Chapter Text
Mornings at the club were always the same. Rebecca would make a cup of tea, let it cool, have biscuits with Ted, and when he left, Higgins would sweep in, his clipboard in hand, and they would discuss whatever business they had to get done that day. He’d leave, she’d open her windows and listen to training while she answered emails and got ready for her afternoon meetings.
So when a knock came at her door and her visitor opened it, she already knew who it was.
“Good morning, Coach Lasso – oh, Higgins,” she said, faltering. “Is…is something the matter?”
“I’m sorry, I know we usually meet later, but I got a call from HR this morning and I thought it would be best to discuss it with you ASAP, so –”
“Well alright, come sit down,” she said, motioning to the chair in front of her desk. “This isn’t about Jamie and Dani’s PDA again, is it? Because I told you to start carrying a water bottle to spray them with –”
“Ahh, no,” Higgins said, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. “It’s about Will.”
“The kitman?” Rebecca asked. “Don’t tell me we’re going to promote another kitman. Remember what happened last time –”
“No, not that,” Higgins said. “No HR sent back his tax forms. Apparently they’re filled out incorrectly.”
She furrowed her brow at him. “So have him fill them out correctly,” she said, like it was obvious.
Higgins held up a finger. “That would be the easy solution, but it’s…more than that. Apparently –”
“Good morning, Boss – oh, hello Higgiebottoms, you’re here early,” Ted said, sauntering through the office door. He paused, blinking between both Rebecca and Higgins. “Am I interrupting an early meeting?”
“Of sorts,” Rebecca said, looking back at Higgins, who still looked troubled.
Ted pursed his lips. “Okay, that’s mysterious, but I can duck out and let y’all get back to it –”
“No, Ted, stay,” she said gently. “It’s not a secret.” He blinked at her and nodded, extending his hand with the biscuits toward her. “Thank you,” she said, like she said every morning. He waved her off and dropped into the seat beside Higgins.
“As you were saying, Leslie,” Rebecca said.
“Yes, well, apparently, Will Kitman is not his real name,” Higgins said.
Rebecca tilted her head. “You thought his last name was Kitman?” The room was silent, and she looked between Higgins and Ted with growing incredulity. “Kitman is his job title!”
“He said it was his last name,” Higgins said, like it was that simple.
Ted pointed in Higgins’s direction. “I agree with Higgie over here. I just thought it was a happy coincidence, you know, like when the lady at the bakery gives you an extra croissant without askin’?”
Rebecca rolled her eyes, setting her teacup on the table with a solid clink. “Kitman is clearly a fake name,” Rebecca said pointedly. “And the lady at the bakery is hitting on you, Ted.”
“It is?”
“She is?”
She groaned, opening her box of biscuits. “Sometimes I wonder how this club runs so smoothly.”
“’Cause we got a good boss,” Ted said, like it was obvious. Rebecca smiled at him, exasperation immediately fading. Higgins, sitting beside him, cleared his throat.
“So…what should I do about Will?” he asked.
“Send him to me,” Rebecca said, and Ted looked over at her, alarmed.
“Whoa, no, no, there’s no need for that,” he said.
“No need for what?” she asked, taking a bite of biscuit.
“Firin’ him.”
She blinked at him. “Who said I was firing him?”
He looked over at Higgins, who averted his eyes down to the clipboard. “Well, that is what you were gonna do, right?” he asked. “Fake name, HR problem? Look, I’m just sayin’, lemme talk to him first, see what’s what.”
She considered the suggestion, hands crossed in front of her. At her silence, Ted stuck out his bottom lip, looking absurdly childish, and blinked his big brown eyes at her. She tried to fight the smile that threatened to take over her face but gave up the fight when Ted fluttered his eyelashes at her again, sending something light through her chest and down to her stomach where it lingered, waxing and waning like the tide.
“Please?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said, still smiling. “Talk to him first.”
“I appreciate ya, Rebecca,” he said, just soft enough that she cleared her throat, taking a sip of her tea.
She watched Higgins look between them and then back down at the paperwork in his hands before he said, far too loudly, “Well, I guess keep me informed on what I should tell HR about the paperwork.”
Ted broke the eye contact first, looking after Higgins as he left.
“Thank you, Higgins,” she said quietly.
***
Ted jogged down the stairs feeling tingly down to his fingertips. He always felt like that after meeting with Rebecca in the morning – something about the early morning felt more intimate, like they were seeing each other before everyone else managed to get in and tire them out, or force them to put up some kind of mask. Even today, with Higgins in the room, he could see how she switched between the way she looked at Higgins and the way she looked at him.
Business-like and something a little more familiar.
He shook his hands out as he met the foot of the stairs, looking right and then left for Will, who he knew was typically in the boot room around this time in the morning.
“You alright, Coach?” Roy asked as he walked by, eyes on Ted’s hands.
“What? Oh, yeah, right as rain,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Thanks for checkin’ in.”
Roy lifted his eyebrows but didn’t answer, and Ted resumed his hunt for Will – if he wasn’t in the boot room, he might be in the training room, and when he came up empty, took the long way around to the offices just so he could walk through another hallway.
“Guess I’ll just take these – oh, Coach Lasso –”
“Will, hey, just the man I was lookin’ for,” Ted said, just brightly enough that Will’s smile faltered a little, and Ted’s eye noticed him kick a black bag under a desk in the doorway. “Come on in here,’ he tilted his head toward Nate’s old office, still left empty. “Shut the door.”
“Oh no, what did he tell you?” Will asked, obediently following after him.
“Him?” Ted asked. “Him who?”
“Nate. I swear, I thought he’d enjoy the Wonder Kid thing, everyone agreed, I didn’t know what to do when he got so angry so I just…I left him alone, and –”
“Whoa, whoa, no, nothin’ like that,” Ted said hurriedly, his brow wrinkling as the words settled in. “But I would like to circle back to that later, if you’re open to it.”
Will shrugged, his face worryingly pale.
“Come on, sit down,” Ted said reassuringly, trying to read his body language. Will was always a little skittish when all the coaches were together, but they’d had a couple of conversations, and he was a genuinely kind kid, if a little green. But there was nothing wrong with green, not in Ted’s opinion. “So, I heard through the grapevine that your tax forms are missin’ some information.”
His face paled even more.
“Hold on now, we’re just talkin’,” Ted said soothingly. “No need to go ghost on me.”
“I – I didn’t mean to, it just kind of happened, I swear, it’s only meant to be temporary –”
“I’m gonna be honest, Will, I’m getting really turned around in this conversation,” Ted said with a chuckle. “Why don’t you let me tell you what I know, and you can tell me what you’re willin’ to say, alright?” And then, when Will didn’t look any calmer, he added, “I’m not gonna be mad atcha, no matter what, okay?”
He watched him swallow and nod, his fingers tight around each other in his lap.
“Higgins mentioned that your tax forms were incorrect,” he said calmly. “That you gave a false last name on your forms, maybe?”
Will hung his head, and Ted ran his hands through his hair.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s goin’ on?” he asked. “No one gives a false name for no reason, yeah?”
“I didn’t think I’d get it,” Will murmured.
“The job?” Ted asked.
“Yeah, I thought that it was a long shot, and really, I was just trying to get a job anywhere, but then I got it and I didn’t really know what to do, so I just didn’t say anything, and now I’m going to get fired –”
“Come on,” Ted said softly. “Let’s not spiral til we have to. Why the fake name?”
“You have to pass your GCSEs to work here,” he said, so quietly that Ted was sure he misheard.
“I don’t really know what those are,” Ted admitted. “You don’t got em?”
“I dropped out of school,” Will said, distressed. “When I got kicked out of my parents’ house.”
“You got kicked out of your parents’ house?” Ted asked, leaning forward. “When was this?”
“Year nine?” he asked. “I moved in with some mates, but they’re kind of…I don’t want to get in trouble, so I left, and I’ve been looking for a place, but –”
Ted felt like someone had clocked him in the back of the head. He lifted his hand, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry, hold up, we’re gonna have to retrace our steps a little bit. You don’t have your –”
“GCSEs,” Will said dutifully.
“Which are?”
“When you finish school?”
“Like…high school?” Ted asked, aghast. “You didn’t graduate high school?”
“I guess,” Will shrugged.
“And…your parents kicked you out of the house in year nine?”
“Yes.”
“And…which grade is that? How old were you?”
Will blinked and looked away. Ted’s eyes followed him, trying to keep up with too much information to process. This felt so much bigger than just a problem with a tax form. He cleared his throat, and pulled Will’s eyes back to him.
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be angry, not when Will was clearly worried, looking like he might cry. He took a deep breath and tried to keep his focus. This wasn’t about him – he needed to be a coach right now, not a person.
“I’m so sorry, Will,” he said earnestly. “I’m sorry that you had to do that so young. And you said you were living with some friends?”
“Yeah, but I left about a week ago,” Will confirmed.
“Well, gosh, that must be a huge change,” Ted said with a whistle. “Live with some people for well, what, five years or so –”
“Two years.”
“Two – two years?” Ted exclaimed. “That – but that would make you –”
“Sixteen,” Will said, and suddenly, he looked so young, so painfully young that Ted almost couldn’t handle looking at him. “And I know I should’ve said something, Coach Lasso, but I needed to make money so I could move out, and I haven’t made enough yet –”
“You moved out a week ago,” Ted repeated. “So where have you been staying?”
Will’s eyes dropped to the black bag under the table and Ted dropped his head to his hands.
“Here?” he asked incredulously. “You’ve been, what, livin’ at the club?”
“Police don’t let you sleep on the streets,” Will said, so knowingly that Ted was sure he was going to cry. He couldn’t handle watching people suffer – knowing that Will had suffered for so long, at such a young age made him hurt so much he wanted to curl up in bed and refuse to get up.
“That’s – you’re not staying here anymore,” Ted said definitively. “You’re stayin’ with me now, you got that?”
“Coach, you don’t –”
“Don’t tell me I don’t have to, I know that,” Ted said, a little sternly. “But no one on this team is alone, and that includes the kitman, alright? I mean it. You’re stayin’ with me now. Maybe, after dinner tonight, you can tell me what your real last name is?”
***
“You can’t fire Will,” Ted said, pushing the door to her office open without knocking. Rebecca blinked at him, closing her laptop carefully. “I mean it, Rebecca, you can’t.”
He looked so serious she didn’t even want to make a joke that it wasn’t his decision. “And why am I going to keep employing the man who tried to turn in false tax forms?”
“He’s a kid,” Ted said, turning around to close the office door. “He’s…it’s a long story –”
She watched his hands close into fists and release once, twice, a third time. “Alright, Ted,” she said soothingly. She stood up and walked over to her couch, holding out her hand for him to take. “Come on, sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
He looked down at her hand, cradling his gently between both of hers, and closed his eyes, breathing deep. She let him do it, using his closed eyes as an opportunity to survey his face without detection. His brow was still furrowed, like he was troubled even while he was trying to calm himself down, and she tried not to smile. There was something so very Ted about it, something she couldn’t explain.
“Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out,” she said when his hand squeezed hers gently. She could take her hands back, she could retreat into her own space and leave him alone. But something about the way he was canted toward her, the way that little lock of hair fell down his forehead told her not to, to stay close, to be there to hold him up.
“I just don’t like knowin’ people are sufferin’,” he said. “I should’ve seen it, it’s my job to notice when people need help.”
“Whoa, I’m afraid you’ll have to catch me up here,” she said softly, and he finally opened his eyes and looked at her, tilting his head up to do it because his posture really was awful right now, and she was momentarily struck by the golden streaks in his brown eyes, in the way he looked at her like he really trusted that she could help.
“Okay, but I’ll warn ya, it’s a pretty big mess,” Ted said, and he leaned forward to get his balance back, and for a second, Rebecca thought he was going to put his head on her shoulder, and then the moment was gone, and he was straightening up, and she wished he had.
***
Rebecca had never had a conversation with Will since he’d been hired. She wasn’t even sure if he’d been interviewed – she’d been so busy getting Nate’s coaching contract ready that she hadn’t thought about his replacement much at all.
So when Ted went to get him and brought him upstairs, she took in his appearance and wondered how anyone looked at him and thought he was an adult. He looked so young, and so scared, standing in Rebecca’s office, Ted standing behind him in a way that made Rebecca think he suspected Will would try to turn tail and run.
“Come in,” she said, motioning toward the couch. “Can I get you some tea?”
“Oh, no thank you, ma’am,” he muttered, going to the couch like a whipped puppy.
“There’s no need for ma’am,” she said. “Ted, close the door.”
He watched her prepare her own cup of tea and his eyes followed her all the way to the couch, big and brown and absolutely terrified.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said gently, and he looked over at Ted like he couldn’t quite believe it. “We’re just going to talk.”