Chapter Text
When word got out that everyone had to quarantine, that people needed to stay in their homes, work from home, the whole nine yards, Ted was only half-listening. In fact, he didn’t often listen too closely to the news. He simply didn’t turn his television on that often, preferring music when he needed noise to other people talking. But this time, he had it on when a breaking news bulletin came through, his apron tied around his waist while he carefully cut shortbread.
It was going to be a mandatory lockdown, everyone in their homes for the foreseeable future. He heard the words passively, like they didn’t apply to him, because, well, he wanted to cut the dang biscuits straight.
And then the words settled, and he looked up toward the television, brow furrowed.
His phone beeped on the table.
“Looks like no matches for at least six weeks,” Higgins’s message said. Ted read the message and turned his eyes back to the television, reading the ticker at the bottom of the screen.
Mandatory shelter-in-place order intact, goes into effect at midnight.
He looked around at the pink boxes, at the biscuits he’d already packed for the coming day. Well, that wouldn’t do at all, would it?
***
Rebecca stared blankly at the news, the wine glass in her hand nearly empty. Six weeks, stuck in her own house? That sounded like a special kind of torture. She was lonely enough when she saw people – being cooped up in her own four walls was going to drive her mad.
But it was about safety, and she was a public figure, so she couldn’t just shirk the idea. The moment she set foot outside her home, someone would take a picture of it and she would be Old Rebecca who didn’t care about public health.
No, she couldn’t have that.
She pulled out her phone and shot a text off to Walter, her driver, to let him know that she wouldn’t need to be taken to and from work for the next six weeks. She pulled up her contacts and called Higgins, who reassured her that he was already in touch with the coaching staff and the players, that it was all taken care of.
She had just set her phone down when there was a knock at her door.
Ted was standing on her doorstep, holding a duffel bag and still wearing his apron. “Ted,” she said with a laugh. “What’s this?”
“Okay so I had an idea,” he said, and she stepped aside to let him inside easily, closing the door behind him. “We have to quarantine for six weeks, right?”
“Right,” she said leadingly.
“And I bring you biscuits every day,” he continued.
“Uh huh…”
“And if we have to quarantine, then you can’t have biscuits for six weeks, unless I give you the recipe, which is not happenin’,” he said. “And I realized that you live alone, and I live alone, and six weeks alone is enough to make a person go full time crazy, like off the rocker bonkers, you know what I mean –”
“You want to…you want to quarantine with me?” she asked blankly.
He shrugged. “Unless you think that’s a bad idea.”
She suppressed a smile. “I think…six weeks is a long time,” she said carefully.
“You think I’ll get annoyin’?” he asked with a chuckle. “I mean, I understand that, that’s a solid assumption.”
“No, I think you’ll get annoyed with me,” she reassured him. “I don’t think you’re annoying.”
He tilted his head at her, like she’d said something truly touching instead of the baseline compliment that you’re not annoying occupied on the scale of nice things to say to someone. He shifted on his feet. “Well, whaddaya say, Boss? Wanna be quarantine buddies?”
***
“You’re what?” Keeley screeched over Skype. Rebecca flinched away from the sound, fumbling with the volume frantically.
“We’re quarantining together,” Rebecca said calmly, because, really, what was there to freak out about? It’s not like they were doing something completely insane.
“That’s completely insane,” Keeley insisted. “You’re either going to shag each other’s brains out –”
Rebecca almost knocked her laptop over trying to hit the volume button again.
“Or you’re going to hate each other.”
“Are those the only two options?” she asked weakly.
Keeley raised her eyebrows at her. “Come on, babes, sometimes even married people can’t be with each other all day, every day for six straight weeks. Everyone gets irritated with another person in their space all the time.”
Rebecca chewed on her bottom lip pensively. “Just because he’s in the house with me doesn’t mean we have to hang out all the time.”
“Hey, Boss, did you know that you have a towel warmer in your bathroom?” Ted asked, walking into the room with a towel wrapped delicately around his waist, hair wet, obviously fresh out of the shower. Rebecca spluttered, closing the laptop carefully. Ted was grinning at her, water dripping out of his hair and onto his face, down his chin to his chest. She followed the line of water, her mouth falling open.
“I – um – I – yes, yes I did know that,” she stammered, snapping her mouth closed and tearing her eyes away.
“You alright?” he asked, and he looked, somehow, charming and concerned from the neck up and, Rebecca thought traitorously, completely different from the neck down. She let her eyes roam for a moment before getting herself together.
“Hmm? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, why do you ask?”
He blinked. “Your uh…your face is kinda red,” he said, and he let go of the towel to motion to his own face. Rebecca tightened her jaw and willed herself not to look, not to let him know that she was thinking about the towel around his waist, perilously holding on.
“Is it?” she asked, a little breathlessly.
“Rebecca?” Keeley’s voice jolted her out of her thoughts, and she lifted the laptop screen to find Keeley glaring at her. “What the hell is going on over there?”
“Oh, hey, Keeley!” Ted exclaimed, taking a step closer.
“Ted,” Rebecca said hurriedly, because if he got any closer to her in nothing but a towel, it was going to be an awkward six weeks of quarantine, indeed. “Is that the best idea…or maybe you should…?”
He paused, looking down at himself. “I should get dressed, you’re right, Boss.”
“Is Ted not dressed?” Keeley asked, and Rebecca waited until he was gone before she buried her face in her hands. “Rebecca Welton you better say something! Why is Ted not dressed?”
“He didn’t know I have a towel warmer in the bathroom,” she said, her face still covered.
“Right, and your face is cherry fucking red right now why?” Keeley gloated.
“Goodbye, Keeley,” Rebecca said, blowing her a kiss before she hung up. She closed the laptop and put her arms over it, dropping her head onto them.
A long six weeks, for sure.