Work Text:
Rebecca finds herself in her office late one night, still at work because where else would she be when Ted’s in Kansas and Keeley’s visiting Spain with Roy and Nora’s at film camp and Sassy’s on a date and even her mother is at a Brene Brown reading and God why does everyone else have somewhere to be except her?
She shuts her eyes against the momentary anxiety before taking a deep breath and thinking of three things that she’s grateful for right at this moment. It’s something her new therapist has said will help ground her when she’s overwhelmed with negativity, but she hasn’t had the chance to try it out yet.
1. I’m the Godmother to a smart, beautiful, considerate, and compassionate young woman who looks up to me like a role model.
Another deep breath.
2. I own a fucking Premier League football club, and have taken it farther in my three years of ownership than Rupert did in his twenty-five, so fuck you, Rupert.
And another. She’ll have to remember to thank her therapist for this exercise, because she’s already feeling better.
3. Ted and I are just about the same height, so when he gathers me up in his too-big-hugs, my cheek tucks perfectly into his shoulder and I get to breathe against his neck and smell his unique blend of grass and sunshine, happiness and contentment.
She smiles and keeps going, eyes still closed.
4. The way his hands splay widely against my back during those hugs, and he holds me against him like I’m the only thing in his world, and I feel so safe.
She can feel the warmth of his hands as if he’s there with her, and God does she wish he was.
5. The way I just fit with him, like we’re two puzzle pieces that have been tried with every other piece on the table and right when I was about to give up, right when I started to accept that my matching piece had been swiped off the table by the universe’s cat and then eaten by its dog - that’s when I found someone to love who fits me perfectly.
Her eyes fly open.
Wait.
What.
***
She’s been sitting at her desk and staring at nothing for the last twenty minutes. It’s like she had been frozen, her heart had been frozen, and the gratitudes that her subconscious had come up with during her gratefulness-breathing-activity have hit her like an electric blanket, thawing her heart, releasing thoughts and feelings and love and she can’t move for fear that they will tear through her and leave her in ruin.
Because that’s what happened the last time she allowed herself to love. She gave her heart and her ring finger over to a man who only wanted her obedience, her beauty, her hostess skills. Who took her heart anyway just because he could, as if she was a beautiful but scratchy sweater that he would only ever wear when he needed to look nice for the press, just to rip it off and leave it lying in a heap on the floor in the back of the closet as soon as he returned home.
She had thought that she could be happy with meaningless flings, with relationships where she never had to open up.
But now, sitting in her dark office with thoughts of biscuits and arm wrestling with Michelle Obama and duets at Christmas, she doesn’t know what to do.
How to move forward from the realization that she loves Ted Lasso.
And that all she wants right now, at this moment, is to feel enveloped in his warmth, in his scent, to let his sunshine and happiness surround her.
But she can’t.
Because he’s in Kansas.
And she can’t let herself think about that for too long, about how he keeps one foot out the door at all times, straddling the Atlantic between Kansas and England. Between Henry and her.
But maybe that’s okay, maybe she doesn’t have to solve everything. Maybe she just needs to feel close to him, to hear his voice. Maybe that would be enough for tonight.
Without realizing it, she’s up and out of her office. Down the stairs, through the locker room, in front of his desk.
She breathes deeply again, but that’s not enough. There’s Beard here, and Roy, and a tiny bit of Nate that’s still enough to stir up a rumble of anger in her stomach, and of course there’s the ever-present sweaty-man-smell drifting in from the locker room.
She’s over by his desk now, not even sure what she’s looking for, feeling a bit crazy, when she sees his Richmond tracksuit jacket hanging on the back of his chair.
Perfect.
She grabs for it greedily, slides her arms in and zips it up all the way to her chin, pulls the collar up so that it covers her nose and mouth and God that’s it, that’s exactly what she needs, there’s the happiness she’s been after, filling her up like helium to a balloon.
She doesn’t know how long she stands there, eyes closed, stomach clenching and relaxing in cycles, just breathing in his jacket.
She pulls her hands into the sleeves so they’re completely covered, sits down at his desk chair, and brings one foot up to rest on the seat so her knee is folded up and she can put her elbow on her knee and her cheek on her elbow.
It sort of feels like she’s cocooned in him.
Without thinking too hard about it, she pulls out her phone and taps his name, sitting there at the top of her Favorites list.
It rings, and rings, and rings, and then his silly voicemail picks up.
She smiles widely at the sound of his voice, at the little jingle he’s recorded, can’t really believe that a Premier League gaffer has this as his voicemail message.
But then his message is over and she misses his voice, those ten seconds weren’t enough, and she thinks that the dark of his office and his jacket and scent enveloping her has put her in something of a trance, so she hangs up and dials him again, waits for it to ring through before the message starts playing again. Hangs up, does it again. And again.
And with each moment that passes she feels her heart grow, little by little, not three whole sizes like the Grinch, but enough that she thinks maybe her ribs are inching down, her lungs are adjusting away, her body is making room for the newly acknowledged presence of love.
She’s not sure if it's her sixth or seventh call when her eyes get startled open, because she’s greeted by a panicked Ted instead of three rings and an answering machine.
“Rebecca?” His voice sounds strained, rushed, like he’s forcing his words out through a tight throat. “What’s goin’ on, are you okay? Tell me where you are and I’ll call Beard and send him over to help, wait, God, are you hurt? Is Keeley hurt? What’s goin’ on? Becca, come on sweetheart, talk to me, you’re scarin’ me —“
And finally her brain catches up, realizes that leaving six or seven missed calls on his phone with no message and no text to explain was not her brightest idea, and has apparently caused Ted to assume that something terrible has happened.
“Ted, no,” she interrupts in her most reassuring tone. “Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine, promise.”
“What?” He says, tension still audible. “You’re okay, no one's hurt?”
“No one’s hurt, I’m not even with anyone else, I’m —“
She pauses, not sure if she wants to reveal just where she is and what she’s doing at this particular moment.
She absorbs his silence from over the phone line until her words kick in.
“Oh. Okay, thank God. Phew, okay. Alright, so no one's hurt, you’re not hurt, you’re okay,” he repeats to himself.
She hears him take one last deep breath and let it all out in a loud woosh .
“Geez Boss, you ‘bout gave me a heart attack over here,” he nervously chuckles as he talks. “I was in the shower and came out to my phone ringin’, saw you’d called six times in five minutes and I tell ya what, I’m pretty sure my blood stopped right there in my veins. Don’t think I’ve been that scared since the time Henry fell outta our front yard tree when he was four. Oh, he was fine by the way, just a nasty cut on his arm. Nothin’ a little TLC and ice cream couldn’t fix, though, ya know?”
She laughs, breathes out, “I’m so sorry Ted, I don’t know what I was thinking calling you so many times. I should have left a message, or sent you a text to say —“ She pauses, again unsure what to say.
“I, well, see the thing is,” and God she’s rambling again, and he’s just patiently waiting, like he always does, like he would wait forever for her.
“Um, well.”
Come on Rebecca, out with it!
“I just missed you,” she says, gathering her courage, “and, well, I wasn’t having the best day today, so I started doing this gratitude exercise my therapist gave me, and by the way,” her voice becomes indignant, “why the hell didn’t you tell me that therapy is so damn difficult!”
He laughs in her ear, and she can hear his smile.
“Anyway,” she goes on, buoyed by his presence, “one of my gratitudes was how you make me feel when you hug me, I feel safe and I dunno, just right , no one else hugs me like you do, makes me feel like you do.”
She’s on a roll now, doesn’t know if she can stop until she gets it all out.
“And, well, you’re in Kansas, so I couldn't just call out the window for you to come up and give me a hug, but I thought the next best thing would be to try to find something that smells like you, because you and your hugs always smell so perfect to me, so I came down to your office and I put on your jacket, and I think it put me into a trance because all of a sudden I needed to hear your voice, and so I called, and when you didn’t answer and I heard your silly voicemail message again, and it just made me happy to hear it -“
And then she hears a voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Keeley telling her that this sentence is way too long, holy shit, and why are you wearing his coat? , and more importantly, why are you telling him?! and God she doesn’t know why she’s still rambling, he’s definitely going to think she’s a lunatic for coming down to his office when no one’s there, touching his things, but at least she hasn’t blurted out yet that she loves him, so she’s got that going for her.
“— so I just hung up and rang again, and I don’t really know what made me keep calling, but I do know that I love you.”
Well, shit.
He doesn’t say anything, and she can’t hear his breathing anymore.
“Oh god,” she panics, “oh god I wasn’t supposed to say that, I’ve ruined everything haven’t I. Just forget any of this has happened, I’ll never bring it up again, I swear, do you think Roy will want to buy the club from me —“
“Becca,” he interrupts in a strangled tone.
“Yes?” She says in a whisper that she’s not positive he’d even be able to hear.
“I love you, too.”
And now she can hear the smile in his voice, she guesses it’s one of his grins that crinkles up his eyes, and makes him look like a little boy on Christmas.
“Oh.”
She feels a matching smile spread across her own face.
Neither of them says anything for a full minute, they just breathe together on the phone with matching grins.
Finally he breaks the silence.
“So, you’re wearing my jacket, huh?”
Her face flushes.
“Um,” she mumbles, “it just smells like you.”
He’s quiet for another moment before her phone pings in her hand with an incoming FaceTime request.
She accepts.
And then she’s looking into his eyes, finally, and she says it again, wants to see his face this time.
“I love you, Ted.”
She sees him look down and to the right a little, sees him bite at his lower lip, before he’s looking back up at her with a sheen of emotion in his eyes.
“God, you have no idea what it does to me to hear you say that,” he says. “Never thought it’d happen, at least outside of my dreams at night.”
Her heart burns with happiness.
***
They stay on FaceTime until Ted gets interrupted by the sound of a car pulling into his driveway, dropping off Henry for the weekend.
She goes home wearing his jacket, tries to remember the last time she wore polyester and can’t. The things she’ll do because of her love for this man apparently know no bounds.
She already knows she’s going to wear it all weekend. She’ll take it off to go to sleep and pull it on with her leggings when she’s out of the shower in the morning.
She looks forward to being wrapped up in Ted, at her own home, even if he’s still 4,000 miles away from her.
But then.
Her cleaning service arrives for their weekly appointment on Saturday morning, and she decides to head out for a run so they can clean in peace.
As she comes back inside, sweaty and energetic with endorphins from the five miles she’s covered, her heart drops when she hears the laundry running.
No.
She sprints upstairs, hoping against hope that this time she hung up Ted’s jacket on a hanger where it belongs, and didn’t leave it in her dirty clothes’ normal spot, in a lump on the floor.
The lump is gone, Ted’s jacket with it. The cleaning lady must have picked it up and put it in the wash.
She knows, knows this shouldn’t be a devastating moment. She’s in her forties, she can’t be about to have a panic attack at the thought of the jacket of her not-even-boyfriend getting washed and no longer smelling like him. It’s utterly absurd.
And yet, knowing that it’s absurd doesn’t actually mean anything to her panicking heart.
She pulls out her phone, dials the one number that might be able to save her.
“Hello?”
“Beard, this is Rebecca. Welton. Your boss? Owner of the —“
“Yeah, Rebecca, I know who you are,” Beard says slowly, with an amused voice.
Oh god, she’s really making a fool of herself.
“Do you have a spare key to Ted’s apartment, by any chance?”
He doesn't answer right away, and she feels her face heat at the sudden thought that he can read her mind through the telephone.
“I do,” he eventually says. “Need something?”
“Yes, in fact, I do,” she responds, with no additional explanation. “Can I swing by and pick it up?”
“Sure,” he says, dragging the word out, “I’m having lunch at the pub. His flat’s right around the corner from here, I’ll get you the key and point it out.”
“Perfect,” she says, “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
The thought of getting to pick out another of Ted’s sweaters in the near future settles something deep inside of her. She goes to shower off the sweat from her run, dresses in black leggings and a white sweater, and leaves to meet Beard.
***
Taking the key from his hand, Rebecca turns away from Beard’s knowing eyes. She wonders again if he can read her mind.
Then she climbs the stairs to his flat, puts the key in the lock, and opens the door.
She freezes.
Takes a deep breath through her nose. Closes her eyes, does it again.
Ted.
Everything in here is Ted .
She makes her way into the apartment, manages to get three steps in before she stops short at the sight of little pink boxes lying flat in a pile on his kitchen table. She’s hit with an immediate burst of love in her chest, her heart’s growing again, pressing up this time into her collarbones, and she can’t believe that she never understood the things his biscuits have been saying for years.
She wanders through the living room with its sunshine and little Army men, pokes her head into the bathroom with its taped-up BELIEVE sign, and stops at what must be his bedroom door.
As if someone else is controlling her body, her hand falls to the door knob and she’s opening it up.
Then she’s moving forward, into Ted’s bedroom, a place that she hasn’t ever let herself imagine.
But now she can’t stop her mind from filling him in, placing him on his bed, in front of his mirror, wondering if he snores, if he keeps his window cracked even in the middle of winter so he can sleep warm and toasty under his fluffy comforter, what her blonde hair would look like on his dark sheets, if he would like to be the big spoon or little. Both, she thinks.
She thought that this would be a quick trip. Just grab the key, borrow a sweater, get home.
But now that she’s here, and she finds that his whole flat smells like him, she can’t make herself follow the last step of the plan. How is she supposed to be satisfied with a piece of fabric anymore, when she knows there’s an entire apartment that can keep her company until he gets back at the end of next week?
She’s still debating if this is too weird or not, being in his space without him, acutely aware that he is not aware that she’s here, when she finds herself sitting on his bed.
To think, that’s all. Just for a moment.
But then her hand touches the softness of his sheets, and a different set of visions start to fill her head.
Images of him on his back, eyes dark and trained on hers as she straddles his lap, his hands tight on her hips he thrusts up into her, her hands pulling him up to bring him in for a kiss.
Another of her sitting at the edge of the bed while he kneels between her legs, her fingers threading through his hair to hold him right where she wants him, needs him.
The most they’ve done so far is hug, and she already knows that he’ll be the best sex of her life.
And she knows that nothing short of God herself will be able to pull her out of this apartment.
***
And so it goes.
She spends the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday in Ted’s space. Pulls on his clothes, some joggers and a Kansas t-shirt. Cooks his box of pasta, thaws and reheats the frozen spaghetti sauce she finds in his freezer. Surprises herself with how impressed she is at how tasty the sauce is, considering how good she knows his biscuits to be.
Wishes that she could call him again, could hear his voice while being in his space, almost like he was here with her.
But on Saturday morning before her run, Ted had called to say that he’d be out camping with Henry through Tuesday.
“‘Course, I’ll have my phone on me J.I.C - you know, just in case - but I've promised both Henry and myself that we’re gonna have ourselves some good ol’ fashioned good times without the use of devices. We’ve got three bags of perfect s’more marshmallows, a deck of cards, and four books each, so I’m hopin’ we make it through to Tuesday just fine.”
“That actually sounds quite lovely, Ted,” Rebecca had responded, surprised to find that she’s telling the truth. She was never much for camping growing up, and certainly had never had a reason to do so as an adult.
“Ya know, I really think it will be,” Ted had said. “Only thing that might trip me up is wantin’ to talk to you.”
He had sounded so sincere, like even when he’s spending time with his son out in nature, alone, hiking through some forest 4,000 miles away, that she might still have enough power to distract him.
So when she’s missing him again on Sunday night, a sudden strike of inspiration leads her to realize that while Ted Lasso is no Daniel Craig, he’s certainly famous enough that there should be video clips of him online.
And with that, she spends her entire evening on YouTube, scrolling from video to video, letting his voice wash over her, settling that anxious knot in her stomach that she’s worried will always want to be with him.
It’s a press conference from eight months ago that finally lulls her to sleep, dressed in his t-shirt, snuggled under his covers, warm in his bed.
***
And it continues, each night after work Rebecca goes back to her house, has dinner, showers, and then heads straight over to Ted’s. She changes immediately out of her own designer loungewear and into what she’s now internally referring to as her Ted clothes - his soft grey cotton joggers and his black Joe Arthur’s BBQ t-shirt.
It’s Friday, and when she left her house this morning she’d decided to pack a few of her own clothes and all of her travel toiletries, so she’d be able to spend the whole weekend at Ted’s without having to return home. She brought the clothes in case Keeley wanted to meet up for brunch on Sunday, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to arrive in either Friday’s work clothes or Ted’s joggers. The toiletries are a requirement, as while she obviously loves being in Ted’s space, she’s found that she draws the line at using a four-in-one body wash. How she is attracted to a man that washes his hair with the same soap as his feet, she has no idea.
And it’s a good thing she thought ahead, because Keeley calls just as she’s leaving work and invites her to a boozy lunch on Saturday to celebrate her firm landing a new client.
Rebecca’s laughing into the phone at the ridiculous requests of Keeley’s new client as she makes her way up the stairs to Ted’s front door, focused on trying to remember the details of their lunch plans so she can enter them into her calendar once she’s inside.
She puts the key in the lock, turns the door knob, opens the door, and walks straight into a very surprised Ted.
***
She’s not too proud that her first instinct upon seeing Ted standing in what she’s come to think of as her sacred space (though in actuality is, of course, his apartment ) is to scream and wallop him with her very large, very heavy handbag.
“Wait, no, OUCH, Rebecca, it’s me, it’s Ted!” he shouts over her.
Her brain finally decides to catch up and her body stops trying to hit him, and then she’s just standing there, mortified for about ten different reasons.
Keeley’s yelling through the phone that’s somehow still held to her ear, so Rebecca cuts her off with a quick, “Sorry Keeley, gonna have to call you back,” before ending the call.
Then she’s back to just standing there, staring at him, not quite comprehending how he’s in front of her.
“What are you doing here,” she breathes out, still a little out of breath from being scared, her arm a bit sore already from throwing around her Birkin bag.
Ted blinks at her, before he glances quickly around the room. A smile starts to pull at the corner of his lips.
“I live here,” he says, but his inflection goes up at the end, like it’s a question, like he’s asking her to confirm that he’s not crazy, that he does in fact live here, in the apartment that he just watched her let herself into, with a key that he has never given her.
Oh god.
Now he was never going to want to ever see her again, and she was going to have to go back to her own home without any Ted-smells, because she hadn’t even thought to bring any of his clothes back to her house at any point this week so she’s getting cut off cold-turkey and –
“And Henry’s heading to a week of sleep-away camp, so I figured I’d come back early.”
He’s looking at her and she feels exposed.
“Rebecca,” he says, smile still playing at his mouth, watching her slowly spinning into dispair. “What’s going on?”
“Um,” she says.
She finally manages to pull her eyes off of his to glance around. Her face is burning.
His suitcase is against the wall next to him, as if he’d just gotten here. Her Ted clothes are in his hand - he must have picked them up from the counter where she had taken to leaving them each morning before work, so she can reclaim their comfort as soon as she gets inside.
The clear view into the kitchen exposes her mess of tea cups piled up on the kitchen counter, the honey she left out, her toast plate from breakfast next to the sink. Her ( his ) Shockers hoodie is hanging on the back of his kitchen chair.
She looks back to him, knows that he has clearly already seen the evidence that someone has been in his apartment while he’s been gone. Doesn’t know if there’s any way to salvage this disaster except with the truth, and so she finds herself once again rambling.
“The cleaning lady washed your jacket last weekend while I was on a run, so it wasn’t going to smell like you anymore,” she lets it all tumble out, speaking so quickly that her words slurred together, but she thinks that she’s getting across how awful that specific scenario was to her. “So i called Beard and I met him at the pub and got your spare key, and I swear I was only going to take a sweater so I could feel close to you again, and of course I was going to give it a wash and put it back before you got home –”
And oh no it’s happening again, she squeezes her eyes closed against the certain knowledge that she’s going to say too much.
“ – but then i walked into your bedroom and it just felt like I was home , and so I sat down on your bed and then I ate your frozen spaghetti sauce, and I swear I would have told you, only you were on your camping trip with Henry, and I didn’t think my existential crisis counted as a real emergency for you, and I promise I’ll make you more sauce, or rather, I’ll have my friend Matteo send some over from Italy because honestly I can’t really cook and he has a Michelin star and homemade Parmesan –”
She shakes her head, can’t believe she’s chosen this moment to go off on such a Ted-like tangent, yet somehow still cannot get her mouth to stop.
“ – but Ted, being here, surrounded by your things, while you were gone so far away, it just made me feel warm, and so safe, like I was cocooned against all my worries and all my past, and I just couldn’t get myself to leave –”
In all the ways that she ever imagined their first kiss, and she’d done quite a bit of imagining while lying in his bed this last week, him kissing her to cut off her never-ending monologue definitely did not make the top ten.
And while she could have done without the embarrassing squeak of surprise that gets pulled from her throat at their lips’ initial contact, she can’t be too upset because it’s that little noise that opens his mouth to hers for the first time, and without that she never would have known that if she runs her tongue along the roof of his mouth, Ted will groan and turn to fire in her arms.
One hand reaches for her cheek just to immediately slide into her hair, tilting her head so he can get a better angle to lick into her mouth. The other hand grabs for her waist, pulling her hips into his while simultaneously moving her backwards, step after step until her back hits the wall with a thud , the hand in her hair protecting her head from colliding with the wall.
He reaches down to release her hands from where they’ve clenched in his shirt, moves them up next to her head. He pulls his mouth off hers, keeping only a breath of space between them, and suddenly she realizes he has her completely pinned to the wall with his hips and his strong hands and his penetrating gaze. She’s surprised at how good it feels, how much it turns her on, how she can’t stop her hips from grinding forward into his.
In all of her flings since her divorce, she had kept control at all times. She’d told whichever fit man was in her bed what to do, how to touch her, whether or not he could kiss her. And she didn’t need her therapist to understand why.
For years she had felt powerless in her marriage, in her life. In her body.
So after Rupert, she’d spent months trying to dig out the cold, dark, box where she’d stuffed her real self, the self who would only embarrass him with her silliness, and her power, and her empathy.
And then, when she was finally ready to put herself back out there, she’d wrapped her power around her shoulders like a cloak, needing its protection, needing to remind herself that she would never let herself be crushed under the thumb of a cruel man again.
And now, standing here in Ted’s arms, with Ted’s wall behind her back and Ted’s leg pressing between hers and Ted’s panting breath mingling with her own, she feels the cloak of power slipping down her shoulders, like it knows it’s protection isn’t needed anymore, not against him. That her other strengths can come forward to show themselves, that even her weaknesses are safe in the space between their bodies.
So she lets her body give itself up to him, lets loose the noises she normally would hide in her throat, lets her desire shine in her eyes for him to see. Leaves herself open and vulnerable, to do with as he wishes.
And while she knows that Ted can’t possibly read everything that’s going through her mind, can’t realize how her whole being is shifting in this moment, the way he’s looking at her makes her think that maybe he knows anyway. That he understands what gift she is giving him.
“Are you okay?” He whispers, still pressing hotly against her even as his voice is soft.
She nods her head slowly, tracing the lines of his face with her eyes. She presses forward to kiss his mouth again, licks into him with her tongue until his breath is coming in sharp puffs through his nose.
His hands tighten their hold on her wrists.
“Ted,” she pulls back to whisper.
“Yeah,” he manages in a strangled tone.
“Take me to bed.”
******
Rebecca shows up the next day to Keeley’s boozy lunch wearing a Kansas City Royals t-shirt under a cardigan, tucked into her dark wash jeans. Keeley screams when she sees it, cries when Rebecca admits how much she loves Ted, and declares that they “might just be the cutest fucking couple in the entire world.”
Rebecca doesn't try to stop her smile when she agrees.
A bottle and a half of champagne later, Rebecca notices a new notification on her phone as she gets up to leave.
(1) new voice message from Ted Lasso
She listens to the voice message through her headphones on repeat for the entire walk home, and wonders to herself if she can get Ted to agree to only send her voice messages instead of texts. So when he's away she can pull them out, listen to him narrate the minutia of their lives, so she can always have him there, just for her.