read 34 first!
trigger warning: if you're reading this, i assume you've watched ted lasso and know what happens at wembley, if the jamie & james storyline is triggering for you in anyway, please put yourself first and skip this chapter if you need.
love and hugs x

As Billie stood at the gateway to a footballer's dream, the sidelines of Wembley Stadium's famous pitch, it was one thing she never imagined it would be, quiet.

She was waiting for the team to walk out onto the pitch for the first time so she could take photos of their reactions, a few hours before kick off and before the stadium would become a sea of blue. It wasn't her first time visiting the stadium, she was there in 2012 when Chelsea won the FA Cup, two weeks before they won the Champions League.

2012 was a beautiful year of football for the blues.

It was a great year to be Roy Kent's youngest sister too. Everyone at school thought she was incredibly lucky, getting to watch her brother win at Wembley Stadium, represent England in the Euros and win a Champions League title all in one year. But selfishly, she would've traded it all just to see more of her brother.

The red doors in front of Billie opened and out walked AFC Richmond, their faces were a mix of smiles and stunned gazes as they stepped into the cathedral of British football. Billie began taking candid photos of the boys, smiling to herself as each of them took in the space they stood in and the history that came with it.

Jamie had told her just how much playing in that stadium meant to him on their 'not date', he recalled watching her brother's FA Cup win with Chelsea when he was a teenager. He smiled as he told her how jealous he had been that the teenage brunette girl got to walk out onto the pitch with her brother before the match.

Fate, right? That's what he called it.

"Gentlemen, focus up," Ted addressed the group, "Alright, fellas, I want you to close your eyes, look around."

The team frowned in confusion.

"You know, I mean, open them up and take it all in," Ted told the group as Billie wove her way through the crowd of footballers, knowing that there was one who needed her by his side more than anyone, "But remember, this right behind me, just a regular old football pitch, you take away the stadium and all the stands, I think you'll find it's the same size as our pitch back home on Nelson Road."

"Not exactly."

"What's that?" Ted looked at Beard.

"It's five hundred square feet bigger," Nate told him.

"Really? These pitches aren't all the same size?" Ted remarked.

"No."

"This is the biggest pitch in the country," Nate sighed.

"Huge advantage for City," Beard sighed.

"Boy, oh boy, this sport has the loosiest-goosiest rules of all," Ted muttered in disbelief, "Okay, alright, it's bigger, and I know y'all grew up watching games on this field, so you're probably a little nervous, I know I got goosebumps, I remember being a little kid, sitting in front of the television, watching Queen perform right over there during Live Aid."

"No, you didn't," Beard muttered.

"That was Old Wembley," Roy corrected the coach.

"That field was even bigger," Nate remarked.

"So, One Direction, was that this Wembley or old Wembley?" Ted asked Billie, reminded of a conversation they had on the bus that morning, in which she also blew his mind when she told him that the doctor who treated Dr Sharon was also a Kent.

"This Wembley, 2014," Billie smiled, "Best day of my life."

"Great fucking gig," Roy nodded.

"Look, point is, we're here now, okay? At this Wembley," Ted told the boys, "The one that Freddie Mercury never stepped foot in, but One Direction did, and this is our day to make history, and I believe we're gonna do just that, go ahead, take one more glance, then let's head back in, we got work to do."

Billie watched as the boys looked up at the expansive stadium before slowly trailing back inside towards the locker room. She looked over her shoulder as she waited for Jamie who's eyes were on the stands, no doubt visualising where his father would be sat just hours later.

"Richmond!" He exclaimed, the sound reverberating around the stadium.

A few hours had passed and Billie was making her way back down to the locker room after spending half an hour up in the box with Rebecca, Keeley and Higgins, where she'd already consumed a buck's fizz, which Rebecca insisted would give her courage.

Higgins was by her side as they made their way down towards the ground floor of the stadium, talking about a podcast that Julie had told him to tell Billie about. But those words faded to white noise when she laid eyes on Jamie's father propped up at the bar, accompanied by his two friends.

"Hey," Billie muttered to Higgins, "You go see the boys, I won't be a minute."

"Alright," Higgins smiled, having not realised who the men at the bar were before he made his way back towards Richmond's locker room.

Billie didn't want to cause a scene, but she did believe that she owed it to Jamie to at least suss out what sort of mood his father was in and how drunk he already was. She made her way towards the bar, standing in a space a few metres away from the three men, aware that they'd notice her as the space was quiet, with most fans having already taken their seats.

"What can I get you?" The server asked her with a smile.

"Bottle of Pepsi, please," She told him before holding up her Richmond staff pass, "On the Richmond tab."

"There you go," The young man pulled a bottle out of the fridge, placing it on the bar.

"Thanks," Billie smiled, glancing to her right to see that the three men were already watching her, "My brother's far more interesting to watch than me, fellas," She smiled as she turned to face them with a fake smile. 

"Spoken like a true Kent," James laughed, a bitter, drunken laugh which rang through Billie's ears, "My son played a blinder pulling you, eh?"

"I'd argue that's subjective," Billie sighed.

"You couldn't get me and the boys into the dressing room, could you?" James quipped, as though he were asking an old friend for a favour, "Wish the boys luck before the match."

"That's way above my pay grade, besides, I'm not allowed in there," She lied, desperate to keep the man away from his son.

"A woman like you, I'm sure you could pull some strings."

"If you ask nicely I can find City's social media manager and see if John Stones will sign a poster for you boys," Billie remarked, concluding that talking to those men was a waste of her breath.

"Oh, she thinks she's fucking smart," James scoffed, laughing under his breath, "Just 'cause you're a Kent, don't mean you get to swan about like you own the gaff."

"You wanna bet?" Billie quipped, not in the mood to waste her breath talking to a man like him.

"You ain't fucking special, sweetheart," He remarked, in the way that Jamie had feared he would, belittling her the way he belittled his own son, "You're one in long line of many girls trying to make a name for themselves in a men's game."

"You know, your son has more love and class in his pinky finger than you have in your entire body," Billie told the drunken man.

"Watch it."

"And despite having you for a father, that man is a prince among men." Billie told him firmly.

"You ought to watch your tone, missy." James warned.

"Or what?" Billie sighed, "You gonna put me in my place? Tell me how a woman like me ought to learn to keep her mouth shut?"

James stared at her as he attempted to conjure up something clever to say.

"I've known men like you, small men who use their words to feel big, but it won't work on me." Billie told him.

"Billie," The young woman looked over her shoulder to see her brother approaching her, "Let's go."

"Pleasure meeting you, gents," Billie smiled sarcastically before joining her brother as they walked towards the room that the coaches had been allocated as an office.

"What was that about?" Roy huffed as the siblings walked side by side.

"Just helping the City fans feel at home," Billie told him, "Nothing I can't handle, where are we going?"

"Coaches' office, I need you where I can keep an eye on you," Roy told her, having worked out who the man she was talking to was, "I know you care about Jamie, but that is not your battle to fight."

"Would you say that to him if he was defending me to our dad?" Billie asked her brother.

Roy remained silent.

"Exactly." Billie sighed.

The two Kent siblings walked towards the coaches' makeshift office in silence, neither having a word to utter and choosing not to fill the void with meaningless chatter. They'd arrived in the room to Nate and Beard talking through tactics and game plans. Billie was sitting on the sofa beside her brother, bouncing her knee anxiously. She really hoped Jamie's dad hadn't found a way to see him before the match.

Roy was lacing up his trainers while Ted sat in an armchair, eyes closed as he let out a heavy exhale. Billie recognised it as a grounding technique for anxiety, so she was proud of him for doing it in a room of coaches.

"You good, Coach?" Beard asked, with genuine concern for his friend.

"Oh, yeah," Ted opened his eyes to see the four individuals staring back at him, "I'm just doing some breathing exercises that Doc taught me, that's all."

"Hope it's not stomach problems again," Nate frowned.

"Tell me you didn't eat the prawn cocktail," Roy sighed.

"Of course he didn't, we went for the cheesy garlic flatbread thingy, right, Coach?" Billie smiled at the American man.

"Exactly, Sporty Spice," Ted nodded with a tentative smile.

Higgins promptly entered the room, donning a Richmond scarf, before the coaches and Billie could discuss the pre match catering options.

"Guys, it's time," He exhaled.

The coaches and Billie began making their way towards the door, but before they could leave, Ted stopped them, "Hey, hold on a sec, I need to tell you all something."

The six of them naturally formed a small circle, awaiting Ted's next words.

"When I left the match against Chelsea, it...it wasn't 'cause, you know, my stomach was bothering me," Ted explained, nervously stumbling over his words, "It was 'cause I had a panic attack."

Billie offered the man a smile of reassurance, having experienced panic attacks during her teenage years (she chose not to recommend Zoella's anxiety YouTube videos in that moment). Roy focused on his sister, silently acknowledging how hearing a grown man admit to experiencing what she had dealt with as a teenager would be reassuring.

"I've been having them from time to time as of late, and I'm working on it," Ted assured the people who stood around him, "But I just want you all to know the truth...We good?"

"Yeah."

"Of course."

"We got you, Coach," Billie saluted him with a smile.

"Alright let's go get 'em," Ted put his hand into the middle of the circle, everyone else followed suit, piling their hands up, "Richmond on three."

"Wait!" Higgins exclaimed, before taking a heavy breath, "I need to confess something."

"Maybe we if we keep confessing things the Hot Priest will appear," Billie muttered, the five men staring at her in confusion, "Yeah, I don't know why I thought five grown men would watch Fleabag, but you fucking should."

"I messed up the time zones on our transfer deadlines, which is why we didn't sign up that amazing fullback from Brazil," Higgins blurted out.

"That's okay."

"All good."

"I don't read the scouting reports you guys write," Roy suddenly confessed, "I've lied every time they come up, they're boring and I won't do it."

"I appreciate that," Ted nodded solemnly.

"I pretend to get ideas in the moment, but they're just good ideas I've had for months," Nate told the room, feeling a need to add something, "I just time them to look spontaneous."

"That's a good move."

"Illusion of the first time," Ted nodded as Roy glanced at his sister, wondering what she might confess.

"Oh, I know," Billie looked around the room, "The night that Jamie found you in the pub, Ted, I saw him afterwards, we broke into the stadium, laid on the halfway line...I kind of hoped it'd help him remember Richmond as home again."

"Well, I'll say you did one heck of a job," Ted smiled fondly, delighted that the Mancunian striker'd had such a force of good in his corner from the moment he returned to the place they called home.

Roy furrowed his eyebrows at the idea of his sister going so out of her way to be there for Jamie Tartt. She really fucking cared about him, didn't she?

"There was one game this season where I was accidentally on mushrooms," Beard blurted out.

"Accidentally?"

"I'd been at Jane's house, and I drank tea from the wrong pot," Beard explained.

"The Port Vale match?" Roy replied.

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"It won't happen again," Beard assured his colleagues.

"Thanks, guys," Ted smiled, realising that his friends' confessions almost distracted from his own revelation, "Let's go kick their butts."

"Butts on three." Beard declared.

"Works for me," Ted nodded, "One, two, three."

"Butts!"

While the coaches took their seats in the dugout, Billie found herself lingering in the tunnel, watching as both teams lined up, waiting to walk out onto the iconic pitch. She laid eyes on Jamie, near the back of the Richmond line, making her way over to him with a smile of reassurance.

"You ready?" She asked as she stood beside him, blending in with her choice to rewear that vintage nineties Richmond tracksuit, her hair scraped back into a high ponytail.

"Yeah," Jamie nodded, adjusting his headband, "Roy said you met me dad."

Billie hadn't planned on telling Jamie that, not until after the match at least, he didn't need that in his head, "Yeah."

"How was it?" Jamie frowned, hoping it wasn't too uncomfortable for her.

"Exactly how I imagined." Billie sighed.

"That bad?" Jamie raised his eyebrows.

"Hey, don't dwell on it," She placed a hand on his shoulder, "Focus on the game."

"Alright," Jamie nodded.

"Make me proud, yeah?" She smiled, "But remember, I'll be proud, win or lose."

"Cheers, Bils."

Billie made her way along the queue, smiling at the boys she called family, "Knock 'em dead, Greyhounds."

"I've got a good feeling about today," Billie told the coaches, just a few minutes into the match.

Her blind optimism was interrupted by the roar of Manchester City fans, signaling a City goal, just minutes into the game.

"How's that not offside?" Ted frowned.

"'Cause he was only passively offside," Beard told his friend.

"I don't get this frigging rule still," Ted muttered before grinning at his team, "Hey, that's alright! We're okay!"

Just minutes later, City had a corner kick and then a goal.

Billie felt like one of those nature documentary makers, watching a pride of lions prey on a dying zebra's carcass. She decided to abandon her job as photographer in the meantime, instead focusing on motivating the boys.

Not long after, a free kick gave City their third goal of the match.

"We've got to go three attackers," Beard turned to his colleagues.

"No, it's never too late to park the bus," Nate quipped.

"You boys don't wanna be parking anything, it's like spaghetti fucking junction out there," Billie told them, having never understand the elaborate trick play.

"It is too late to park the bus," Beard agreed with Billie.

"That proverbial bus has long since left the station," Billie added.

"Guys, one at a time, please," Ted attempted to mediate the bus-related disagreement, looking to his players, clapping his hands together, "Hey, it's okay!"

The second half of the match was equally, if not more dire than the first, with a fourth City goal, which was an own goal, caused by a misjudged effort to defend, by Tommy Winchester.

"Hey, ref!" Nate called out in frustration, "Clean the shit out of your eyes, you dickless wonder."

Mike Dean blew his whistle, running over to the sideline, holding up a yellow card as Billie cringed internally.

"Can't say that, mate, sorry," Mike told Nate, holding up the yellow card that sent him to the bench beside Roy, who had been booked some moments before.

"Sorry about that, Mike," Ted nodded at the referee, "We all know you've got a penis."

"I've been called worse," Mike shrugged before returning to the pitch.

"You boys want me to play coach, just let me know," Billie told Beard and Ted, "Jamie and Alfie have been teaching me FIFA."

"Appreciate you, Billie," Ted nodded, "Alright, here we go!"

In an attempt to dodge the ball, Bumbercatch found himself in a complicated unintentional handball situation, giving City a penalty, and despite Richmond's efforts to dispute it, the penalty was awarded.

Five-nil.

"Shit, god fucking damnit!" Beard hissed, throwing his cap on the ground.

"Come on, Coach," Ted picked up the cap, "It is what it is."

"Yeah, it is what it is," Beard nodded, walking backwards and falling over the advertisement screen that surrounded the pitch.

Billie tried really hard not to laugh.

"Hey, Jamie, you can score one now!" The grating voice rang through her ears as she looked over her shoulder at the VIP area, she could easily pick out the speck of sky blue amidst a pool of Richmond fans. He was persistent, heckling his own son, and Billie just wanted the painful match to be over with.

And eventually it did end, the team, their coaches, Billie, Will and Higgins all found themselves in the locker room. The room was a hive of hushed chatter, Billie sat beside Colin, having already consoled both Jamie and Isaac with hugs.

"Mr Tartt," Billie looked up to see a member of stadium staff enter the room, "You have a visitor, says he's your father."

Billie glanced across the room at Jamie, wishing he'd say no, hoping, even praying that Jamie wouldn't put himself through that man's company again.

"Yeah," Jamie nodded quietly.

"Are you decent?" James grinned, drunkenly popping his head around the door.

Jamie stood up from the bench, readying himself for whatever belittling words his father might hit him with.

"I told ya, dick," James muttered to the stadium attendant who promptly left the room, "Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen!"

Billie's heart felt heavy anytime her gaze fell to Jamie. She regretted not staying by his side before his father arrived, she really wanted to be beside him.

"Hey, it's a tough one, lads," James remarked as he strolled into the middle of the room, "It's a tough one, but no shame to it, 'cause, you know, we only beat errrrr, everybody we play."

Roy frowned, Ted looked bewildered, Nate didn't know where to look.

"You pups had no chance," James scoffed, "Oh, and there he is, my son," He gestured towards Jamie, "My own flesh and blood, poor Jamie, my son."

Jamie looked embarrassed, like a small child who'd forgotten his lines on stage during his school nativity.

"Now, I'm thinking his heart's still in Manchester, and that's why he missed that sitter in the first half," James exclaimed, and with every word he spat at his son, it was as though Jamie regressed back to his childhood, back to that terraced house on that North Manchester council estate, "You absolute balled it, you balled it."

Billie watched as James approached his son, she watched as Jamie's torso became tense, as his father, James tapped light punches against his son's abdomen, "You balled it, what were you thinking? I'm only kidding, hey."

"Hey, look, do us a favour and get Denbo and Bug past security," James told his son, "They wanna go on the pitch, take a few snaps, yeah?"

"I'd rather 'em not," Jamie told his father.

"Yeah, they just want to look around, it'll only take a second," James insisted, adding another fake punch, "Bosh."

"I'd rather 'em not."

"What you're not gonna go all little moody bitch just 'cause you got your arse served to you on a plate, are ya?" James laughed, bouncing on his knees.

"Don't speak to me like that."

"Ah?"

"Don't speak to me like that," Jamie repeated himself, looking across the room at Billie, hoping to feel comforted by her gaze.

James Tartt followed his son's eyeline, scoffing when he realised what or rather who he was looking at, "Why are you looking at her? I know she's got quite the mouth on her, but the fuck's she gonna do?"

"Don't talk about her like that." Jamie warned his father, balling his fists and Roy clenched his jaw.

"You think she's gonna stick around once she sees the real you?" James scoffed, assuming that his son was romantically linked with the young woman, he couldn't think of any other reason that a man would be so protective of a woman, "You ain't got nothing without football, son."

Jamie stood in silence, because until he had met Billie, he believed it, he had believed that his only value was his footballing skills. When she introduced him to Dr Sharon, she helped him to change the way he let his father's words influence his opinion of himself.

"Okay, well, let's see if you can hear this," James remarked, "You know that ickle TV show you made? You just made it easier for Manchester City to kick you to the curb, and look where you are now, twaddling about with a bunch of amateurs!" He looked around the room, "No offense, no offense."

Jamie turned away from his father, tired of the same routine he had been subjected to for the last twenty four years. He didn't want to be in that room, he didn't want to see his father's face.

He really wanted to be held. 

"Don't turn your back on me, you pussy," James scoffed, grabbing onto his son's arm, pulling him back to face him and shoving him in the chest.

Riddled with hurt and resentment, Jamie threw a punch at his father. It didn't feel heroic, it didn't feel powerful, it didn't feel as cathartic as he once imagined as he watched his father fall to the floor. The pain in his heart was far greater than the pain in his knuckles, he felt ashamed, ashamed that he had resorted to his father's methods of handling a situation.

He had to speak in a language his father would understand.

"Ah, fuck," His father muttered, looking up at his son, and a part of James Tartt was angry that his son dared raise a hand to him, the other was proud, because in his mind his son proved that he could a man.

As she watched the fear in Jamie's eyes, Billie wordlessly interlocked her hand with Colin's, he squeezed her's three times before she squeezed his three times back. It was a thing they had grown accustomed to doing in moments either of them felt uneasy, a silent display of, 'I've got you and you've got me.'

"Oh, yeah, okay," James laughed as he slowly stood up, "You can have that one for free."

Before James could hurtle towards his son, Beard had grabbed ahold of him, "Time to go," The American warned him firmly.

"You want another? Let's go, Jamie!" James yelled as Beard forcefully dragged him out of the room, "Don't forget where you came from!"

"Watch the door," Beard shoved James Tartt through the double door, "Oops."

As Beard followed Jamie's father out of the room, the doors slammed and the room fell silent. No one knew where to look, no one knew what to say. Billie wanted to run straight to her best friend and assure him that he was okay, she wanted to make his pain go away, she wanted him to know that he was loved.

Jamie froze, finally registering that all his teammates and coaches had witnessed that, not just Billie, who was one of the few people he felt safe to be vulnerable with. He wanted to disappear, he wanted to be the little boy who hid under his duvet, waiting for the shouting to stop.

Billie clung to Colin's hand as she blinked away the tears that threatened to escape. Colin knew, in fact he'd known that Jamie meant the world to her from the day she bought him back to Richmond, when she'd ask the boys if he could join their pub trips once he'd made things right, when Jamie spent a few hundred quid trying to win her that teddy at Winter Wonderland. Colin knew what it was to be loved platonically by Billie, and as he watched the way her eyes were trained on Jamie, he could see what it meant to be loved completely by Billie.

Before Billie could work out what to do, she looked across the room as her brother began walking towards Jamie. Her heart was thumping against her chest as she watched his heavy strides, a walk that felt as though it lasted an eternity.

She watched as Jamie flinched when Roy stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the young striker, because Jamie didn't expect to be comforted by a man who was older than him, a man he had idolised from childhood. It destroyed Billie to see Jamie so broken, if that was what true heartache felt like, she didn't ever want to feel it again.

Jamie clung onto Roy, gentle hushed sobs passed his lips as tears escaped his eyes. In that moment Roy became the placeholder for the older sibling Jamie always longed for, when he'd lay awake at night, waiting for his father to drunkenly return from the pub, wondering if the burden of being James Tartt's son wouldn't be so heavy if he could share it with someone.

Billie would let Jamie have Roy as a brotherly figure for a lifetime if it helped heal his heavy heart. Who better to fill that gap than the man Jamie spent his younger years looking up to, the man who he had a poster of on the wall of his childhood bedroom?

No words were spoken by the pair, or anyone in the room for that matter. Roy's embrace said everything that needed to be said, just as Billie and Colin's hand squeezes did, 'I've got you and you've got me.'

Roy held onto Jamie so tight, as though he were worried that the young man might fall apart if he dared to let go. It was the same way he had comforted Billie after that abortion when she was with Brad. Roy knew that Billie cared about Jamie fearlessly, he knew that the young man meant the world to her, and he understood that Jamie had never had an older man in his life who made him feel safe.

Jamie just wanted to feel safe.

The sound of the door opening and closing tore Billie's eyes away from Jamie and her brother, fearing that James Tartt was back for round two. She scanned the room, noticing an absence of Ted, assuming that he must have gone to check on Beard.

She looked back at Jamie, and then at the boys she called her brothers, the look of sorrow in their eyes, finally understanding the weight of the burden that Jamie had been carrying on his shoulders. The burden that made him that man he once was, not the man he became.

Jamie wasn't alone, he'd never be alone again, Billie wasn't going to let that happen.

author's note: hugs for you all <3