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1.
Crouching in front of him, she rubs her hands up and down his arms, face hovering so close each exhale warms his cheeks. He breathes in and holds, then out, and in and holds, and out until his heart stops pounding in his ears.
"It'll be alright," she says softly.
With effort, he blinks his eyes open to find hers closed. Ted leans in until their foreheads touch.
"It's okay," she promises, swaying slightly upon impact.
He doesn’t answer. Can't, yet.
She pulls back and presses her lips to his temple. Warmth spirals outward from the contact, thawing the remnants of his panic like the climax in a fairy tale. She's as shiny as any knight.
"Thank you," he manages, finally.
"Anytime."
2.
She throws her arms around him before he can even get a good morning out, Ted stiffens his fingers to cage the biscuit box in and keep her from crushing it between their bodies. One of her hands splays firmly on his lower back and the other clutches his shoulder. It's lingering, and she smells really good, for a delirious second he almost turns and breathes it in.
"Happy Birthday," she says right into his ear.
"Thanks, boss. It's starting out real nice."
She chuckles and he feels it glitter across his chest. When she pulls back it's too slow and their eyes meet from inches away in the retreat. Rebecca bites her lip and his breath hitches; there's a pause where he thinks Maybe, but then she looks down, shakes her head and smiles, and that Maybe turns into Get a grip.
"Can't believe you still baked."
He shrugs. "Couldn't let you down."
She shakes her head again and kisses his cheek, then walks away with the box held between her fingers. He hadn't registered the transfer.
3.
He sees his whole life flash before his eyes, birth to death, and beyond, to the apocalypse, to mass extinction, to the day the earth is swallowed whole by a dying sun until he gets to the edges of the Universe and stares right into an inconceivable nothingness.
That's how hard he's hit his funny bone.
He says all that out loud too which is why Rebecca is rolling her eyes while he blinks down the tears that instantly welled up on impact.
"Ted, that's awfully dramatic."
"I thought I was dying," he whines. There's a pretty good chance this is hitting harder because he was already raw from a talk with Michelle the night before about Henry coming to London for Christmas but he is not thinking about that.
Rebecca rubs her forehead and sighs tiredly (it’s fond though, he can tell), then picks up the offending elbow that he is still clutching, and kisses it right on that little dip that insists on catching corners and making you question if being alive is worth the suffering.
Not that he isn’t, suddenly, for reasons he's also avoiding thinking about, blessing the traumatic events of the past… two? Two. Two minutes, as he feels the warm press of her lips on his skin.
When she stands up straight again she says "You'll live," then turns on her heel and goes back to her desk, not even trying to cover her laugh.
Easy for her to say.
4.
"Shut the fucking door, wanker! You're letting the cold in!"
Ted cringes, shifting anxiously, and turns to check on Rebecca out by the car. She's still leaning into the passenger seat, God knows why.
"Just a second, Mae," he excuses. "Hey, Boss, you alright over there?"
"Got it!" She shouts, but he can't see what.
Rebecca pulls back, shuts the door with her hip and walks over. She stands in the doorway with him, wipes her shoes on the carpet, pulls her hat off and tilts her head back to shake her curls into place. He is mesmerized by the motions.
Her eyes narrow at something above, but he's too dazed to care, then, shockingly, in no more than a half second - for no more than half a second - she leans in, and kisses him.
Just a peck. It's over before he knows it, his heart races way too late.
"What?" He croaks.
She points up.
Mistletoe. Mae's late taking down decorations.
Rebecca takes two steps inside and when he doesn’t follow she turns back and tugs on his sleeve.
"Move Ted, you're letting the cold in."
5.
Being petty ain’t his style but these are dark times if you ask Ted.
West Ham is playing Everton on the TV and if they win it doesn’t really mean anything for Richmond but their last match was ugly and Rupert said some nasty stuff about Rebecca to a tabloid two days ago, so Ted is kinda trying to will a loss (or, more likely, a draw) their way. Not that he would encourage that kinda thinking, but right now, in the privacy of his own head, he is cruising the low road on this one.
It's not going great though, the manifesting. The scoreboard's nil-nil, there's a minute left of stoppage time and West Ham just got a penalty. They watch as number 4 gears up for the kick, and a split second before he goes for it Rebecca's hand snatches his and holds it hard enough to cut off blood flow.
The ball flies, fast and definitive, and Everton's goalkeeper soars, sadly, in the wrong direction. Ted almost can't look 'cause it feels too karmic, can hear the moment everyone at the pub holds their collective breath, and then, by a miracle he's gotta blink some to believe, the ball bounces off the goalpost and ricochets far away from a West Ham victory.
The whistle blows, and he probably wasn’t the only one not turning the other cheek today because the place erupts like Richmond just won the FA cup, beer splashing everywhere, and the euphoria that bubbles up inside him ain't exactly right but it is real.
When he looks at Rebecca, she is shining bright with joy and satisfaction, and he can't regret a thing when she's so happy, even less so when she loosens her death grip on his hand, bringing it up to kiss away the angry reds her nails left behind, and afterwards just doesn’t let him go.
+1.
They’re cutting it seriously close to whistle time but he’s gotta do this now, before it’s all shot to space. He’s too rattled to remember to knock, but it doesn’t matter anyway, she’s already up, getting her bag from her desk to head out to where they should’ve been, like, five minutes ago.
“Hey, boss, listen, I know Nate’s been to see you; now, before you go turning him down-”
She’s sifting through some papers, and doesn’t look at him to say, “I haven’t.” Her frustration is apparent, she straightens up, hands on her hips and blows a piece of hair out of her face. “Can you see my phone from where you are? I think I need a fresh pair of eyes.”
“Uh?”
“On the desk, Ted.”
He shakes his head, trying to adjust to the shift in conversation. “It’s in between the newspapers.”
She reaches for those and pulls it out with a contented noise. “Shifty fucker,” she says, mostly to herself (and the phone).
“Hey, what do you mean-”
“Christ, fuck.” Rebecca mutters, looking at her watch and, finally, at him, “Ted what the fuck are you doing here, they’re about to blow the whistle.”
“Well, I- I came to-”
She’s not really listening, grabbing her bag and dropping the phone into it. She walks in his direction on rushed steps. “Move along, we’re terribly late.”
She shoos him toward the open door with a hand.
“Hold on, hold on." He gets out of the way so she can grab her coat off the hanger "What do you mean you haven’t?”
She frowns, passing her arms through the sleeves and untucking her hair from under the collar. “I haven’t what?”
This whole interaction has been seriously mystifying, Ted is thinking he might have to book himself a head CT. “Nate! He came to see you.”
“Oh, yes, that. I didn’t turn him down.”
“You didn’t?”
Rebecca shakes her head. “Well, not exactly. He asked for his job back, and to that I did not agree.”
Ted deflates. “Hey, come on, let me just say something on that, Nate is-”
She raises a hand and he swallows the rest of it on instinct. “Ted, would you let me?”
He opens and closes his mouth some, trying to fight the need to make his case, then nods.
“He cannot come back here, the bridges he's burned are still smoldering, I have to think of the team.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Ted.”
“Right.” He mimics zipping his lips.
“I told him I’d make a call to possibly get him a position with one of the minor clubs, on probation, and if he didn’t fuck up there, and I’d know if he had, we might speak again about him coming back to Richmond. By then I expect enough of the team would be different for it not to matter as much. I know what you are going to say, but, frankly, if he-”
Ted doesn’t listen to the rest of it, there’s a buzzing in his ears and under his skin, suddenly, his heart is thumping so hard he might need a crash cart. He can’t believe her, it’s insane, how good she is, how kind, how smart. He wants to cry and laugh, to run out and scream at everyone about how much they do not get how special she is, and they should, everyone should know. It’s so much and so all at once that instead of doing any one thing he does nothing. His feet are like led blocks and he can’t find his voice, and she must notice, because even though he can’t listen to a lick of what she’s saying over the blood rushing in his ears he can see her, so clearly it’s nearly blinding, and she's looking at him like he's grown a second head.
“Ted?”
It’s her hand on his bare forearm that snaps him back to the land of the living.
“Are you ill?”
She actually looks concerned, it swells within him, the touch and her care and the whole deal, and there’s no room for all that stuff inside just one folksy Kansas man, he’s gonna blurt it out, right now, the thing he’s been getting at for months, on this random match day, while they're talking about Nate and she's being so compassionate, he's gonna do it, right when they’re running late.
“Would it be bad if we kissed?”
There it is.
She startles for a second, and then, just as quickly, softens, her eyes dropping to his lips. Ted thinks now would be a good time for someone to wheel in that crash cart for real.
“Would it?” She returns the question.
His head is spinning. “I’ll be honest, I’m biased, but I’m having a tough time coming up with stuff to slot on the cons list for that one.” He shocks himself by putting so much into words.
Rebecca’s answer is to step into him. Her hand comes up to his cheek and Ted is suddenly afraid he’s gonna start crying, how did they even get here? What. Is happening. Lucky for him though, there’s no time to overthink, a second later her face is right there, her nose brushing against his and making him shiver.
“Is this going to change things?” Her whisper is so faint he wouldn’t have heard it from another inch away.
The question sobers him up just enough for his hands to remember they can play a part in this, so he puts his palm against her cheek, to mirror hers on his, and gives her the most honest answer he knows.
“I hope so.”
That’s the last anyone says before their lips are slotting together, soft and sparkly. Ted does cry then, just a couple drops slipping past his guard because he’s so floored with relief. She doesn’t seem to mind, waits another second and moves her hand to the back of his head to pull him closer, her body coming into his tight, like she’s trying to merge them. He understands the urge.
When they break apart they do it slowly, and in between pecks she keeps stealing while pulling away. Ted doesn’t open his eyes until he’s sure she’s done, and then sees she’d been crying too.
It's quiet, though he's not sure if that's fact or just the bubble they've put themselves in. Her hands go to his shoulders and squeeze, eyes roaming over him. He can’t imagine what’s going through her head but hopes she feels as liquid and warm as him. Incandescent.
He gives her that time, and the silence, to find what she's looking for. The conclusion, whatever it is, seems to satisfy her, because she nods to herself, smiles, and then nods again, at him this time, and says, voice hoarse with tears and kissing “Come on, we’re late.”
On cue, they hear the whistle blow and the uproar of the crowd and he’s reminded there’s a world beyond her.
“Right. Lead the way.”