bus, housing himself onto a knee so he could see over the rest of the Greyhounds. Isaac was holding a plastic tube taken from the A&E while Jamie emptied the contents of his stomach in what sounded like a painful display of concussion side effects.
“I’ll go check on him,” Beard said before disappearing down the aisle.
Ted watched apprehensively as his throat began to feel smaller and smaller.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Ted couldn’t pull his eyes away from the back of the bus. It seemed unbelievable that the bus was still driving along while Jamie suffered so grievously in the back. Ted watched, stomach clenched, as Beard bent over, quietly talking to Isaac. Jamie seemed to have stopped retching, his face paler than it had been when the bus started. Ted clenched and unclenched his fists.
He turned around, unable to watch the scene at the back of the bus, his guilt gluing him to his seat.
Jamie looked miserable, sick, in pain and struggling and Ted wanted to stop the bus if it would give Jamie any semblance of relief but he didn’t think it would. Beard walked by their row, leaving something in the trash receptacle at the front of the bus before returning to sit next to him.
“Should we stop the bus? Let Jamie rest?”
“Think that would just prolong the inevitable. Poor kid will be better once at home.”
“Right,” Ted said, nodding, kicking himself for not realising stopping would be worse for Jamie.
Ted had meant well. He didn’t want to make things worse. He wanted to make things better. But here he was messing things up again. Best intentions and all that.
“Oh shoot,” Ted said, pulling his phone from his pocket quickly. “I gotta text Jamie’s mom, telling her we’re on our way back.”
Hey there Georgie. We’re on the bus on the way back to Nelson Road. Should be back in about 45 minutes and Roy offered to drive Jamie home from there. I’d offer but I don’t have a car, still can’t get used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Don’t know how y’all do that without crashing into each other.
He deleted the last bit. Sometimes, he found himself rambling even in texts. This always annoyed Michelle. She would say, "Why do I have to read through three paragraphs to know if you remembered to buy milk?"
Ted closed the messages app and then opened it again. Closed it. Opened it.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I’m real sorry about Jamie getting hurt last night. It’s my fault—I’m his coach—and it never should have happened. I’ve been too caught up on everything going on in my life to give Jamie the attention he needed on the team.
Delete, delete, delete.
I’m real sorry about Jamie getting hurt last night. It’s my fault. I forgot what it means to coach, too caught up in the blinding light of a superstar.
Delete, delete, delete.
I’m real sorry about Jamie getting hurt last night.
Georgie replied right away.
Thank you, Ted. Waiting not so patiently for my baby to get here. Thank you for taking such good care of him.
He reread the text, sick to his stomach at the lie, at his role as a villain (or at least villain adjacent, like the secondary bad guy in James Bond film), not saviour in Jamie’s story.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
One more person Ted had somehow fooled. One more person Ted had failed.
Add it to the list of Ted’s failures lately.