Chapter Text
Consciousness comes to Ted Lasso like a rooster through a kitchen window: sudden, disorienting, and unwelcome.
The pain that woke him is accompanied by the familiar tinnitus and cold sweat and tinged with the achiness of a hangover, same as every night since he’d returned to London, but something about it is off. Maybe it’s sharper, heavier. It’s tight across his chest, like the whole universe is collapsing in on itself and all of its weight is resting just below his sternum.
That very first time, in that grimy alley in Liverpool, he'd wondered whether he was having a heart attack. He hadn't known what to call the feeling, not until Rebecca had labeled it as she tried to ground him. Ted is much more informed about this stuff now, but…
This isn’t right. He tries to count–really, he does–but he can’t seem to hold his inhales on the pauses, his lungs overriding him to drag more oxygen in.
He’s alone. He should be used to it, but sometimes he still gets spooked when he thinks too hard about the empty flat. He needs to not be alone. He rolls over to reach for his cell and promptly vomits onto the bedroom floor.
Ted wipes his mouth on the pillowcase and reaches again for the phone. His hands are shaking so badly that it takes a few tries to unlock.
He hesitates. He can't exactly call Doc Sharon at such an ungodly hour. Ditto any friends on this continent, really. He stares at his recent contacts, frozen in indecision. While he’s considering it, his trembling fingers accidentally tap Beard’s name, causing the screen to flash as it starts a call.
Shoot, shoot–he hastily hangs up.
It's still evening in the CST timezone, but there's really no one left there to call, he thinks bitterly. He’d overstepped a few weeks ago when Michelle was just trying to make sure he wasn’t having some kind of crisis. If he's going to bother her again, it better be on the scale of "I’m dying and I need you to get Henry to my bedside" or something.
Okay, thinking about that is not helping.
He thinks about dying alone in his bed here. When he doesn’t turn up for coffee in the morning, Beard will text him. When there is no reply by afternoon, he’ll probably come let himself in and find Ted’s corpse. He thinks about Beard making that call to Michelle. He thinks about Michelle breaking that news to Hen.
The longer he thinks about it, helpless to conduct his own train of thought, the more the pain starts to intensify and migrate to his shoulder, then down his left arm. And that, honest to donuts, is what happens to people in the movies right before they keel over from a heart attack, Ted knows that for sure.
The thing about panic attacks is, even though they feel like they won’t end, they do. He thinks if this was one, it probably would’ve been over by now.
Ted had been an incorrigible doctor's-appointment-dodger as a young man, but it's wild what Henry's birth had done to his psyche. He can’t just lie here and hope for this to go away on its own, because there’s no way he’s quitting on Hen tonight. He closes his contacts and opens up the call app. He just barely remembers to type '9-9' instead of '1-1' after the inaugural '9'.
Controlling his breathing even enough to speak to the operator is an uphill battle. At her behest, he stumbles to the bathroom to take an aspirin, then to the front door to unbolt it.
When the paramedics arrive, he can’t manage to smile or ask any of their names, he can barely make sense of the relentless deluge of questions that they are throwing at him. He only vaguely registers being buckled into the ambulance.
On the ride, his phone starts to buzz. It’s Beard, calling back. He watches, paralyzed, as it goes to voicemail.
As it turns out, a life hack for a hassle-free time in the emergency department is to be a middle-aged man with chest pain. There’s no waiting around; Ted is pretty much immediately assigned to a bed and changed into a gown with a tube in the back of his hand, bulky oxygen mask swapped for a thin nasal cannula, vials of blood drawn, and stickers stuck across his chest, arms, and legs. Someone hands him a stack of paperwork, and he gives it his best shot considering that his palms are almost too sweaty to grip the pen. He waffles a little over the health history section before timidly writing ‘ Panic Disorder ’, realizing he’s never really spelled it out like that until just now.
An orderly takes the clipboard from him and asks, “Mr. Lasso, are you expecting a visitor? There’s someone out front asking to see you–we can let them in, with your permission.”
Ted stares in confusion for a moment before he chokes out, “You can let them.”
When the mystery visitor appears, Ted almost cries.
“Beard,” he mouths through an exhale, barely any sound coming out.
Beard’s brow is furrowed as seriously as Ted has ever seen it. He strides purposefully to the bedside and slips his hand around one of Ted’s.
“Spotted the ambulance outside your place, followed it here,” Beard explains without Ted having to ask. “You call Michelle?”
Ted shakes his head.
“Want me to?”
After a pause, Ted bites his lower lip. Maybe it’s time for that ‘I-need-you-to-get-Henry-to-my-bedside’ text after all. “Naw, I will,” he mumbles.
“You handle that, I’ll handle the boss,” Beard says as if it’s a done deal, though he pauses long enough for Ted to object if he wants to.
“Presumptuous of you,” Ted attempts to smile. He’s not sure whether they’re still pretending Rebecca hasn’t become one of the most important people in his life.
Beard turns to his phone and Ted does the same, composing a quick note just to tell Michelle he’s in the ER. He doesn’t want her to start booking flights or say anything to Hen yet, but just in case that point comes, texting now will ensure she sees it before she goes to bed.
Beard doesn’t say any more, just grips Ted’s hand tightly.
It’s always been so effortless for them to read each other.
The bustling of the A&E department continues around them. Beard silently studies the bedside monitor–no doubt one of those books of his has taught him what all the numbers mean. Slowly, Ted starts to catch his breath. Everything feels sore, but the pain isn’t so paralyzing anymore.
“Gonna be okay, Coach?” Beard asks. His tone is casual, normal, but there’s something brittle underneath. They’re both losing feeling in their fingers.
Ted swallows and nods.
He’s expecting to get some answers when a doctor shows up to poke around, listen to his heart and lungs and click through the computer screens beside him, but she only says that Ted’s ECG is inconclusive and that they’ll need to run another one while they wait for his lab results to confirm the diagnosis.
“Should I glean anything from that, Doc? Maybe it was just a little thing, not enough to make the test real clear?” Ted asks, only kind of joking. “I’m feeling a little better.”
“Um, I wouldn’t necessarily read into it, no, but I will say that I don’t hear any heart murmur or anything right now. We’ll speak again shortly, alright Mr. Lasso?”
They resume their previous positions: Beard watching the monitors in silence while Ted centers himself on the calming pressure of the hand gripping his. They stay like this until someone comes to wheel Ted to another room for a chest x-ray and Beard has to stay behind. But when he returns, the orderly is back to ask him about a second visitor. Ted looks at Beard, who quirks his eyebrows challengingly.
“Aw, geez,” says Ted as Rebecca walks in. Aside from being bare-faced, she looks as put together as always which is actually nuts considering the late (or early?) hour.
“Now, what are you doin’ here in the middle of the night, Rebecca?” he asks sheepishly.
She gapes at him like that was a stupid question. “Beard texted that they think you might’ve had a heart attack.”
“Well Boss, they think it was maybe just a little one, not a big deal”
“They did not say that,” Beard snaps.
Rebecca drags a chair to the opposite side of the bed. For a moment, her fingers ghost along the side railing as if she wants to take his other hand, but she holds back.
“I appreciate you both bein’ here,” he mumbles. “‘S unnecessary, but I appreciate it.”
Rebecca’s phone buzzes.
“It’s Keeley,” she says. “Apparently somebody tweeted a photo of the ambulance outside your flat. We’ll probably want to make a very brief statement, but it can wait until morning.”
“Is everybody currently or formerly employed by this club an insomniac?” Ted laments.
The tightness in his chest starts creeping in again. It could be a symptom, or it could just be some residual anxiety. He tries to Do The Things he’s supposed to do to keep the latter at bay, but the pressure keeps ramping up until the sounds of the emergency department are drowned out by the ringing in his ears. The crying of the child with the sprained wrist on the other side of the privacy curtain. The lights overhead and their incessant fluorescent hum.
Ted swallows, trying not to let it show on his face, but he knows he’s squeezing Beard’s hand again and they can both probably see his heart rate soaring through the roof on the bedside monitor.
“Ted, are you okay?” Rebecca asks, placing a hand on his shoulder.
What he wants to say is yes. What comes out instead is, “Bout to need something to hurl in, I think.”
Rebecca finds a basin on a nearby shelf and dutifully hands it over. Ted’s stomach is empty, but he brings up a mouthful of bile.
“Ugh, awful,” he mutters. He coughs once and then heaves again. "I'm sorry,"
"Don't be," she says quickly.
He’s not panicking yet, but it’s a slippery slope once this kinda feeling takes a hold. He takes one of those deep, slow breaths and accepts a handful of tissues offered by Beard.
"Takes me right back to the great Brookridge Elementary Field Day of '84," Ted drawls. "Don't know what adult decided to let me eat a bunch of freezie pops right before the tug-o-war in hundred-degree weather–that's Fahrenheit, mind you–but I ended up hurling right on Izzy Hawthorn's shoes. Was really hoping that might be the last time I threw up in front of a pretty girl."
Rebecca blinks a lot as she tries to unpack that anecdote. "At least you're starting to sound like yourself again," she finally snorts.
Beard and Rebecca exchange a look across the bed that fills Ted with a feeling of being known, seen, loved, and a little humiliated all at once.
Beard holds out the remote with a call button to him.
Ted shakes his head no. “Distract me?” he suggests instead.
Beard nods in acceptance of this task. “Alright. What are you doing when you’re aware of the frozen precipitation?”
Ted exhales through his mouth. “You’re knowin’ it’s snowin’,” he answers. “Too easy.”
Beard takes his time crafting a better one, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “How about a pregnant sailor, who seemed relevant to the plot but turned out not to be, fixing a rotary supported by metal spheres?”
“Ooh, that’s a thinker,” Ted says. He scrubs a hand over his forehead and almost reaches for the basin again, but the second wave of nausea passes.
“She’s a child-bearing sea-faring red herring repairing a ball-bearing,” says Ted.
“Or he,” says Beard.
“Or he.” Ted agrees.
“This helping?”
“Yeah, yeah, gimme another one.”
Beard thinks about it some more. “You and Ms. Farrow scratched up a Korean car at the furniture store.”
“I…um,” Ted stumbles. “I don’t…I don’t know, I–” He gulps for air.
“Ted, it’s okay.”
“We’ve got you, Coach.”
“You’re going to be alright, Ted, just try to breathe a little slower if you can.”
Their voices come in and out of focus as Rebecca’s hand on his shoulder starts to brush up and down his arm in a soothing pattern.
The worst of it passes much quicker than before. He reaches up and shakily takes Rebecca’s hand, ignoring the slight tug at the IV cannula.
“Back with us?” Beard asks.
Ted nods, although his chest still hurts. He tries to control his breathing again–imagining Doc Sharon’s voice counting in his head helps. He’s still recovering when the curtains rustle again.
“Mr. Lasso,”
“Ted, please.”
“Ted,” says the doctor. “Would you prefer to speak in private?” She glances towards his two visitors sitting on either side of the bed.
“No ma’am, I’d like to stay right here in this emotional support sandwich,” says Ted, squeezing Beard and Rebecca’s hands.
“Alright,” she says. “The second ECG was negative for all signs of a recent heart attack, and your physical exam, imaging, and blood work all came back normal. The blood tests are slightly more accurate a few hours after a cardiac event, so we will recheck, but it’s safe to say that your heart is doing just fine.”
“Oh,” says Ted with a nervous chuckle.
“You wrote that you have a history of panic attacks. Could you tell me a little more about them?” she presses.
“This wasn’t like that,” his face burns. “I know what a panic attack feels like, woken up to one nearly every night this week, and this was different.”
He ignores the look that passes between Rebecca and Beard again, seeing as it’s too late to take the words back.
“Okay,” she says in a tone that is a little too placating for his liking. “Can you say more about what you usually experience, and how this was different?”
"See now, maybe I shouldn't have told y'all about it at all," Ted says, feeling his voice grow louder as anger suddenly swells in his chest. "Because now all of a sudden, you don't believe me anymore. Now all of a sudden, you want to assume I'm just bananas, and it’s all up here.” He points to his temple.
"Mr. Lasso, I believe everything you've told us about your symptoms and I'm trying to do the opposite of assuming, which is to come up with the most likely explanation of what's wrong." Her jump back to formality and the bristling tone makes him immediately regret his rudeness.
“It felt like dying,” he admits with his eyes on the foot of the bed, somewhat chastened. “All I could think about was never seeing my little boy again, and what he’d have to go through, losing his dad…at first I wasn’t sure, but it hurt right here–” He indicates the upper left quadrant of his chest. He finally looks up to make eye contact. “Could my brain really do that?”
“It certainly can,” she says gently. “You were absolutely right to take those signs seriously, Ted. We were able to rule out a number of things that could have required immediate treatment. Given the evidence in front of me, I believe that you suffered a severe panic attack, possibly more than one in succession.”
“I think he’s having one right now, right before you came, Doc” Beard interjects.
“I’m already on the tail end of it,” Ted says quickly. “All downhill from here, easy breezy. Got my breathing exercises and everything.”
“I’m glad you’re already familiar with that technique. Do you or have you ever tried controlling these attacks with any anti-anxiety medication?”
Ted shakes his head.
“Okay. Since this episode has been prolonged and uncontrollable in a way that’s unusual for you, I want you to take a dose of one now.”
“Is that really warranted?”
“Yes,” she says bluntly.
Ted’s face burns even more, but he mumbles, “Yeah, I guess that’d be alright.”
“Okay. You were pretty dehydrated when you came in, so we’ll keep you on fluids for at least another hour while we wait to draw more labs. Assuming those are all clear as well, we should have you on your way home by breakfast time. Do you have any questions for me?”
“No ma’am,” says Ted quietly.
Ted is uncharacteristically silent. He contemplates the medication carefully when it’s brought to him, still not looking at Beard or Rebecca’s faces. He somewhat regrets not asking them to step out for that conversation. He more so regrets getting them involved at all, not that he’d had much choice.
Ted swallows the pill with a long sip of water. He picks at the rim of the paper cup until it starts to unravel.
“Hey Coach?” he finally speaks up when he can’t bear the quiet anymore.
Beard lifts an eyebrow.
“Me and Mia keyed a Kia at IKEA?”
“Correct,” Beard grunts. Ted is surprised to sense anger there. Well, he supposes he did just cause all this commotion over nothing, Beard has a right to be annoyed.
“Listen, guys,” he says.
Rebecca holds up a hand to interrupt him. “Don’t you dare apologize, Theodore Lasso.”
“No, I just…y’all can go home now, I suppose.”
Rebecca’s expression softens. “We’re not leaving you, Ted.” Beard shakes his head in agreement.