Chapter Text
Euphoric is the way he hears it described most often.
Like you can suddenly feel the blood rushing to every capillary. Like a deep muscle stretch and a sigh, like comforts of home, like everything you are suddenly has the transparency of smooth glass. Like everything makes sense in a truly incomprehensible way – it feels right even if you don't know how, or why, but so satisfying and so intriguing that you feel prepared to spend the rest of your life figuring it out.
Like sunshine, moonlight, soft breezes, angels crying–
Alright, maybe he's never heard it described quite like that. But it's not a stretch at all to say that Ted, in the most cavernous chambers of his heart, has built up an expectation.
To have and know and be understood by someone so completely. To love somebody that was made to be loved by him, that he could never be too much or not enough for. Someone that all the way down to their bones, their soul, just knows him. Gets him.
He'd thought he had it, the big one, the whole chimichanga, the connection people live and die for and make whole careers out of trying to find for others. And he wanted it so badly it was easy to believe that's what it was.
The thing is, he should've known that it wasn't. He should've been able to tell, and he shouldn't have tried to kid himself. Shouldn’t have tried so hard – too much – trying to make up for all the ways they don’t see each other, trying to make it feel as grand as he always imagined.
Because he knew what it felt like – he still to this day remembers the tingling on the back of his neck when he'd met Beard, the way it had settled in him so easily. There'd been a bit – a lot – of trial and error, finding the ways their connection bloomed best and brightest, one that physicality added almost nothing, no extra depth to. And now their friendship is so deeply rooted, so lived in and so simple, he doesn't know what he would do without it.
He'd learned over the years from others that it can feel different with different people. It can feel even…bigger. Wider. All encompassing, edge to edge connection that brings two people together even tighter than him and Beard. It seems unfathomable. It sounds incredible. It sounds…like everything he's ever longed for. It sounds like what he desperately needs as he feels Michelle slip away from him.
He has an ideal in his head. That one day he’ll meet someone and it'll be gorgeous and marvelous and effortless in ways he's tried to emulate for thirty years, no matter what form that relationship takes.
So, yes, it's safe to say, when he feels it– finally, after long years of wishing and hoping and doubt and dwindling self worth– when he feels that rushing straight to his fingertips, a sensation so powerful that might put him flat on his back– feels a tiny delicate knot forming inside him, the other end of it leading barely a yard in front of him–
When he feels it, and she freezes, stunned, almost rage, certainly disbelief on her face, green eyes locked on his, and says, "You cannot be fucking serious," under her breath…
His heart breaks.
There's dead silence. Even Leslie is quiet behind her, obviously reading the room uncommonly well as she stares at– as she looks at–
If this were happening to anyone else, if she were witnessing this, not experiencing it, she'd call it cosmic comedic genius. She’d point and laugh. Instead she wants to throw herself out the window.
This fucking clown of an American, her scapegoat, has just sent her blood careening through her veins a high speed, her heart pounding in her chest like she has thrown herself from great height, and her jaw clenching that this should happen right now, right as she was finally getting fucking free.
He stares at her, his saccharine smile vanished with her cutting words, the look on his face obviously trying to stay blank but flashing with shock, elation, confusion.
No. No, she's not doing this.
It's been too long of a tense pause to play off but she does anyway and nobody acknowledges anything; the heavy silence or her whispered words. She schools her face, her voice, and decides the last six seconds never happened.
She lost any interest, any hope, any desire to find her soulmate in 1991.
She learned at sixteen – with jarring, numbing clarity – that it didn't matter. That it wasn't a guarantee. That someone being tied to you so deeply didn't mean they couldn’t still betray you, still hurt you, still fuck the neighbor and lie to your face.
Any fantastical ideas she had evaporated. Any ideals, all the seedlings of hope her teenage mind had dreamt up that one day she'd be loved so fully and completely and unconditionally withered and died.
That feeling meant nothing. It wasn’t anything but a warning. And it meant even less to her.
She watched idiots all through high school, all through uni, locking eyes with anyone and everyone on campus, watched them become elated when they felt it, thinking they were locked in, they had it, and then saw them break when it didn't last, didn't work, wasn't enough, wasn't what they thought.
She refused to acknowledge the ones that bloomed in their connections. She refused to let it hurt that she never, not once in her life, ever felt it. Not when she met Sassy, not when she met Rupert. Not with a stranger on the street or any of her closest friends.
She decided she didn't have one. Any at all, of any strength. Whether she thought that fact into existence with her disdain, or she was really just that unlovable, she forced her heart open, shoved in the idea that she would never have it, and slammed it shut.
So she married Rupert. Because she cared deeply for him and he made her feel important and special and beautiful and that equated well enough to love as she crept into her thirties. And it made a kind of statement, a hollow one that at the time made her feel like a revolutionary and now just makes her want to slap herself. Because nobody knew that they weren't soulmates and nobody would've cared that they weren't soulmates and it didn't make her anything but hopeless and defeatist and weak to marry him to make a point.
But if she was going to be jaded, jilted, if the inevitable hurts we're going to be doled out…she'd rather get it from him than from someone who was made to love her, and then still decided she wasn't enough.
The victory of being right that nothing ever lasts doesn't cover, ease, or validate the searing pain when she'd learned that her husband had been finding "soulmates" left and right.
Now all she wants to do is burn him. Make him hurt, find his soul if he even has one and make it flame with regret for loving her, for hurting her, for manipulating her, for telling her oh, of course it doesn't matter, darling, that he loved her anyway and then lie and say that that made it mean even more.
And right now, staring at her soulmate, feeling every cell of blood vibrate, a terrifying rightness grabbing greedily at her heart in her chest, there's a part of her buried deep behind long-standing fortifications that keeps saying oh, God, it feels so good.
It’s nothing but a warning.
She's not letting this get in her way.
His hand is shaking.
The other is stretched just behind him and he's glad their positioning in the room hides the way he clutches at Beard's forearm from the two people in front of him. He's probably hurting him, but at least his sleeve keeps Ted's nails from digging into his skin.
He watches her face become stone, completely unknowable, before she finally breaks her eyes from his and gives them a pat smile.
"Ted Lasso," she greets. The tension in the room exhales but the tension in him persists, and good God, her voice sounds like music.
It's obvious, from her face to her voice to her ice-cold eyes that she has no intention and no desire to acknowledge what's just happened, and his heart breaks a little bit more. But he feels so off-kilter, so completely unbalanced from it all, he just doesn't have it in him to do anything but play along.
"You must be Ms. Welton," he says, scrambling to find a smile, releasing Beard, trying to temper the way his heart is pounding in his chest. It feels like his ribcage is shrinking, squeezing his lungs, his heart, everything vital.
You cannot be fucking serious.
He's trying to forget it as well as she is, mark it down to her being startled, shove it far, far in the recesses of his mind. His mind just picks it up again and launches it to the forefront like a dust devil.
Beard is dead silent behind him, as well as the man with wide eyes behind– behind her, like they both know what just happened. Fucking hell, he doesn't even know what's happening. His hands are tingling and he can't even read her and he feels like if he doesn't get out of this room and take a deep breath he's going to die.
She holds out a hand, insisting they call her Rebecca, and his heart jumps at the thought of touching her, then again when he actually does, and he hears it as if underwater as she speaks, introducing them to Leslie Higgins, shaking Beard's hand.
He was already nervous and now…this was not at all how this was supposed to go.
She gets rid of them and fast, directing Coach Beard to get with her assistant, directing Ted down to the lobby, stating that she'll catch up with him in just a few minutes for a tour.
She needs to be alone. She needs to scream or throw something or shove all of this far beyond either of their reaches.
Leslie lingers as she drops into her chair, giving her a wide-eyed look, trying – hesitantly – though she doesn't have a clue why he gives a shit or how he even knows. "Rebecca–”
"Get the fuck out," she pushes out through her teeth. She can't stand anyone right now, let alone him, with his deep fucking storybook soul bond and his cracked fucking morals and all she sees when she looks at him is every betrayal wearing a mask of friendship.
He listens and goes with a last lingering look, sympathy on his face that makes her blood burn hot.
"Fuck," she shoves out, the sharpness of it cutting through the silence of the now empty office. She repeats it, ignores how her voice breaks, and tries to calm down.
It doesn't mean anything. She repeats it to herself, pressing her fingers to her temples, still feeling the rush of it, so strong, so overwhelming she doesn't know how it didn't bring her to her knees.
It doesn't mean anything. She takes a deep breath, feels it shake its way up her esophagus when she exhales. It doesn't mean anything. Her heart feels like it's singing.
No. Doesn't mean anything.
She's going to go down, give him a tour, pretend this never happened, and if he has any sense at all, he's going to follow her lead.
His hands are stuffed in his pockets, clenched tight, staring at the big greyhound on the wall and not seeing it at all.
He's supposed to feel euphoric. And he did, for a split second. Now all he is is terrified.
New country, new job, new team, new sport, new home. New boss. Soulmate. Who already doesn't want him. He buries the hurt, ignores it, writes it off and doesn't think about it.
He's supposed to be so happy right now, to have this feeling, and he can't even pinpoint exactly why he isn't. Her words, her reaction, nothing like he’s ever seen or heard from anyone, has him reeling.
It was so powerful, so much more than he expected, so much fuller and rounder than with Beard. Edge to edge. The whole thing.
Jesus Christ. He's still married.
"Ted," he hears, pulling him from his fog, turning to find Beard next to him, the assistant waiting at the base of the stairs behind him.
"Hey, Beardo," he says, trying a smile, probably failing more than a little bit. Beard's eyes are full of worry as he looks at him. "Headed to our new digs?"
"Are you okay?" he asks instead of answering.
"Yeah," he lies. "Yeah, I'm alright, just a couple jitters up there in the office–”
Beard shakes his head, cutting him off with a quiet, "I felt it."
"What?" Ted's eyes widen, weak smile faltering. Jesus, how did he feel it? He wasn't…he didn't plan on keeping it from him, but he doesn't even know where to begin on sorting this out, especially right now, when he really can’t take a timeout.
"Even if I hadn't, the context clues were not hard to read."
"You felt it?" he whispers.
He nods. "Just a little. Through you, I guess."
Ted bites his lip, inhaling slowly.
"Are you okay? Don't lie to me this time."
"No," Ted breathes. You cannot be fucking serious. "No, I don't know that I am."
"Coach?" Beard pulls his focus again and he meets his eye. "I've got you."
Ted feels a part of him settle. Beard’s here. He isn’t alone.
Beard opens his mouth to continue but stops at the crescendoing click of heels that tightens Ted’s stomach.
"Coach Lasso?" Her voice penetrates like absolutely nothing could stand in its way and he takes a deep breath, squeezing Beard's arm.
"I'll be fine, Coach," he gives him all the smile he can, trying to ease the tension in Beard's eyes. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
He gives him a nod and Ted turns away, joining Rebecca at the other end of the lobby.
There are breadcrumbs to be followed. Pieces to assemble. Everyone gives off clues, ones that Ted, through attention and education and dedication, has learned to intuit very well. Because there’s nothing that means more to him than a chance to know someone and to help them. After his moment of quiet, his moment of solitude, the steadying from Beard, he forces himself to focus.
She's a puzzle already, and he’s not sure where the edge pieces are. Her…discontent with having met him is obvious, even if he doesn't know the reason for it. But he's never in his life wanted anything more than this kind of knowing and he isn’t giving up so quickly.
He begins collecting bits.
When she points to the picture in front of them and tells him the man he just called a good time is her ex-husband – the one he'd seen splashed on tabloids at every airport and in conjunction with every bit of recent history he'd read about the club, the one who cheated on his wife for years – he just can't help himself.
"Yeah, I heard about all that," he tells her softly. "How are you holding up?"
Her face flickers – surprise, like the question put her off center somehow, a faltering of her smile like she hasn't yet and very decidedly won't break down, a flash of pain, anger in her eyes in the half second before she schools herself again.
"Hasn't been the easiest year."
He takes that piece of her, the first, small and fractured but genuine, and it feels warm in his palm, like a stone plucked from a riverbed.
She's hurt. Deeply. He sees it so clearly, the way it hangs off her shoulders like a billowing cloak, and that hurt, her hurt, becomes his hurt.
"Yeah," is all he can say, hoping his voice translates all the sympathy and kindness he pushes into it.
She regroups quickly from whatever that was, grasping and clutching her plan in her hand like a life vest.
How are you holding up?
What could it possibly matter to him? They met twenty minutes ago. She’s his boss, and if he thinks he’s going to get anywhere as her soulmate …well, she’s got news for him.
She ignores the surprise and anxiety in his eyes and shoves him into the press room, the flashing of cameras and shouting of journalists instantly overwhelming their senses.
He makes a fucking fool of himself. And it realigns her priorities, brings it back into focus that she made an excellent choice and that this place will in fact be dust, and Rupert will maybe feel a single iota of the hurt he dealt her.
She catches a glance from Ted to Beard when he joins them, one obviously searching for support, then later a wink, and she wonders if today wasn't the first time Ted's felt that rush. It sends her walls and indifference up even higher, makes it even easier – if he's got one already he obviously has no need for her.
And then they start hounding him. They shout and clamor for his attention, vultures screeching for a sound bite to misconstrue and she feels distant anxiety prickle like needles against her palms and she's stepping forward before she can even stop herself.
“So, like it or not, Richmond are changing the way we do things. And from now on, that way is the Lasso way.”
She doesn’t mean to save him, but it's fine. It sells them the image that she believes in him and she gets the satisfaction of disparaging the club and it's previous owner and performance to all their faces. She hates that the press is her ally in this after all the shit they've lashed at her for but she needs them.
Doesn't mean she has to be nice to them.
She excuses them all and herself and her new coaches. She watches Ted shake himself and apologize as they step back out into the lobby, where Coach Beard hands him some water and they all watch as he drinks it down.
His wedding ring glints in the harsh light.
She hadn't even noticed. It sends ice freezing around her heart even colder. He couldn't be making this any easier for her to reject.
He asks to meet the team and she almost laughs, knowing exactly the reception he'll have there, and gladly sends him off. She doesn't know when Leslie joined them but he tells her how inspiring he found her words and she rolls her eyes to herself.
She thinks he might be the least perceptive man she’s ever met. And that’s saying something.
"He's an absolute wanker."
How are you holding up?
The tiny spark of guilt is easily extinguished. She's stronger than this. Her resolve to keep from falling into this…this trap is much, much bigger than these manufactured reactions.
She can see the appall on Higgins' face without even looking at him as he babbles. She explains, tells him what she intends to happen, knowing he's too spineless to put up any resistance, to pose any real threat to what she's doing.
And when he shakes his head and stammers out a, "But he…he's your–” she turns and sends him a look so cutting all he does is gag.
"He's my what, Higgins?" The threat in her voice is strong and she shouldn't be as surprised as she is when he actually answers, brows drawn and determined. If there's anything he feels strongly about, it's this, she knows. And she knows from dozens of friendly lunches.
"He's your soulmate."
She leans closer, pressing the advantage of her height, and scandalizes him with her response. "I don't fucking care."
He finds his groove once Beard pulls him away. He realigns his focus, tries to forget he just met someone whose soul is cut from the same cloth as his and watches the team. He explores the locker room, gets a sense of the environment when the boys come in from practi– training.
The office is instantly wrong but easily tended to. He sits back in his chair and closes his eyes, trying to relax the tension he's carrying. He feels something looming. An awareness that this development – not just a powerful and overwhelming soulmate bond, but this move on its own – is about to seriously alter his life in ways he can’t even guess at.
The rest of the day is easier. He doesn't see Rebecca again. He cloaks himself in coach, settles into what's about to be his space, his team. Keeley seems very nice – one of the most welcoming he's met so far. He keeps her in mind as someone who may be able to help him parse out the team dynamics at play.
It helps him steady himself, focusing on what he came here to do, but he can't really say she leaves his brain for more than a few minutes.
He can't believe it. That this should happen now, here, after everything…
And with someone so…he can't even describe her. He wants to, though. He wants to know every word and how it fits her, and why she seems hell bent on keeping him on the very tips of his toes, and why he feels – given no evidence whatsoever – like she's exceptionally lonely.
And he wants to know why, in that case, she still doesn't even want to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, he could help remedy that.
It doesn't make the running for the longest day of her life, only because she was married to Rupert for twelve years, and plenty of those days were twice as long as this.
But at the end of the day she feels raw. The surface of her skin feels too tender even for her 4000 thread count sheets. Her insides feel equally worked over – everything, all her emotions, all her hurt, every fear, it's all so close to the surface, like one puncture will send it popping, flooding.
She doesn't like feeling so sensitive, so on the brink of breaking. So unsteady. Being home, alone, without the extra protection of her boss demeanor and no appearances to maintain has emotions bubbling faster that she can swallow them down.
She hates that a part of her she can't control wants this.
She tries to relax, calm down, get this…this shaking inside her to stop.
She makes a cup of chamomile and it sits, cold and untouched when she pours a glass of wine instead. She takes a bath, but it's too hot and she's overheated in less than ten minutes. She tries to clear her head but thoughts never stop punching their way into her mind.
The puncture comes when she crawls into bed and realizes she doesn't even remember how to be kind to herself.
She can't contain it. She curls up on her side, gets one self deprecating laugh out at the cliche of it all before she's sobbing into her pillow, clutching it to her as she chokes on her bitterness, her heart trying to purge her of it. All the pain she's swallowed down burns up her throat like bile, the release she's refused herself for months boiling over and spilling out.
Half second of eye contact and she feels pried open. She already hates this.
Her brain, torturous as it is, loves it. It holds the image of him up in her mind and shakes it at her, mocks her with her soulmate.
Her fucking soulmate. Because she has one now. This man, this ridiculous man has an intrinsic, soul deep connection to her. The man she picked specifically to not care about. It seems cruel, like another blow directly to where she’s still sore. She just wants to give as good as she got and now doing it will feel like dealing another blow to herself.
No. It doesn't mean anything. She'll burn the club, leave him behind before he can see how fucking broken she is, before he can get under her skin, before he can find all the places she's lacking and say no, thank you .
She clutches the pillow tighter to her, pain lancing through her chest to think that the universe hates her this much, to drop a soulmate into her life now, at her most fucked up.
Cosmic comedic genius.
Sleep – after tugging on him all day – evades him.
He lays down in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar amount of space around him, in a nice but foreign flat, off balance and mind racing from the most uncertain phone call he's ever made.
He couldn't tell her. Not right now, not tonight, with everything so fresh. He knows he should've, he knows she deserves to know but…he doesn't think he could even say it out loud to her.
And, of course, who’s to know whether or not it is that kind of connection? It could be platonic, unromantic, nothing that anyone would consider a betrayal.
Something – a deep, deep something – tells him it’s not.
He pushes it from his mind and it joins everything else he's trying not to think about.
He takes a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling, and notices something very strange as he lets it out slowly.
His chest aches. Deep, his lungs maybe, like he's been screaming for hours. Or crying. There's a distant quality to it though, like it's far off.
Like it's not even his.
Christ. Is that even possible? He didn't even know that was a thing that could happen.
If it is possible, if she really is hurting to the point that he can feel it…it starts an ache in his chest that's entirely his own.
He takes another deep breath, forcing calm, trying to counter that feeling. He has no idea if it works like that, if it does anything at all other than keep himself relaxed, but he keeps it up, breathing deeply, trying to help however he can until he finally drifts into sleep.
He pushes. And pushes and pushes and pushes.
With incredibly delicious biscuits, the price of which seems to be suffering his insistence on getting to know her.
She'd managed to calm down eventually that first night, slowly, bit by bit until she could finally sleep. But she hadn't woken with any restfulness, landing at work feeling shaken and too wrong-footed to stop herself from typing Rupert's name in the search bar.
She wants to know and she doesn't. She wants that steadying, distancing hurt and anger that's been sustaining her all year and she doesn't. But it's the only crutch she's had.
Ted stops her though. His entrance has her closing her laptop before she can press enter, distracted by his energy, his baffling attention, and by the time she's watching him leave, she finds herself typing Ted Lasso instead. She finds that stupid locker room video again, finds that there's not a single legitimate bad word against him anywhere.
He's relentless. No matter how she tries to put him off he keeps coming back. No matter how many times she repeats she doesn't have time for him, he wiggles his way into her calendar anyway.
And it's not until a couple days in that she realizes it's not just her, it's not just because they're…connected now. He's not trying to fulfill some mystical bullshit. He's doing this with everyone, including Higgins, who seems to be making fast friends with her weapon of destruction. It brings relief that he isn’t narrowing in on her, but it’s sour on her tongue, for reasons she doesn’t care to explore.
She keeps him at arm's length but she fears his arms are even longer.
Lounds throws her off kilter in front of everyone, throwing another affair in her face, and she tries so hard to keep neutral, feeling Ted's gaze on her, his presence like an extra limb. She fails though, she knows, because he comes to her again anyway, showering her with kindness that just makes her feel visibly broken.
She needs him out of her life. She can't have this. The way he keeps popping in and making her heart jolt without permission, dropping biscuits on her desk, genuine and just incessantly trying.
There's a push and pull that never seems to relax inside her. A warring of her determination to ruin this club that yanks against this deep-rooted urge to just let him in. To figure out what it really is all about. It feels imperative and she hates it. She decides who matters to her. She gets to choose, not fate, not her soul or any other mystical universal forces. This is her life and she's so sick of feeling manipulated and controlled.
She tries to catch him out with Keeley and fails. His toy soldier, the one he'd brought her, gifted to her from his son’s care package to protect her, lays on her kitchen floor. She brought it home without thinking, found herself contemplating it, that gesture. And it's still exactly where she'd tossed it when she straightened herself out, got the flash of a reminder of why exactly she's doing this, betrayal still searing her heart, overpowering this wretched fondness. She steps around the little army man everyday, because she doesn't have it in her to step on it or kick it away but she refuses to allow herself to pick it up again.
She accidentally makes herself look the hero when she stops the pictures. And it leaves the most sour, bitter taste in her mouth when Keeley comes to her with a tiny cactus and thanks her for keeping the press out of her business. Because she does know how that feels and she sort of hates herself for trying to subject another woman to that, especially someone that's just so good. Better than Rebecca. She doesn't deserve that.
Keeley’s sweet to her. In a way that doesn’t feel like pity, like patronization, but just makes her feel like a human being, deserving of basic consideration. And she finds herself glad this particular scheme hadn’t succeeded.
She tries another method, hoping Trent will tear him apart, and somehow he even wins him over. She doesn't know how he keeps doing it, how he keeps bouncing off all these walls with a smile on his face.
He's resilient. He's so determined without being forceful. On every front.
She has to refocus to get the gala sorted – something she genuinely wants to succeed, because that's her baby, that she started two years after she married Rupert, the only club-related thing he let her handle, just so he didn't have to bother with it himself.
And still Ted pops up, throwing offhand comments around about how she should wear whatever she feels confident in, trying to help at every turn, whether it be her or Higgins or the team. She pushes thoughts of him aside, knowing the event will be trying, from that stupid red carpet to the last goodbye of the night.
It doesn’t last long. He finds her. And he looks good in a suit and that has her grinding her teeth too, because is she really attracted to him or was she made to feel that way?
Is there a difference?
She's a tough nut to crack.
They sort of all are. Maybe it's an English thing.
But the pieces keep coming. Like the way she latches onto his biscuit gesture, an impulsive one he'd made when he woke early his first day, feeling nervous and jittery and needing something to focus on. He just thought to do something nice for her. Just a little gesture, not even as her soulmate just…as someone who wants to know her. A reason to go up and see her, talk to her. Check on her.
The club is obviously lacking in a sense of community, and he thinks a little bond-building would go a long way.
He gathers glimpses and glances into just how deeply she feels, no matter how she tries to convince everyone otherwise – though his heart aches to think all she's felt so deeply lately is hurt.
They roll in his mind like a reel. Her face as Ernie splashed another affair in her face like a glass of water. The faltering of her smile when he left the soldier, that way he’s come to think is confusion at his attempts to comfort. Her passionate combativeness at something as simple as a debate over two animals. Her generous assistance with the misconstrued photos of him and Keeley.
And the longing he feels tugging on his heart in the evenings, far, far off. Like she doesn’t even know it's there.
He never stops trying to show her she's got a friend in him. Someone who cares, who is here, who doesn't intend to go anywhere anytime soon, no matter how hard Richmond tries to push him out.
He gets pushback from the team. This locker room is not an easy one to map out, but he pokes and prods and finds all the roles at play, and by the time they're gearing up for Rebecca's gala, he's started to see the undercurrent of soulmate ties that might keep fueling the animosity.
So he gathers the key players at the same table and tries to get them to work some of this out.
Tries to keep focused. Tries to keep his eyes from finding a statuesque figure and coiffed blonde hair. She looks lovely and he admonishes himself for noticing, his attention drawn to the cool gold on his finger with every thought.
It's harder when he finds her at the bar and she teases him, trying to get him to stick his foot in his mouth. Her tone is as it usually is but there’s a speck of playfulness in her face that makes it feel like an important moment. It feels like progress.
And then Rupert Mannion appears. When she's on stage, of course, something she was already nervous about, and Ted reads him like a book almost instantly.
The way Rebecca's face sinks into dread, the distant fear and anger stinging at his palms, tells him everything he needs to know. She introduces them and he can see it, Christ, he can feel it. There's a river of hurt in her, caused by this suit of charm and ego, and it carves a canyon through her, one that lines up exactly with his own.
Every word the man speaks sends it rushing faster until she concedes, tells him to do the auction, and makes her escape.
Rupert loses interest in him quickly without her there to wound, once Ted pulls the topic of her away from him and swaps it for the gala in general. He doesn't want him even thinking about her, let alone pushing faux concern for her at him.
He should give her a minute but he can't leave it be, not with this pain in his chest that he knows isn't his.
She doesn't know what she expected, after learning how persistent he is, how steadfast in appearing when she feels most gutted.
Of course he finds her. Of course he feels this pain like it's his own.
She tries. She doesn't turn to him, makes a comment about the rickshaw, listens to his little anecdote. But she knows he's not going anywhere until he sees her, until she lets him make an attempt.
His face falters when she turns to him and letting him see her tears feels like a balloon in her chest, waiting for the pin. But his expression slips down into sympathy, caring, kindness, the most terrifying cocktail of addicting comfort, and it’s pointed at her.
"Hey, you okay?"
She doesn't even remember the last time someone asked her how she was before he did.
It breaks her open and it spills out, how much it fucking hurts that everyone knows what he did and loves him anyway, that she spent years under his thumb and has nothing to show for it.
"I'm alone, Ted," she says, trying to swallow back her tears, giving him a wry smile. "I'm alone, just like he said I would be if I left."
He looks…he looks heartbroken for her and she feels it for herself and it trembles in her throat.
"I don't want to be alone."
The words slip through the cracks, from the part of her straining to reach him, pulling against every one of her holds to make that connection.
She brings her hands to her face, trying to hide from him, this man that sees straight through her, that she's terrified will see every hairline fracture with perfect clarity. She takes a breath and tries to shake it off, this pain that covers her like a wet blanket, cold and heavy, but she freezes when his arms come around her and the warmth of him seeps through it effortlessly.
It feels so good. She feels it down to her bones and her lips turn down to keep in a sob, her hands slowly, but a little desperately coming to his back.
"You're not," he murmurs emphatically just over her shoulder. "As long as I've got breath in my body, Rebecca, you're not alone, okay?"
Her breath catches and hitches in her lungs.
It's the closest they've ever come to acknowledging it, this connection between them that feels more inescapable every day.
She doesn't know what to think, what to trust, if he really means it, if he even possibly can.
A bell dings beside them just as she contemplates pulling him closer, startling them both into separating. Rebecca drops her eyes to their feet, embarrassed at the state of herself with a new presence.
"You wanna hop on in this thing? Get the heck outta dodge?" Ted holds an opportunity of escape out to her – haltingly, sounding as overcome as she feels – and she's so tempted to take it. It flashes through her head in sepia warm images; climbing in with him, forgetting the gala, forgetting her ex-husband, and just sinking into him and this feeling like a warm bath, letting him in, letting him take care of her.
And then she sees all the damage he could do, all the hurt he could hand out. Even now, with her fighting it every step of the way.
She just freed herself from Rupert. She just can’t do it again.
She shakes her head and he sends the rickshaw off while she tries to find her walls again. She can barely make contact with his warm brown eyes – each time she does it's another flood of caring that she's terrified to become addicted to.
"You wanna head back in?"
She doesn't, but she also doesn't have a choice. She sends him in, getting a little laugh from him at her joke and it feels like a further deepening.
She takes a few deep breaths then retreats to the ladies room to clean herself up and get herself to rights again. She'd anticipated a moment alone but is pleased to find Keeley there, to have the opportunity to thank her for helping her in a moment of unexpected vulnerability on the red carpet.
Of course she throws her for another loop.
Keeley’s brows come down as she turns to her, "Of course. I try to have all my soulmate's backs. Though, I mean, it's kind of hard sometimes 'cause I think I've made a right mess with Jamie and Roy–”
"What?" Rebecca asks, whipping around at the sink to face her.
"Well, it's different, with both of them, and I don't think Jamie is really–”
"Not them," she says, eyes searching Keeley's face a little frantically. "The two of us?"
Keeley's brows come down even further. "Yeah? You didn't…did you not feel it?"
She thinks back and tries to remember when she first met Keeley, or first looked her in the eye, but she's just always sort of been aware of her, passing in the halls or the car park. She can't pinpoint when exactly she was supposed to feel it.
"I don't…I don't know." She shakes her head. "I thought the first time was with…" she stops herself, knowing keeping that to herself is in her best interest. "I'm certain I've never felt that before."
"Well, it can vary, you know," Keeley says, voice soft like she knows Rebecca's spiraling a bit. "Though I've never heard of one person feeling it and the other not."
"When was it…" Christ, how long has she had this and not even known it?
"Few months ago," she says gently, coming to sit on the bench to Rebecca's left. "When Jamie started training with Richmond. We passed in the hall but I was like, right terrified of you back then 'cause you're so put together and gorgeous and you just glanced up at me and I stopped in my tracks but you kept going and I sure as hell wasn't about to chase you down."
"My god," Rebecca says. That would've been right as she acquired the club, when every single day her blood burned with rage, chest tight with hurt and her stomach aching with tension and all she can think is that all of that must have swallowed it up, made it unnoticeable.
“I thought we were doing the silent, unmentioned thing.”
Rebecca just shakes her head, dumb struck.
Two?
"You had a lot going on," Keeley says kindly. "I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't even know."
She chokes out a humorless laugh, looking up away from Keeley. "Fuck. Of course. Just one more thing that man took from me."
She takes a deep breath and Keeley reaches out, squeezing her hand, and, fucking hell, she does feel it. Softer, just as permanent but less aggressive than Ted's...and intertwined with it somehow, like a big blossoming vine that weaves around…around all three of them.
It's so strange to take notice of it, when it's obviously been there, growing, and she just never knew it. She has to bite her cheek hard to hold everything in.
"See, it's there," Keeley grins up at her.
Rebecca shakes her head at her again. "You were my first then."
"Glad it was gentle then, yeah?" Keeley winks at her with a little chuckle, squeezing her hand again, and Rebecca huffs a laugh.
She can't fathom it – that this fucking club, the one Rupert cherished above all else, the one she wants to torture him with, the one she hated even setting foot in before, is suddenly a font of her people.
Looking down at Keeley, who would've been just as fucked over if she succeeded, she feels the first sprout of doubt.
He’s glad he catches her as he leaves with Beard. And he’s glad she looks much better, and he’s glad he got to see her relax just slightly towards the end of the evening.
He wants to tell her she’s not an island. That he sees what she sees in her ex-husband.
So he does. And she looks glad of that.