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The thing is, if he wasn't Beard's emergency contact, Ted would never even have known.
Somewhere along the way, he'd dropped the ball. He doesn't know when his rule to not say anything had extended far beyond its scope to start covering all manner of sins. When it became that Beard could show up with bruises on his face, looking wrung out as all hell hours after he'd disappeared with a worrying look in his eye, and even then Ted doesn't press, letting it slide right by him with a flimsy excuse even Roy sees right through.
He doesn't know when, but he knows why, knows what'll happen if he does press, knows that that'll be the thing that breaks him.
And now Beard is lying here and Ted is broken anyway.
"I'm fine, Coach."
"You're not fucking fine!" Even through all the swelling, Beard's eyebrows shoot up at Ted's language. "You've got three broken ribs. You could've died! And I—I'm not fine. None of this is fine. I'm not doing this again, Coach. Not again. Please. I—I can't. Not now."
Shit. He doesn't want to make this about him, because it's really not. He thinks actually he's in a much better place now, to go back to loaning out pieces of himself when the ones Beard has are not enough. But they can't keep doing that anymore, not forever. Can't risk another time when Ted can't keep him afloat, can't bear to know that if he takes his eye off the Beard ball for one too many seconds, it sinks like a stone to the bottom of the ocean.
"I'm sorry," he says as he watches the hit Beard takes from his words. The way Beard takes it like the reprimanding punch it didn't set out to be. "Will you—Can you explain it to me, maybe? Please, I just want to…" He picks up Beard's hand from the bed, looking at it. Glances up to see Beard looking at it too.
His eyes travel upwards until they meet Ted's gaze, settling heavily on him for a long moment, long enough that Ted's lungs start to burn from the breath he's holding.
"Why are you friends with me?"
"What?" It comes out like a gust of wind, all the air he'd been keeping suspended in his lungs punched out of him by the unexpected question.
Beard tugs his hand out from under Ted's, pulling it in towards his chest. "What do you—why do you keep sticking around? I'm a fucking mess. All I do is fuck things up."
"You don't—that wasn't what I was saying at all, I—"
"It's not 'cos of what you said. Or not just that. It's…I mean, look at you. You're doing so much better. The team is doing better." He smiles softly and Ted's heart is thudding in his chest, fear building in his gut at the way it only seems to make his eyes look sadder. "I'm so proud of you. And me, I'm just…"
He looks away. "You should've just let me die, Ted," he whispers, and the use of his name is almost as shocking as his words. "Should've just left me to my fate all those years ago, like God or whatever chaotic forces are at work intended. Then you could've just…gone on with your life. Mourned me and moved on, without me pulling you down with me into my steaming pile of shit every time I—"
"Stop."
It's breathy but loud and Ted doesn't know what he wants to say next but he knows he just wants Beard to: "Stop talking like that. Stop saying you're—" He swipes at his eyes, doesn't even know when his vision had started going blurry. "You're—Beard, you're so important to me. I couldn't—I wouldn't be anything without you. Wouldn't know which way was up, and I don't mean on the football pitch. You think I could've just moved on? That I would—How—How could you possibly think there's any part of my life that would've been better without you?"
Beard doesn't answer, still won't look at him. Ted stares at him, overcome.
"I wish you could look at yourself the way I see you," he says quietly.
"You only see the best parts of everyone, Coach." The return to his nickname is purposeful, clumping Beard together with everyone else, like he was just another player for Ted to mentor, and Ted doesn't know how he could've possibly let it get to this point without Beard understanding.
"Even if that were true, the best part of you is still part of you. Even if you won't believe the rest, isn't that part worth fighting for?"
The look on Beard's face is answer enough.
Ted can't stand it anymore. He gets to his feet and circles around to Beard's less hurt side, then climbs slowly into the bed, careful not to jostle him. Beard is staring up at him now and Ted leans down and presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, smoothing his hair back as he straightens.
"You're the best person I know. And I wouldn't be half the person I am without you. I'm sorry that I never made any of that clearer to you. And I'll keep telling you that every day if that's what it takes but I—" He swallows hard, throat too thick with fear and love and pain to speak anymore. So instead he slides down until he's laying on his side, curled around Beard as best he can without hurting him anymore than he's already been hurt. He presses his forehead to Beard's temple, tips his chin up to press another kiss to his skin before settling back, hand cupped lightly around his shoulder.
Beard still hasn't said anything, but the skin beneath Ted's lips had been damp and salty and he's shuddering against him.
Ted swipes his thumb over his shoulder and just holds him while he cries.
It's Roy who figures out the pattern. And Ted's been working on this, on not taking on the burden of noticing everyone's hurts all the time, but this is Beard and Ted has always noticed. It's another reminder that he's lost track of things, that while he never pries too deep into the whos whats and whys of the relationships Beard gets into, this isn't that. That this is where he could've said something. If he'd noticed.
Man City last season. The heartbreaking loss against Arsenal a few months ago. West Ham just a couple of weeks after that, god that one had been brutal all around. Beard had come limping into the office that Monday.
And still.
Ted hadn't noticed.
The hospital releases him after two nights of observation and Ted comes alone to pick him up. Per hospital guidelines, he rolls him out in a wheelchair, through to the parking lot and up alongside his rental.
"Since when do you have a car?"
Ted opens the passenger door and snakes his arm under Beard's, helping him off the chair and into the front seat of the car.
"Okay?" he asks, and Beard nods.
"What's going on?" he asks as Ted climbs in. He's looking around at the snacks and drinks positioned within easy reach of the two front seats, his brow furrowed.
"You need a break," Ted replies, pulling the door shut with more force than he'd intended. "I need a break."
"What about—"
"You're in no state to go to training anyway, and Roy can handle the boys on his own for a couple of days."
Ted's expecting more questions. Maybe even a bit of an argument. But after a long stare, Beard pulls on the sunglasses Ted had left in the side of his door and tips his head back against the headrest. Ted gives it one more moment before he turns straight ahead himself and starts the car.
Beard stays mostly silent, head turned towards the window, and Ted doesn't push him, doesn't force him to engage as he keeps up his usual chatter about anything that pops into his head.
They're only on the road about a half hour before Beard drifts off, his light snores drawing Ted's attention. He waits for the next stoplight, then carefully leans over him and slowly levers the chair back to a more comfortable angle. He looses a long, slow breath through his lips as he straightens up, scrubbing his hands over the top of the steering wheel as he sinks deep into his thoughts.
Beard's always been a bit of a renaissance man. He's probably got more odd hobbies and skill sets than Ted had hairs on his head, and Ted loves that about him. But as he thinks about all the times Beard had self-destructed, he's starting to wonder how much of that was gained through trial and error, how much Beard had been trying things on in a quest to find the right pieces to build into an identity he could stomach, moving from lumberjack to chess master to Jane's other half.
And even though 'coach' was the only one of his areas of expertises that had infiltrated deep enough to become an official label, a name he wore proudly day in and day out, it had never been the thing Beard lived or died by. At least not until now.
This was the problem with caring about winning and losing.
Beard sleeps for almost the whole way. It's likely due to his injuries, but Ted wonders how long it's been since he's actually gotten proper rest. Having spent most of last year without it himself, he recognizes the release of it now, of finally giving into the combination of physical and mental exhaustion when you were somewhere that could take it. It's yet another thing he should've caught earlier.
There's still another week or so before the clocks change so they're catching the tail end of daylight as they close in on the city. Outside it's drizzling, so light it doesn't even activate the windshield wipers, but it's enough to make the sky ahead look like it's glittering purple and orange as the sun starts to dip below the horizon.
The change in tempo as they move from highway driving to the start/stop of city driving stirs Beard. He blinks awake, immediately still. Ted keeps his eye on the road but rests one hand on his chest, carefully clear of the bones knitting themselves back together beneath the skin, and keeps it there, steady and reassuring while Beard gets his bearings. After a moment he feels it rise as Beard sucks in a deep breath.
"Where are we?" he asks hoarsely.
Ted doesn't answer. He pulls his hand back to the steering wheel, giving Beard room to raise his own so he can scrub them carefully over his bruised face. Beard rubs tiredly at his eyes, trying to fight the deep sleep doing its best to keep him firmly in its grasp.
When he drops his hands, he rolls his head to the side and gets his first glimpse out the window. "Oh," he whispers.
Beard hadn't told him much about his previous travels around Europe, but he'd told him about Edinburgh. Ted suspects it's one of the few crystal clear bits from that phase of his life. He could feel it in the way Beard talked about it — the architecture, the geology, the literary history soaked into the city's bones — all of it compelling enough to snap him out of his drug-induced haze, even if only for a short reprieve.
Ted's never been himself but five minutes in and he can already see why Beard had fallen hard. There's an otherworldliness to it that the light rain only seems to enhance, and as Ted winds them slowly through the city streets, he feels almost like he's driven straight into the pages of a novel.
They reach the hotel he'd booked, thinking with Beard's condition the known is best, with its concierges and firm beds and elevators, rather than the B&Bs or guesthouses he'd originally been considering. The painkillers from the hospital must've worn off by now but despite his grimaces, Beard doesn't reach for the white paper bag the nurse had handed him, sitting innocuously in the backseat. And it's not that Ted likes seeing him in pain, but he can't help feeling a little relieved. Relieved that despite everything else that had been going on with him, this was still one line Beard was fighting for his life not to cross.
He eyes him once they're checked in. "Do you want to rest for a while before dinner?" Ted asks, and Beard shakes his head.
"Got more than enough rest in the car, Coach." He's fighting through a yawn as he says it but Ted decides it's just lingering grogginess, so they don the appropriate outerwear and head back down to the lobby and out onto the street.
"What's the plan?" Beard asks.
"You tell me, buddy." Beard raises his eyebrows, Ted hopes at the first part and not the second. He's sure he'll get there, back to being able to call Beard the nickname they'd been using for more than a decade now, but right now all he can picture when he thinks it is Beard bruised and battered in an alley, driven there by the ringing of a jeering crowd in his ears. "I thought maybe I'd let you show me around, since you've been here before," he elaborates.
Beard gives him one of his looks, the one that means he knows exactly what Ted's doing, but Ted doesn't care. Beard can give him all the looks he wants but if he's got a problem with something he's gonna have to learn to say it.
Unsurprisingly, this isn't the moment he starts. Instead, he turns on his heel and starts ambling down the cobbled street and Ted falls in step beside him.
They don't do much but they do a lot, winding up and down narrow streets, past old buildings, churches, pubs, soaking in the city around them. Mercifully, the drizzle had let up shortly after they'd stepped out of the hotel. As atmospheric as it was, Ted knows the increased risk of pneumonia with this type of injury, knows Beard's unlikely to be taking proper breaths, not with the way he's wincing whenever he thinks Ted can't see him.
But Ted can see. Can see how even though he's avoiding the pain of his regular breathing, every once in a while Beard twists himself until his features contort. Can see the way he pulls his lip in between his teeth to bite back a cry. How he seems more settled in his skin right after.
It makes the nausea build in his gut with each time he does it, but Ted can't look away. He doesn't ever want to not see Beard hurting again.
They stop for a hot dinner and a pint at a nearby pub, and once they're done, plates nearly full and glasses empty, Ted takes over the itinerary. They amble back to the hotel to pick up the car, navigating down different streets from the ones they'd taken before, and Ted has to admit that it really is a beautiful city.
He leaves Beard in the lobby while he grabs the keys from their room and, since he's there anyway, pockets his small container of ibuprofen.
As soon as they're both buckled in he tosses it into Beard's lap, then immediately puts the car in reverse and launches casually into a story he'd read about the Edinburgh Castle as he pulls them out of the parking lot.
Beard doesn't say anything, doesn't even move aside from the hand fidgeting with the seatbelt strap he's got held away from his chest. Ted keeps talking, undeterred, and after a few minutes, Beard twists it open and taps out a couple of pills, reaches for the bottle of water in the cup holders between their seats to wash it down, and when he puts the bottle back Ted latches his hand lightly around his wrist, and pauses briefly in his story to murmur a quiet, "Thank you."
He releases his grip and picks up right where he left off, continuing to speculate on what ghosts might be lingering within the walls of the castle, and if Beard notices his voice is a little hoarser than before, he's at least kind enough not to point it out.
They're not in the car for long. Beard doesn't ask where they're going. Ted doesn't know if he knows the city well enough to guess anyway, or if he just doesn't care.
He's once again grateful for the skies clearing as they get a stunning view of the city from the hilltop. He's even more grateful that Beard took the ibuprofen because they've got more of an uphill walk to the entrance of the Observatory than Ted had realized when he'd booked their tickets.
Beard remains stoic but engaged for the tour. No matter what condition he's in, the one thing Ted can always count on is the man's thirst for knowledge. But it's when they stop looking at slide shows and playing with experiments that they get to what Ted's been waiting for.
The guide finally takes them up to the roof, starts pointing out some of the planets and constellations they'd been talking about downstairs, and Beard's carefully impassive expression cracks. When he steps back from his turn at the telescope his eyes are wide, his whole face lit up with the wonder and awe induced by a front row seat to the oldest the universe has to offer, and for the first time in days, Ted feels like he can breathe again, like the cracked bits inside of him have finally started to heal.
He stays quiet on the ride back to the hotel, elbow resting on the doorframe and head propped up on his fist as he drives. He feels wiped out, the adrenaline that had been pushing him through from the moment he'd gotten that phone call suddenly drained away. Beard is equally subdued, and they turn in as soon as they get back to the hotel.
Ted helps Beard change his top, the silence between them more companionable than heavy now. He hovers just outside the bathroom while Beard is in there in case of any unanticipated need for assistance, scrolling through his phone without really taking anything in until Beard opens the door, hair over and around his face damp, a quick nod at Ted as he swaps places with him.
When he emerges Beard is already in bed, flat on his back, looking as uncomfortable as Ted would expect from someone who's been a stomach sleeper as long as he's known him.
"Need anythin'? Water?" he asks, itching to do something, anything, to bring him at least a modicum of relief from everything tormenting him.
"I'm good, thanks."
Ted nods tightly. He slides under the covers and reaches up for the switch between them. "Goodnight."
"Night, Coach."
For as much as Ted's been avoiding the nickname, Beard's started to use it like a weapon, and Ted has to admit it's effective. He wields it with a tone meant to cut, his eyes sharp on Ted's face to see how it lands.
Ted switches the light off.
"Hey," he murmurs after a few minutes.
Beard hums in response. It's an exchange they've had countless times in countless dark hotel rooms across city and state lines.
"You're the best person I know," he says, just like he promised he would, even if it's amongst the shadows, aimed up towards the ceiling. He swallows hard. "And I wouldn't be half the person I am without you." He sniffs, as affected as when he'd first voiced these words, overwhelmed by the thought of what could've been, the fear of what might still be. He rolls onto his side, towards the window instead of the other bed, and tugs the blankets up higher over his shoulder.
He falls asleep with the sound of hitching breaths behind him.
They spend the next day as tourists, and it feels strangely like a vacation from their vacation. All the rest seems to have done Beard some good, because he's in fine Beard form, sharing all his deep knowledge of the city as they wander around Old Town. They don't see any ghosts in Edinburgh Castle after all, but Ted finds them in St. Giles Cathedral when Beard takes a seat in the last pew, feels their presence pressing in around them as Ted slides silently in next to him and watches his jaw clench with all the words he doesn't say.
They end the day once again exhausted, stumbling back to the hotel after a delicious dinner accompanied by a very entertaining bagpiper. But it's an exhaustion that feels earned with all the things they'd seen and done today, and it's a welcome change from the weight that had been pressing them both down for far too long.
Once they're in bed, Ted pauses with his hand stretched out towards the light switch.
"You're the best person I know," he murmurs, "and I wouldn't be half the person I am without you." He's rewarded for it with a slight quirk of Beard's lips. "Wouldn't know half as much about Edinburgh either, come to think of it." And when Beard's half-smile blooms into a full-on grin, Ted flips the light off and snuggles down into the covers, keeping the afterimage to look at behind his eyelids until he drifts off to a dreamless sleep.
They get back on the road the next morning so they're back with enough time to help shape a strategy for this weekend's game. The car ride is mostly quiet, the long highway drive almost meditative for Ted until Beard's voice cuts through.
"I'm sorry."
Ted's eyebrows shoot up, partly because of the words, but mostly because he thought Beard had been asleep this whole time.
"For what I said in the hospital. For putting you through that," Beard continues, and Ted wishes he could fix his gaze on him so he can catch every micro-expression that flickers over his face as he speaks. But he suspects that's exactly why Beard chose now to speak up.
He takes a moment to maneuver around a large slow-moving truck, flicking his signal on, off, and on again as he shifts between lanes. The leather of the steering wheel creaks under his fingers. "Did you mean it?"
A weighted pause hangs in the air between them. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Yes," Ted responds immediately. "I need to—I want to…" He sighs. "No more avoiding. No more head in the sand. No more 'it's not my business.'" He spares another glance at Beard, surprised to find Beard looking right back at him, but there's not enough time to safely decipher his expression. "From now on, we ask." He takes a deep breath, thinking of all the times he could've stepped in earlier with Jane, all the flags he avoided in the name of some stupid code he'd made for himself all those years ago, one that he hadn't known would come into such harsh conflict with the far more important vow he'd made years before that. "And from now on I say something," he adds quietly.
Beard is silent for long enough that Ted glances over again. He's staring down at his hands. "I did. Mean it." Even though it's the answer he'd been expecting, it still slashes through his chest with a fire that makes him want to double over gasping. He keeps his breath steady and even so he doesn't miss Beard's next words. "At the time that I said it I meant every word. But…I wouldn't mean it now. Wouldn't mean it ninety-nine out of a hundred times if you asked me. Still…"
"...all it takes is one." The words are bitter in his mouth, but if he's being painfully honest with himself, it's better odds than he would've guessed. He briefly entertains the idea that Beard may be sugarcoating for his benefit, but he doesn't have enough left in him to stray down that path, to not take the sugar if it's what's being offered to him, even if it's hiding a poison underneath.
Because whatever the odds, he's desperate to improve them until it's one in a billion, if it's got to be one at all. But...Beard's been through a lot. More than some people would go through in three lifetimes, and that's just the stuff Ted knows about. They've never been taught what to do with all that damage, either of them, other than covering it up and pretending it doesn't hurt, believing there's enough time in their lifespans for it to heal all their wounds.
He waits until he can keep his voice steady before he speaks again. "I appreciate you telling me that."
Beard grunts in response.
There's so much more bubbling under Ted's tongue, so much more he needs him to know, so much more he wants to offer. But it's clear that Beard's reached his limit for the day and it's quite possible Ted has too. So he switches on the radio, settles back against his seat, and asks Beard to explain for the fourth time how they just went to a different country but also didn't. Anyway, he thinks, biting back a smile as Beard heaves a long-suffering sigh, they've got plenty of days ahead of them for all that.
At least for today, at least for this moment, he believes that with his whole heart.