Chapter Text
“Henry, this is your last chance... You don’t want to know the lengths I had to go to to even get you this deal. If you want to keep playing, you cannot fuck this up,” the tinny echo of Godwin over speaker phone fills the small kitchen of Henry’s new apartment.
“I won’t, my head is back on my shoulders. This won’t be a repeat of last year,” Henry reassures with the hope that by speaking the words he could will them into reality.
“You’re meeting with management tomorrow, do whatever it takes to make a good impression, I don’t care what you do just don’t be a smart ass—”
“He’s right you know,” the bright sing-song of Theresa’s voice drifts by the door as she walks to the living room where she is piling Henry’s boxes. Bereft of another box’s weight, she comes to lean on the frame of the kitchen’s entryway, looking over Henry where he stands hovering above his phone. Her chest rises and falls with the exertion of lugging his life into these unfamiliar walls. “After the shit you pulled last season, I’m surprised you even managed to get this much. Don’t waste Godwin’s effort.”
“What would I do without you guys? Such a supportive pair the two of you make. I can tell you both really believe in me.” Sarcasm drips heavy, saturating Henry’s words. Theresa gives a small laugh, pushing off the frame and heads out the front door back to Henry’s car where more boxes await. He knows their words are true. He can’t afford a repeat of the previous season; he will have to watch himself closely and learn to bite his tongue. He suspects he will be growing used to the taste of blood in the coming weeks.
“This is exactly what we are talking about, Henry—” Godwin retorts, the exhaustion apparent in his voice.
“I know, I know! Listen, I appreciate all your hard work and I won’t waste it, I promise, but I gotta go. Still a lot to do over here, and as much as I enjoy your voice I’m more terrified of what Tess will do to me if I keep leaving her to carry all my stuff in herself.”
“Yes, go help her, God knows she’s done enough for you already. A real blessing she is, that one…” Godwin’s sigh crackles through the phone’s receiver, and when he speaks, he does so with a tone both serious and gentle. “But Henry, all jests aside, you can do this, I believe you can do this, wouldn't have stuck my neck out as far as I did if I didn’t think it was worth it.”
“…Thanks, Godwin, it really does mean a lot.” Henry ends the call and lets his head fall forward to hang, its weight heavy on his neck and shoulders. He allows himself one breath to wallow, one breath to balance, one breath to prepare.
“I got this,” the affirmation slips past his lips, once again with the hope he may bring them to manifest.
They get the last of Henry’s belongings up into his apartment before Theresa sets him to work. She directs Henry to move the furniture according to her preference—as if Henry wasn’t the one living here—and when he doesn’t do it as efficiently as she sees fit, she shoves him aside, hauling the couch, the bed, the dresser into place while Henry gets relegated to unpacking the kitchen.
“Seriously Hal!” Theresa calls out from the bedroom, “It was horrific when I saw that.”
“It wasn’t so bad...” Henry tries to defend himself from the deserved slander.
“It was! You lived in that place for a year without unpacking, you never even set up your bed frame, your couch was blocking the hall and—oh gross! What the hell is this?”
Cold fear shoots through Henry; what could Theresa have possibly found to elicit that kind of reaction? He is running through a mental list of all the possibilities when she appears in the archway of the kitchen holding out the limp length of cable as if it were a dead snake—the corpse of Henry’s phone charger.
“What the hell is this?”
“…My charger?”
“And it still works?” Theresa looks at the thing in her hand—a Frankenstein’s monster of exposed wire and no less than four different types of decomposing tape, the thing practically begs to be laid to rest—then back to Henry with thinly veiled judgement and disgust in her eyes.
“You gotta twist it just right, but yes, it does still work.”
“…It’s sticky,” Theresa places the wire on the counter top, no longer willing to subject herself to the tacky layer of degrading adhesives that coat its length, and wipes off her hand on her pants. “Get a new charger Henry, I am begging you,” she calls out as she disappears back into his bedroom, returning to her mission of making sure Henry’s apartment is livable.
A few hours later, the space has actually started to come together into something that could pass for a home. Henry is sorting through his collection of records: games tapes, box scores, and scouting reports—his study material from years past. He sits in a mountain of the information, most of it dated and useless beyond nostalgia, while Theresa roots around in a box labeled Mementos.
“Oh my—Hal! Look!” Theresa pulls from the confines of the cardboard a small wooden sword, something Henry had not laid eyes on since he was a child.
“Woah, haven't seen that in years.”
“Remember when you wanted to be a knight as a kid? I remember seeing you in the field out by Bianca’s with this thing. Swinging away at nothing, pretending like you were some great hero.”
“Remember when you demanded we duel and you whacked me so hard on the back of the hand that it cut me? Ma was so mad that she confiscated it for a month! And, she banned me from going to practice until it healed!”
“Well that was your fault for being so bad at sword fighting.” Theresa twirls the weapon around in her grip, demonstrating that she could probably still best Henry in single combat should the opportunity arise.
“Good thing we don’t live in the dark ages, I guess.” Henry hefts himself up from the floor, plopping himself on the couch beside her as she continues to rifle through the contents, searching through more treasures of Henry’s childhood.
“What else is even in there?”
Leaning in to get a better look, Henry takes in what he can. In the box is a mismatch of his childhood baseball equipment: tiny bats and gloves, a jersey from his first team, a ninety-two plastered across the back—the same number he still wears to this day. Each item holds the memory of a childhood where he fell in love with sport, where he dedicated every fibre of his being to chasing the dream of playing professionally. Henry welcomes the nostalgia, warm like a mid-summer game.
“Oh my God!” Theresa gasps, pulling out a handmade baseball card held within the safety of a clear plastic sleeve and holds it up for Henry to see, “I can’t believe you have this still!”
“So that’s where this ended up.” He takes the card from her fingers and cradles it in his palm, looking down at the scissor trimmed edges of the discount store bristol board. Amongst all the memorabilia and childhood treasures, this reigned supreme; a single hand made card, decorated with precision to mock the real thing, featuring his own visage rendered in the clumsy but loving hand of a child’s drawing. Henry runs his thumb over the scratched plastic, a bitter smile creeping at the corners of hip lips.
“I remember her making that, how she begged her dad to get her some real cards because she had to get it just right,” Theresa laughs and leans back into the couch, lost in the memory. “She planned and planned, and practiced and practiced, determined to get it absolutely perfect and look at it now… did she give you a unibrow?”
“I think that’s supposed to be the cage of my mask, but you’re right it does look like a unibrow…” Henry smiles, but that familiar ache in his chest starts to take hold, crushing against his ribs, exposing just how empty and cold he feels. “I remember she was so nervous when she gave this to me, as if there were any other outcome than me loving it. My first trading card.” That had been the moment he knew he would love Bianca for the rest of their lives. What he didn’t know was how short their life together would actually be. “But here.” Henry stands back up, motioning for Theresa to hand him the box, “I’ll go tuck this away in the closet.”
“No you will not!” Theresa objects, pulling the box from Henry’s reach and snatching the card that he still held. “These deserve a place of honour, ah!” She gets up and brings the trinkets to the shelf Henry had been seated in front.
“Tess, that’s for my record—”
“Not anymore! Those can go in your closet!” She starts arranging his childhood equipment on one of the shelves at her eye level, leaving the card for last, which she displays front and centre, propped up against the wooden sword. “There, perfect!” She steps back and stands beside Henry, admiring her handiwork. “Don’t hide her away, Henry. She’s gone but she is still with us.”
Later, Henry re-enters his apartment with bags of hot take-out stuffeded into his arms, the room’s alight in the blazing fire of the setting sun. Theresa is once more seated on his couch, elbow deep in what appears to be the final box placed on his coffee table. The rest of his place is unpacked and organized—it’s not just functional, but livable, holding potential and hope for this: his last chance.
As they eat their way through enough food to feed a small army, Henry’s eyes catch on the mantle of his fireplace. There, Theresa has set up another small shrine of items that—if left to his own devices—Henry would have kept packed away, shoved into some corner to collect dust. Lined up neatly across the yellowing paint of a landlord special are picture frames and trinkets, family portraits, photos of his parents, of his friends, of him and Bianca. Theresa watches him stare with his fork paused halfway to his mouth as he takes in the images of those he has lost.
“You know what I’ll say if you suggest taking them down,” Theresa preempts his protest.
“I haven’t said a damn word yet.” He finishes his bite of food. Theresa follows suit and they sit in silence for another moment under the gaze of the shrine.
“Did you know,” Henry breaks the silence, lest the pressure building in his chest break him, “that necklace, my mother’s necklace, is probably my first memory.” He motions to the delicate chain Theresa has draped over the frame holding a photograph of his Ma and Pa—one picturing her clearly wearing that same necklace. Henry has always considered it one of the most beautiful pieces of craftsmanship he has ever seen, shining silver wrought into individual links that interlock and weave themselves into an illusory branch of ivy. “I couldn’t have been much older than a toddler at the time… in the memory nothing is happening, it’s just a frozen moment and I’m staring at it while she holds me, just mesmerised by the way the light reflects off it draping over her collarbone…”
Theresa doesn’t speak, lets the moment breath, gives Henry the space to continue if he so wishes.
“I used to beg her for one of my own, my whole childhood. I wanted to be just like her. Then one day—just a regular day after a regular game—we got in the car to go home and she pulled out this thin black box and handed it over to me with a mischievous look in her eye. I open it and there laying on a velvet cushion is a silver chain of my own. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have taken it off since then.”
“It suits you, I don’t think you’d be Henry without it.”
“And that,” Henry continues—the pressure lessening—pointing to the tarnished silver case placed at the foot of the frame, “is Pa’s cigarette case—”
“Oh, I remember that thing! Now, do you remember when we were having that bonfire back in high school at your place?” Theresa’s voice grows excited at the memory, scooching further back onto the couch, she brings her legs up and folds them underneath her. “For some reason, your parents trusted you enough to go to bed and let us kids run wild in the bush out back, the Matts somehow got a hold of booze so it could be a ‘real party’ or some bullshit.” Theresa pauses a moment, trying to collect the memories from the haze of alcohol and time. “Oh, I think you and Bianca had disappeared somewhere while the rest of us got wasted! But Fritz gets the genius idea to send me inside to swipe your Pa’s cigarette case ‘cause they wanted to try smoking—“
“Wait! That was you?!” Henry does remember this—not those events but their fallout—“When he saw the next day that some were missing, he damn near killed me! He thought I had taken them! All these years and it was you?!”
“Well technically it was Fritz, I was just the idiot who was surprisingly light on her feet when absolutely plastered.”
“I can’t believe this,” Henry scoffs, stunned, “you almost ended my career.” Henry had spent his whole life watching his Pa frantically pat down his pockets looking for that patinated case as he itched for the drag of a cigarette, all while warning Henry to never take up the habit. Pa would threaten him that if he ever caught Henry with one, he would chain the poor boy to his forge and never let him out of his sight again. No more dreams, no more aspirations—just a hammer, a hot fire, and his Pa breathing down his neck. And Theresa had damn near made that threat a reality.
As he recovers from this revelation, the two finish their dinner. Henry cleans up the empty containers while Theresa collects her belongings. He insists on her staying the night, but she insists harder that she has to head out.
“That last box just has a bunch of paperwork from the funeral and stuff in it…” Theresa trails off as she stands on the threshold of Henry’s front door, chewing on her words, trying to resist the temptation of her curiosity, but failing.
“I didn’t mean to snoop or anything,” she starts, “I just happened to see it, honest, but I have to know. Who is that Radzig Kobyla guy?” Henry stiffens at the name. “His name was all over the paperwork and it looks like he spent a lot of money on the funeral.”
Henry debates how much he is willing to let Theresa in on. His parents had let Henry know early on that his Pa—Martin—wasn’t his biological father. This other guy, Radzig Kobyla was. Some tragic tale of forbidden love and class restrictions, his parents had tried to explain but Henry had never cared. This Radzig guy wasn’t his father—his only existence in Henry’s life had taken the form of folded card stock delivered and signed every birthday, every holiday. Martin was his Pa and always would be; nothing would ever change that, he could never be replaced.
“Its a long story, he’s some guy that Ma knew. Stupid rich from what I’ve heard, so when he heard about the accident, he offered to cover everything. Figured there was no reason to refuse.”
“Wow, that’s generous. He must have been in love with her or something to have spent that much.” Theresa’s tone is lighthearted, her words meant as a joke—she had no idea just how much truth they actually held.
“You may be right about that.”
Theresa steps in to wrap her arms around her friend and presses a kiss to Henry’s cheek before holding his shoulders in a firm grip, a no-nonsense look in her eyes. “Take care of yourself Hal, and keep in touch! I worry about you.”
“I know,” Henry presses a kiss to her forehead before she steps completely into the hallway, ready to head back to her own life. “Drive safe, Tess.”
“I will!” Her response drifts through the door as it closes, clicking into place, leaving Henry alone.
————
The ball park’s lot is unplowed and sparsely populated in the lull of the off-season. Only a smattering of cars sit parked and clustered around the entrance to the unassuming building that connects to towering walls of the stadium proper. Henry pulls into what he hopes is a parking spot and steps from the warmth of his car into the chilling wind that whips across the empty lot. The cold cuts through him, making his shoulders hike to his ears and his still damp hair from his poorly timed shower starts to freeze as he roots through his trunk, slinging the myriad of equipment bags across his body and onto his shoulders.
Despite its unassuming exterior, the inside of the training facility tells a different story. Henry is greeted by the warm air and bright colours of the lobby. Yellow and red swim in his vision, broken by the brief reprieve of black, the team’s… his team’s colours. Plastering the wall across from the doors is a mural of the teams logo: a striking yellow bird resting on the handle of a cross peen hammer as if it were a branch and underneath in bold scripted font the team’s name—Yellowhammers.
Instinct pushes Henry to the front desk where a particularly bored man sits staring at an open laptop. He is entirely uninterested with Henry’s presence in the lobby, or the gust of cold air that follows in behind him.
Curiosity pulls his attention to a woman huddled in the lobby’s sitting area. She sits among open notebooks, a laptop, and other pieces of tech that lay strewn across her lap, the couch, and the coffee table. She seems to be fighting with a nest of wires and it is unclear who or what exactly is winning that fight. She looks frazzled, her red hair in disarray and sticking out wildly from under her hat, her freckled cheeks a matching shade, rosy and wind-burnt. It is a sight to behold, and greatly amusing, but Henry is here with a purpose, a mission to salvage the the career he fought so hard to build and all but ruined in less than twelve months. So, he makes his way to the front desk, only gaining the attendant’s attention when he obnoxiously clears his throat.
“…Uhh, can I help you?” the attendant asks, looking Henry over, his eyes bored, tone slightly annoyed, as if Henry’s presence is a divine imposition on his otherwise peaceful morning.
“I have a meeting with management, Kovar, Henry.”
“Right, right, they said you’d be coming in today,” the attendant leans dangerously far back in his chair—the squeal of its ungreased hinges grating through the lobby’s otherwise peaceful atmosphere—hooking his arm over the back of it to point down the hall behind him, “Offices are down that way, just follow it until you find the one you need.”
“Thanks…” Henry gives the attendant a small nod as they turn back to their laptop, giving Henry a small wave to signal acknowledgment of Henry’s hesitant gratitude.
Accompanied only by the echo of his own footsteps, Henry makes his way through the identical halls of offices and storerooms, scanning each door’s plaque as he goes in search of his destination. He is still hunting when, from further down the hallway a door slams heavily, drawing his attention from the plaque he had been puzzling over—the office of the Equipment Manager, someone named Nightingale, just Nightingale.
A person emerges from an office a few doors down from where Henry stands, effectively doubling the population of the desolate hall, and he is fuming. The newcomer storms his way through the hall, his head down and muttering to himself—the sight is almost cartoonish, Henry can practically see the steam coming from his ears. Despite the ample room the empty hall provides, they are on a collision course—well, the mystery guy is on a collision course with Henry, considering that he is the one not looking ahead and unaware of Henry’s presence as a tripping hazard.
Henry doesn’t step out of the way, just waits for the inevitable to come as his hallway companion stays his course—until his right shoulder slams directly into Henry’s left. The inertia of his anger causes him to stumble and spin, head snapping up to glare directly at what he just ran into. His eyes land on Henry’s, crystal blue and full of ire.
Brought face to face, Henry takes in his companion’s appearance. His features are noble, high cheekbones with a straight nose and an expression painted into one of annoyance, the flush of his anger only made more prominent by its contrast against his impossibly gold hair and hilariously matching team sweater. Henry just looks at him, offering nothing beyond his own baffled expression, which only serves to anger the blond further.
“Watch where you’re fucking going!” the blond spits the words at Henry, as if he was the one to have caused their collision, not the other way around. Whirling, he storms off once more, not allowing Henry to get even a word in edgewise or defend himself.
The mystery man disappears somewhere deeper into the facility, leaving Henry in the wake of his anger, confounded and mildly amused by the whole interaction. The only clue Henry is left with to the man’s identity is the ‘35’ he had managed to see embroidered onto the arm of the sweater he wore.
The guy was a player, a teammate.
Checking the plaque beside the door 35 burst from confirms Henry’s suspicion: this is the office he’s looking for. Knocking, Henry hears the muffled conversation behind the door stop and a gruff voice calling for him to enter.
“Henry!” The gruff voice turns booming as he steps into the office, “Come in, come in lad. It’s good to finally meet you face-to-face.” The voice belongs to a man stationed behind a commanding desk placed in the centre of the room—Bernard, the Yellowhammers’ manager. He stands as he greets Henry, offering out his hand as he nods his head toward the other men in the room, “These two are Nightingale, our equipment manager, and Oats, pitching coach.”
“Glad to be here.” Henry takes Bernard’s hand, giving it a quick, firm shake, and nods to the others as he steps back into his own space in front of the desk.
“You better be,” Bernard lets out a slight chuckle as he settles back into his desk’s chair, “After that whole debacle with the Bandits I’m surprised you got as much as we offered.”
“Yes, I know sir. I am ashamed of my performance and behaviour last season,” Henry hangs his head, remembering Godwin’s advice to do whatever was necessary for a good impression, to bite his tongue, “I promise that nothing like that will happen here. I am prepared to work hard and earn my spot.”
“You already have the role of starting catcher. Call it kismet, but we were in desperate need, and turns out the boys upstairs believe in second chances. But,” Bernard leans forward onto his desk, his presence imposing even as he sits, “there will be no third. You are here on what is basically a glorified tryout, Henry. One year, league minimum. A single step out of line and we can terminate your contract. This deal is your lifeline. Your words are nice to hear, but you have to prove it on the field. Show us you want to be here.”
“Yes, sir. You won’t be disappointed.”
“Besides,” Bernard continues, “we have another new addition coming to the team this year.” A devious smile plays across his mouth, “Pitcher, a fresh demotion from the triple. I’ve known the kid for just about his whole life, a fire cracker in more ways than one and be warned, Henry, he is not happy to be here, so he will be a handful. Your handful, to be exact. If you can wrangle him, you can pretty much consider a fair, hell, a generous contract with your name on it already signed.” Bernard laughs and stacks a few stray folios that lay on his desk together. He holds them out toward Henry, “This should be a good start for you to study up, profiles on all our pitchers. Your handful is the one on the top, so you know who to look out for.”
Henry takes the stack, turning it around in his grasp to open the top-most folder. What greets him is exactly what he expects: that same noble face from the hallway, though he looks much more composed in his headshot than he did post-collision. Beside the photo Henry reads his player info, #35-RHP-Hans Capon (S). The name strikes a familiar chord, some synapses in his brain connecting to a vague memory of an up-and-coming pitching prospect, promising in talent but lacking in reputation. Henry has never met or played against the guy—different cities, different leagues—but from their brief encounter, he suspects that what rumours he has heard may very well be true. This Hans Capon is going to be the quintessential pitcher—proud, hot headed, and selfish—but it is Henry’s job as a catcher to handle precisely this. And if Bernard is to be believed, Henry’s playing career relies on his ability to execute this exact task.
This Capon guy doesn’t intimidate him.