Chapter Text
It's not even that Roy Kent is that much grumpier than usual, on the day when everything goes terribly wrong.
Sure, his knee bugs him more when the weather is bad, and he's currently limping around because it's way too cold for mid-November, especially since it was gorgeous out yesterday. Sure, he slept like shit last night because his knee was aching. Sure, he's in a tiff because he was out of his favourite coffee creamer and he has a habit of letting little things like that ruin his morning.
But Roy is always grouchy in the mornings, so this is nothing new.
It's the team that are being a bunch of whiny little baby idiots, whinging all the way from the dressing room to the pitch about how cold it is and how they don't want to run about in the rain and why can't they train inside for now because it looks like it's going to start pouring.
So Roy makes them run laps until they're all vomiting and falling down into the soaking wet grass— save for Jamie, who has superhuman stamina at this point and barely seems winded, just standing there bouncing on his toes and shivering. Even he looks miserable, though, rain-drenched and covered in mud, giving Roy a look like he's trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with him today.
"Right. Whistle! Bring it in."
The team groups up, all groaning and complaining under their breath.
"Please tell me we're going inside," Colin mutters, probably thinking Roy can't hear him.
"Not a fucking chance, Hughes," Roy barks. "I'm tired of you all stropping about and crying because of a little bit of fucking rain. Full scrimmage, full-out, now. If I catch any of you slacking, I restart the fucking clock and you keep fucking playing until we're done. Got it?"
There's a quiet grumble of agreement from the team.
"A little harsh, Coach," Beard offers.
"They deserve it."
Beard shrugs.
"Whatever you figure."
"I do think it's about to start raining harder," Nate chimes in. He's holding a massive umbrella over the three of them. "Do we move inside if it gets worse?"
"Fuck no," Roy snaps. "I've played in a bloody hurricane. They'll be fine."
That match— an England-USA friendly, held in Orlando— did get called off within ten minutes, when they were all sliding around the pitch, but still. It was far worse weather than they're in now, and Roy survived.
Maybe he's taking his bad mood out on a bunch of people who don't really deserve it, and maybe he's still feeling a little unsure in his position as manager, so maybe he's slightly abusing his power by pushing the poor lads so hard... but such is football, isn't it? Sometimes you turn up to training and your coach decides to kick your arse for no apparent reason, and that just serves to make you tougher. Hell, Roy used to be coached by fucking Mourinho, the biggest fucking prick of a manager that's ever managed. (He loved it, Roy did, the no-nonsense way Chelsea was run back then, but mostly because he'd stayed on the coach's good side by keeping his mouth shut and playing good football.)
"Let's go!" Roy bellows. "Not a word of fucking complaining or I pause the match and make you all run more laps!"
That shuts them up. Roy folds his arms over his chest and watches.
This is good for them.
-
The intimidatingly dark cloud they've all been eyeing rolls in and opens up above them, just minutes into the scrimmage.
It's pouring, now.
If this were a match, there'd certainly be an official making a severe weather call and cancelling the rest of play. Everyone would be sent inside to dry off and warm up, and that would be that.
But it's training, and Roy is in charge, and he's going to make them suffer it out for at least a bit longer.
"That was sloppy, Rojas!" he calls, after Dani just misses a goal, bouncing the ball off the crossbar.
"Sorry, Coach! It's just— the rain is making it very hard to see!"
"I don't fucking care!"
It's about two more minutes before it happens. The thing that ruins what was already shaping up to be a terrible fucking day.
Roy should've seen it coming, really. It's like it happens in slow motion, but also somehow happens too fast for anyone to stop it. All he can do is stand there and watch it.
It goes like this:
Jamie has the ball. He's headed into the box, unstoppable even in these disgusting conditions.
Isaac goes in for a tackle. He miscalculates how slippery the pitch is, and slides in on an angle that his face makes very clear he knows is a dirty play and definitely not what he was trying to do.
Jamie's legs are knocked right out from under him in a flash, his boots losing traction on the grass and sending him airborne for a brief moment. He comes down hard; his back makes an audible thump as it hits the grass, and his head slams into the cold ground so hard that it may as well be called an instant concussion, right there and then.
Sam, throughout all this, has been running towards them, ready to take a sneaky pass from Jamie and go running off the other way— exactly how this play is meant to work.
Sam, to his credit, tries to stop.
However, he's already slipping and barely keeping his balance, so there's no changing his path now, and he's headed straight for the tangle of players in front of him.
There's a shout of pain, and Sam goes down too, and there's blood, and Roy begins to realize how massively he's fucked up.
"Whistle! Fucking whistle! Everyone stop!"
He's running out from under the umbrella before he realizes what he's doing, his knee protesting all the way. He's on the pitch, trying to figure out in the moment if this is a problem for the team medics or for a fucking ambulance, because someone— probably Jamie, but Roy can't see him past the wall of concerned players who've already circled up— is bleeding a shit-ton.
"I didn't mean to," Sam is gasping, clutching his right foot and staring wide-eyed at his teammates, thoroughly shaken up. "I couldn't stop— I tried to get around him, but—"
"It was an accident," Isaac reassures him. At least he seems to have made it out of the pileup unscathed, if a bit terrified. He helps Sam up, then gestures for Jan to come help out. "Let's get you off the pitch, bruv. Someone's gotta look at your ankle, yeah?"
"Move," Roy barks at the rest of the team as he approaches.
When the crowd of players splits, he sees precisely why Sam is so upset.
Jamie is still on his back, and his face is in a right fucking state— the metal studs and blades of Sam's boot have dug in and made deep, bloody gashes from his cheekbone up to his forehead, narrowly avoiding his eye, and he's got mud and grass all over him. He's poking weakly at the cuts with his fingers, and his eyes are screwed shut in pain. He looks rather like he's barely hanging onto consciousness.
Roy, in that soft little part of him that cares about his best fucking friend quite a lot, wants nothing more than to comfort him, tell him he'll be alright.
"Tartt," he snaps. It turns out comforting is a difficult note for Roy Kent to hit. "Stay the fuck awake if it fucking kills you. No fucking passing out on the pitch."
"M'not... not gonna...," Jamie slurs, his hand resting limply across his face now. He gags, like he's holding back an upsurge of vomit, then swallows thickly. "Just... fuckin' dizzy."
He'd hit his head so fucking hard on the ground, even before being fucking kicked in the face. They'll need a stretcher, definitely, since there's no way he'll be able to walk to the treatment room like this, even if his teammates hold him up and practically carry him along. Besides, with the way he fell, he could've hurt his neck or his back, so moving him at all would be fucking idiotic, and—
"Jamie... Jamie. C'mon mate, come back to us, yeah?"
That's Colin, now frantically tapping Jamie on the uninjured side of his face to try and wake him up, with absolutely no success.
Fucking shit.
-
The ambulance drives right onto the training pitch, sirens blaring.
Roy was the one who rang for it, but he can't even remember what exactly he said, his brain and body on autopilot. He knows he tried to send the team inside, but those stubborn, worried idiots are in a little swarm by the door, watching all wide-eyed and frightened and drenched.
Nate has brought the umbrella over, Beard went off to check on Sam and Isaac, and Roy has dropped to his knees in the grass (which he'll surely feel in the morning) to hold a rapidly-reddening towel to Jamie's face. He doesn't even know where he got the towel from.
"He took a bad fall and fucking... hit his head on the ground," he's saying to the paramedics when he zones back into reality, words falling out of his mouth of their own accord, "and then another lad's boot caught him in the face while he was down."
They're shifting Jamie onto a stretcher, and seeing him go so easily is a bit sickening. If he were awake, he'd certainly be fighting them off.
"So there were two impacts to his head, then?" the woman who seems to be the lead medic asks. She's strapping these foam blocks around his head to keep his neck still— Roy knows it's just protocol, but it's still terrifying. "The ground, and then another player's foot?"
"Yes." Roy shifts uncomfortably, not sure what to do with the bloody towel in his hands now that his job has been taken over by someone with actual gauze and shit. He hands it to Nate. "He was conscious until just before I called, about five minutes ago. We tried to wake him, but nothing worked."
The paramedic nods, and then they're loading Jamie into the ambulance.
"Any relevant medical history we should know about?" she asks, as they do so. "Past injuries or major illnesses? Medications? Allergies?"
"He just started a really low dose of Ritalin for ADHD, like three weeks ago, so he's still adjusting to it," Roy says. "Erm, he's had concussions before; I'm not sure how many, but none in the past couple of years. His only allergy is pineapple— it gives him hives. I think that's it."
Roy can't believe he knows that stuff off the top of his head, but he hasn't got time to be embarrassed. He's a good coach, he knows about his players. Whatever.
"Oh," he adds on, surging forward, so he can keep his voice low and chat just to the paramedics. Nate is still nearby, and it's not that Roy doesn't trust him, but he's not exactly in the habit of spilling private information to him either, not after the panic attack leak. "He's got PTSD. He really, really hates if you grab him when he's not expecting it. Gets him a bit panicky and angry, is all, so it's best to warn him before you touch him. I've learned that shit the hard way."
The woman nods, knowing. She's surely seen that type of thing before.
"Would you like to ride along with us? If he wakes up, it might help to have a familiar face."
Roy is pretty sure he would've forced his way into the ambulance if she hadn't offered, so he nods.
He tries not to let the wording of "if he wakes up" unsettle him.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll just—" He turns around to face the team. "Oi! Training's off! Everyone inside!"
And he doesn't watch to see if they've listened, just jumps into the back of the ambulance with Jamie. He sits in the free seat, holds Jamie's hand, and tries his very best to stay calm.
-
Jamie doesn't wake up in the ambulance.
No, the little prick has to go and have himself a seizure instead. The way his back arches as he jerks and flails, and the sound he makes— whining high in his throat, while even his vocal cords spasm— are so terrifying that Roy has to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment and collect himself.
"This isn't uncommon after a head injury," one of the paramedics says, while carefully monitoring Jamie's breathing as he shakes. "It's nothing to worry about, Coach."
Still, though... the the ambulance speeds up and starts to blare its sirens in a slightly more frantic way, racing for the hospital.
Roy feels a bit sick with worry.
-
"...well, I'm sorry I didn't call you earlier— I was a little busy doing fucking chest compressions. I need you to admit room nine and free up a bed, stat— no, I know a tib-fib fracture has no business admitting to medicine, but you know what it's like trying to get fucking orthopaedics to fill out paperwork, and I've got a trauma incoming so I need to keep this hospital fucking moving, do you understand? No, ortho will do the surgery, but I just need the patient out of emergency, so— whatever. What the fuck ever. Call Dr. Baldwin yourself and figure it out, I don't give a shit. An ambulance is pulling up, and I want that patient admitted by someone."
Ruth Kent slams the desk phone down, takes one moment to run a hand through her hair, further messing up her ponytail, and then heads to the doors for the incoming patient— they fly open just as she approaches.
"Twenty-five year old male, GCS 6, airways are clear, open facial wounds and probable TBI," the paramedic is saying, which lines up with what they said over the phone a few minutes ago. "Possible SCI, possible skull fracture, one tonic-clonic seizure during transport that lasted three minutes."
The patient's face is mostly obscured by gauze and tape at this point— they'll have to unload him into a room before she gets a good look at the facial injuries. Hopefully he's not fucked his eye up; she sees a lot of shit in here, Ruth does, but eye trauma still makes her squirm.
"Any CSF leakage?" she asks, walking alongside the stretcher. "Vomiting? Epistaxis?"
"No, no, and no."
"Alright. Mechanism of injury?"
As she asks it, she notices the patient's muddy football kit and boots— it clicks that this is a fucking Richmond player. What the fuck did Roy let happen at work today?
"Slipped on wet grass after colliding with another player and went flying— took a hard fall, and then a boot to the face after he landed. Certainly not a pretty situation: two major hits to his head."
"Fucking shit," Ruth sighs. "His coach is a fucking idiot. Who trains outside on a day like this?" The stretcher pulls up to a bed. "On my count. One, two, three."
They slide the player over into bed— fucking heavy, athletes are— and then the nurses slip the backboard out from under him.
"Right, get him hooked up to full monitoring, and we'll—"
"Ruth!"
Well, speaking of idiot coaches.
"Sir, you can't be back here," a nurse is saying, but Roy is a piss poor fucking listener, so he's pushing past the curtain anyways.
"Roy Kent," Ruth fumes, turning to face him— the look she gives him is enough to silence even the nurse. "What the fuck have you done?"
Roy, to his credit, looks appropriately terrified and ashamed for the situation at hand, which is big considering his usual refusal to emote at all. He's rain-drenched and he's got blood all over his hands— probably the player's— and she'd feel bad for him in any other circumstance.
"You've gotta help him, Ruthie— I feel so fucking shit. I should've brought the team inside sooner instead of training in the rain, but I'm an asshole and a terrible fucking manager, and—"
Ruth cuts him off.
"Oi. If I have to admit you with a panic attack, you'll have cocked things up even more for everyone. Go to the waiting room, get washed up, and take some deep breaths. I'll handle this."
Roy hesitates to leave, eyes locked onto his player, sincerely worried.
"Dr. Kent," a nurse says, in that mix of calm and urgent that people tend to get in here when a trauma rolls in, "he's not protecting his airways."
Fuck. With a low GCS, of course he's not— his tongue has probably fallen back in his mouth to block his throat, too deep in unconsciousness to control it anymore.
"Right, let's intubate." She turns briefly to Roy, as the nurses hand her supplies. "You can't be back here. Just go. I'll keep you updated, I promise."
Roy grunts like he's annoyed, but his face gives away that he's really just scared. He reaches out to give the player's ankle a gentle squeeze before he goes.
"Don't you fucking die on me, yeah? That's not allowed."
She finally gets a look at her patient's blood-covered face while she prepares to shove a breathing tube down his throat, and Ruth realizes just who it is she's working on.
Her brother's best friend, her daughter's favourite babysitter (he's so much fun to play with, Mum, and he doesn't take it easy on me when we practise football, and he'll even buy me a Fanta when we go to the park as long as we don't tell Uncle Roy), and someone she's developed quite the soft spot for lately— in an entirely little-brother sort of way, much to Roy's relief.
"Fucking hell," she sighs, looking down at the state of him. "What've you gotten yourself into, Jamie?"
-
The only thing that's made this miserable day any better is the fact that Ruth is working.
It's not that Roy wouldn't trust other doctors— they've all got the right training, and that— but now he knows Jamie is in safe hands, and that he'll get an update as soon as possible. Which, it's been less than ten minutes, only enough time for him to get the blood off his hands, and he's already desperate for news.
He's never seen a football injury like it. He's seen broken bones, dislocated joints, bloody cuts and scrapes, even plenty of nasty concussions; he's seen players carted off in ambulances before... but none of them were Jamie, and he's rather sure none of them were having seizures and being put on a ventilator and being announced to the A&E staff as a probable TBI.
That's a Ted thing, brain injuries, with his crazy American Football bullshit, where they go smacking around into each other on purpose. When they did their first-aid recertification together last season, Ted had asked the instructors question after question about hematomas and haemorrhaging and other shit that Roy hadn't anticipated ever needing to worry about.
Now, quite frankly, he's never wanted Ted Lasso around so badly in his life.
He thinks about calling him, but realizes that fucking time zones are in the way— it's still morning here, not quite half ten, so it's absurdly early in Kansas. Ted probably won't even be awake for a bit yet.
Call me when you can please . This mornings a fucking shit show .
He sends the text, and to his surprise, his phone immediately starts to ring.
"Why the fuck are you awake?"
"Well, hello to you too, Roy-Boy. I'm just up, being an early bird, getting the worm, you know how it is. To what do I owe the pleasure of your strongly worded text?"
Roy huffs. Hates that Ted's chipperness actually calms him down somewhat.
"I've had a shit fucking morning, and I'm a shit fucking manager, and I need, like, fucking advice or some shit before I start freaking the fuck out."
"Now, that was a lot of curses, even for you. Lay it on me, Coach. What's the problem?"
Roy rubs his temple on the side he's not holding the phone.
"I think Jamie is fucking dying, and it's all my fucking fault."
-
For what it's worth, Ruth figures, Jamie does look a lot better once his face is cleaned and stitched up.
He's still out cold as he's sent off for a CT scan— the most responsive he's been since arriving here was a bit of twitching away from the pain as his wounds were cleaned. He's stopped bleeding, though, the gashes on his face not as deep as they originally seemed (and thankfully, his left eye is just fine, even though it'll be covered by bandages for a while yet, given the state of the skin around it). He hasn't shown any signs of a spinal cord injury either, so there's at least some silver linings here and there.
The scan should help figure out exactly what's going on. He's definitely got a head injury of some kind, but there's still a lot of possibilities when you go down to the details— whether it's just minor swelling in his brain from being jostled around, or if a blood vessel has burst, or if there's even some break in his skull that was too subtle to notice on palpation alone.
He could wake up later today and be just fine, if a little disoriented... or he could stay in a coma for far longer and need months of rehab. Anything could happen now, and it all depends on what's happened to his brain— head injuries are fucking unpredictable.
They'll consult neurology as soon as the imaging comes through. For now, Ruth can at least take some peace in the fact that Jamie has been stable this whole time; he was intubated as a precaution, (it's not that he actually wasn't breathing, just that the risk of him stopping was too high), and there's been nothing funny going on with his heart either. He's not dying (unless, god forbid, he takes a turn and something goes horribly wrong), so there's nothing worth stressing over while he's still in his scan.
He'll be fine. He's Jamie Fucking Tartt, of course he will.
-
"Well, fuck," Ted sighs.
The out-of-character word choice really drives home how awful this is.
"You're telling me," Roy grumbles. "I haven't even checked up on Isaac or Sam yet— I know I need to, but literally all I have space in my brain to worry about right now is Jamie, until I know he'll be okay."
"That's understandable," Ted says. "The two of you are like peanut butter and pickles on toast."
"We're fucking what?"
"An underrated combination that not everyone understands, but that's pretty darn good if you just give it a chance."
Roy grunts. He can see how that might taste alright somehow, but he doesn't exactly fancy trying it. It's annoying when Ted's weird bullshit makes sense.
"And besides, I'm sure Beard and Nate are holding down the fort just fine. You focus on Jamie— he'll need you."
Roy thinks of Jamie waking up in hospital, confused and in pain, and imagines having to explain to him what happened. On that same note, he realizes it's probably up to him to call Jamie's parents— the thought of telling Georgie that her boy is critically injured is nauseating. Even ringing James Sr. (who Roy still can't stand, but whom Jamie has been tentatively making contact with through his sober house as of late, because there's more nuance to unpack in their relationship than Roy finds himself capable of wrapping his head around) sounds terrible right now, because delivering bad news is never any fucking fun.
He should make those calls sooner, rather than later— the last thing he needs is Jamie's family finding out about this from a fucking press leak or something. Not that there'd been any fans in to watch today, not in the pouring rain, but all it takes is one random staff member at the club or the hospital telling the wrong person for this all to blow up in a giant fucking mess.
Shit.
"What do I tell the press, Ted? Like, we've got a Champions League match in two days, and both my top players are out of commission. I'll have to do a conference and talk about it, and I've got no idea how to explain this other than me being fucking stupid, and—"
"Woah. Slow down there, cowboy," Ted tuts. "Don't even think about that yet. You've got a loved one in the hospital, so I don't want you even thinking about work until you've gotten through the day and taken care of yourself. Keeley, Rebecca, and Higgins are already on it, press-wise, I'm sure— they're the dream team, so give them some room to work their magic, and they'll get something figured out."
Roy forces himself to take a breath. This is why he really does like Ted, though he'd never admit it out loud. He's just got a way of reframing things that takes the urgency out of them, even in a literal emergency like today's.
"What about the match?" Roy sighs. "I don't know how I'll get the team ready in time, and they'll never be able to focus."
"Forfeit it," Ted says, as if it's the simplest answer of all time.
"What? Fuck no. We can't."
"Sure you can. Those boys must be awfully shaken after today— it's traumatizing, watching someone get hurt like that, seeing the ambulance take off with them. You've got every reason to pull out of the match, and I guarantee everyone involved would understand. Some things are bigger than football."
He's fucking making a point again. Fuck's sake.
"We'll see," Roy grumbles. "They might want to play for Jamie's sake. I don't even know how bad Sam's ankle is, he might be fine."
"That he might," Ted agrees. "You're in charge, Coach. Go with your gut."
"Well, my gut makes fucking terrible decisions, doesn't it," Roy snaps, "seeing as I was the one who got us into this mess in the first place. I should be fucking fired."
"Woah, Roy. I think you need to see if anyone in that hospital has some scissors you can borrow."
Roy sighs heavily.
"To cut myself some slack?"
"Exactly, my fine furry friend. You can't control what you can't control, and accidents are accidents. If you wanted Jamie to get hurt, you would've made darn sure that happened a long time ago. You're here for him now, and that's what counts."
"Fuck. Thank you, Ted. This helped."
"Glad I could be of service."