Work Text:
So that’s that then. Ted won’t have him back. No other team in Europe wants him. His career in football is over.
They sit there in silence for a few more uncomfortable moments. Then Ted swallows the rest of his beer in a few gulps, pats him awkwardly on the shoulder and walks off with a quick, “best of luck to you, Jamie.”
Jamie sits and stares at his own drink in silence before Mae comes back over. “Sorry, love,” she says, her face twisted in sympathy. “I really hoped he’d say yes. I can try talking to him? When he’s next in?”
Jamie shakes his head and smiles at her weakly. “Um, no thanks. That’s okay.”
She looks at him shrewdly in her wise old-person way for half a minute, then nods down at his mostly untouched pint. “Beer’s not your thing is it? Want me to get you something else?”
“Um, yeah. Ta, that’d be great.” He doesn’t think the Crown and Anchor is the type of place to have anything too fancy, but he stares over her shoulder at the fridges below the shelves, full of mixers and alcopops and RTDs. “Could I get a Smirnoff Ice?”
She nods and turns away to fetch it, taking his abandoned glass with her. He can feel eyes on him as Mae puts down the bottle and pops it open, and he looks up to see the three lads from earlier staring at him again. And well, it’s not like he’s got anything better to do with himself. He might as well go make their night.
~
“Mr Tartt? Wake up, sir. We're here."
Jamie’s startled awake by a polite voice and he sits up, rubbing at his eyes blearily as he looks around to get his bearings.
'Here' turns out to be the players' car park at Nelson Road. Jamie's in the back seat of a car — not his car, it looks like an Addison Lee or something — and the voice speaking is the driver, looking back over his shoulder from the front seat.
“I don’t… I don’t understand,” Jamie says. “What am I doing here?”
The last thing he remembers is inviting the pub lads — Baz, Paul and Jeremy — back to his hotel room for more drinks from his minibar. And then Jeremy had pulled a bag of magic mushrooms from his pocket. Usually Jamie wouldn't, not during the season, but those things are barely detectable anyway, and seeing as how he wasn’t going to have to deal with team medics any time in the foreseeable future, he’d accepted one.
“I don’t really understand it myself, to be honest,” the driver says, but he looks a lot less confused than Jamie feels. “I was sad to hear that they were loaning you out for a bit. It’s a shame. I always thought you should get more minutes with us, but I’ll keep an eye out for how you play here. Maybe at the end of the season, I’ll be the one bringing you home, eh? Look alive, son. Brass is coming. You’ve been out like a light since Stoke.”
Nothing about his answer helps Jamie’s bewilderment, but then his door is opened and a familiar bespectacled face greets him with a smile, gesturing for Jamie to get out of the car.
“Mr Tartt! We’re so excited to welcome you to AFC Richmond. My name’s Leslie Higgins, you can just call me Higgins, everyone does. If you’d like to follow me, I can get you all signed in.” Jamie follows him inside Nelson Road, because what else is he going to do? Higgins is saying something about lodgings, about keys — they’ve set Jamie up in a rented house for two months, and he can choose to extend that lease or find something more to his taste if he prefers.
He’s heard all this before. “I went round there myself this morning to drop off some basics for you” Higgins says. “Do you know, you’ve got the sweetest family of squirrels in the back garden?”
He remembers this. He remembers the fucking squirrels. But this can’t possibly be what it seems like. It can’t be. This has to be some sort of a joke. A prank.
Still, he gets his phone out of his pocket as they make their way through a series of corridors he was sure he’d never walk again and checks.
The date on the lock screen says June 26th, 2019.
What the fuck?
~
Jamie might not have a clue as to what’s fucking happening, but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If this is real, if he gets a do-over at Richmond, he’s going to make the most of it. When he heard he was being sent back to City, he’d been crushed. Right up until that day, the day with the bonfire, he’d thought that returning to City was all he wanted, but once it actually happened, it had fucking sucked.
So if he can get a second chance, if he can make nice with the team right from the get go and prove to Ted, if he still exists in this timeline, that he can be a team player, he’s not going to waste it. Maybe he’ll go back to City at the end of the season, like the driver said. Properly experienced, like Pep wanted. Or… Maybe he’ll get to stay at Richmond. Either option would be miles better than the clusterfuck he’s created for himself.
His second first meeting with Roy Kent goes about as well as it originally had. Roy just grunts when he sees him, ignoring his outstretched hand and turning away, dismissing Jamie in an instance.
He can feel the familiar burst of anger flare up inside of him, but he shoves down the urge to say something cutting or cruel just to get Roy’s attention. That won’t help. Besides, when he looks at Roy now, it’s layered over with the horrible mental image of Roy lying prone on the grass, his face twisted in agony after he’d tackled Jamie to the ground. And now that Jamie knows what it’s like to face a football-less future, he can understand Roy’s anger and frustration, why he’d lashed out. Knowing that every time you step out on a pitch might be the last time you’re able to play before your body fails you? Fuck, that’s a terrifying thought. No wonder Roy is so angry all the time.
“Really looking forward to learning from you, Roy,” he says instead, keeping his voice cheerful and light. “You’re an incredible player.” He makes his way a few places down to the cubby with his name on it and sits down, pulling his shirt off as he does so. Once his head is free, he glances to his left to find Roy looking at him shrewdly. That’s so much nicer than the standard disgust of the past. This is already going better than the first time around.
~
Step two of operation rehabilitation happens after his first day of training with the Richmond starters.
Colin and Isaac are roughhousing in the dressing room when Colin trips over a stray pair of trainers and falls into Nate, who’s got an armful of towels. Nate and the towels go flying, and Jamie remembers this happening the exact same way before. Except that time, he recalls, his face heating up in shame, he’d laughed and stepped over Nate on his way out of the dressing room, dropping his dirty training shirt onto the pile of clean towels as he’d passed.
He leans down to offer Nate a hand, and when he accepts it, hesitation written across his face, Jamie pulls him to his feet. “You alright, mate?” he asks. Nate nods, so Jamie crouches down to start gathering up the towels himself, smiling up at Nate and handing them to him. “There you go, let me know if you need help folding them, yeah?”
He gets back up and rolls his eyes at Colin and Isaac. “You two clumsy twats need to watch where you’re going.” When they both look a little sheepish, he adds “I don’t really know anyone in London yet. Any chance either of you want to come over and play FIFA or something?”
He’d liked Colin and Isaac. They’d thought he was cool. Jamie still wants that, wants to be friends with them this time round, just… He knows it shouldn’t be about being cool. Maybe they’d be up for like, a real friendship, not something shallow. Not bossing people around and showing off. Having a laugh, but not at people who aren’t willing to be laughed at. Jamie’s good at making fun of himself. He can try that instead.
He really doesn’t like the idea of being seen as a bully. It’s something he’s been worrying about a lot since the night of the bonfire. When he’d really stopped and thought about it, he’d been shocked at how shittily he’d acted, how easy it had been to do so. He didn’t like that that was in him. He’d just been so desperate not to be the one who people picked on.
Roy’s watching him again as he leaves with Colin and Isaac. Jamie’s not used to this much attention from him, at least a kind of attention that isn’t laced with loathing, but he knows he likes how it feels.
~
There are some parts of being back at Richmond that are still shit. George Cartrick is still an awful coach and an awful man. Jamie thinks that if Ted had been the coach at Richmond right from the start of his loan, things might have been different in the other timeline too. But Cartrick had brought out the worst in Jamie then, and he really has to work hard not to let it happen a second time.
He manages it, but it’s tough. Cartrick seems to only have two settings — shouty and lazy. Both of them are made worse by the fact he’s no good at either man management or tactics. He’s nothing like Pep. He’s actually kind of like a watered down version of Jamie’s dad, both in looks and attitude. Where he differs from James is that he likes Jamie, or at least, Jamie’s right foot. He thinks Jamie is just brilliant. He had treated Jamie like the solution to all his problems, like having a solid striker meant that he could sit back, relax, and rely solely on Jamie to carry Richmond through the season.
Then and now, he’d run one up front formations every match, and he uses Jamie to belittle the other players. He tells them that Jamie is the only one of them worth anything. He tells Jamie to ignore the others and take control of the ball, to do what City is paying him a hundred grand a week, or whatever it was he was getting, to do. Jamie was hardly on a hundred grand a week yet, but his meaning was clear.
The first time, Jamie hadn’t liked the man any more than he does now, but he had bought into the point Cartrick was making. He was better than the rest of the Richmond players. He just was. It was an objective fact. And it was frustrating, because it meant that every week he was left feeling like the wins and losses of this team, this team he didn’t even give a shit about, all depended on him. If they made him look bad, it would ruin his career at City.
This time, he doesn’t really know what to do with it. The team obviously needs him to perform well, but the way Cartrick is pushing him is just too much. He doesn’t know how to play his best without pissing everybody off again.
So after a couple of weeks, he takes the matter to his captain.
“Well done,” Roy says. “You’ve discovered our big secret. Richmond is a shitshow and our management is a farce.”
“It can’t possibly be that bad all the time,” Jamie says, although it really kind of is.
“No,” Roy agrees, rubbing his eyes. “But don’t listen to a word he says. You listen to me. We all know what you can do, Tartt. He’s right, we’re lucky to have you, but he’s an idiot.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that.”
Roy uncovers his face to look at Jamie. “I’ve seen talent like yours before, Tartt,” he says. “Do you even actually know how good you are?”
Jamie is not sure how to answer that question. He starts by shaking his head, and when Roy raises an eyebrow, testing him, he changes it to a nod, and shrugs.
“Yeah. And you’re trying not to make everyone else feel shit about it. Despite George’s best efforts.”
“Yeah,” Jamie exhales in relief. “Pretty much. That’s… yeah.”
“Good lad. It’s alright. No one here thinks they’re Man City material. But you…Your right foot was kissed by God. Playing with people better than you makes you better, you know that.”
He nods. He does know.
“You could have a lot of influence on this team,” Roy continues. “You could make them better. You don’t have to hold back. It’s not the playing that causes issues. It’s the stuff off of the pitch. I’ve seen shit like this a hundred times. We can make this work if you can tune out George. He can’t control us in the middle of a match, and if we win, he doesn’t care how we made it happen. So here’s what we’re going to do.”
It’s a lot of work, in training, to pretend to listen to the gaffer while actually deferring to the captain, but soon enough, it’s like Cartrick fades into the background. And the first time Jamie scores off an assist from Roy, in a pre-season friendly against Leeds and gets a crushing hug after, makes all his efforts worth it.
~
He doesn’t meet Keeley when he expects to. He’s not sure why, at first, and then he remembers how they actually met, and it clicks. Because instead of going out to clubs and events with Isaac and Colin and Jeff, he’s mostly been hanging out at one of their houses, playing video games and watching films.
Jamie misses her. Back in his original timeline, seeing her again after the show had been overwhelming, and the thought of maybe being able to get a second chance to go out with her and not screw it up is so fucking tempting. But he’s conflicted, because he thinks Roy and Keeley are happy together and if he’s trying to be better, should he stop that from happening?
But then of course they only start dating because Jamie and Keeley were dating, when Keeley starts coming around the stadium and starts hanging out with Ms Welton. Maybe he does need to seek her out and bring her to Richmond. So in August, that’s how he justifies showing up at some product launch that he remembers going to as Keeley’s date. He’s not 100% sure she’ll be there, but as he makes his way down the red carpet he sees her up ahead of him, posing for the cameras, as beautiful as ever.
"Hey," he says, approaching her at the bar. "I saw you out on the carpet, thought your banter with the paps was well funny. Can I pretend to buy you a drink in return for the laugh?"
He'd used the "pretend" thing the first time they'd met, at another party with an open bar, and he crosses his fingers and hopes it's still going to land.
She looks him up and down, and then does it again more slowly. He can't help preening a little internally and then she grins at him. "Go on then, I'll take a rum and coke."
Once they've both got a drink in hand, she leads him over to a small table away from the sound system. "I'm Keeley," she says as they sit down across from each other. "Keeley Jones. You look familiar, why do I know you?"
"Um, I'm Jamie Tartt. I'm a footballer, maybe you've seen me at a match or something?"
She groans, but she's smiling as she does it. "Of course you're a footballer, you're always footballers. I just can't quit you. It's the bums that get me every time."
He laughs and shakes his head. It would be so easy for this evening to go the same way as the one when they’d actually met, for them to spend the night drinking and flirting and to go home with each other at the end of the night. She's clearly just as attracted to him this time round. But he can't do it.
So when she inevitably asks him, hours of chatting and dancing later, if he wants to come back to hers he shakes his head sadly.
"I'm really sorry. You're great. You're fucking amazing actually. But… I really need to be focusing on football right now. I’m definitely not looking for anything and I wouldn’t want to mess you around. But this was fun and I'd love to hang out again sometime. I think you’re a really cool person if you’re in the market for like, a mate."
She had been surprised and confused, but not offended. They exchange numbers and after he admits he’s been in London for nearly two months and hasn’t really seen much of the place, she insists on playing tour guide for his next day off. It takes a couple of friend-dates to convince her that he means it, about not getting into her pants, but it turns out having Keeley Jones as a best mate is almost as good as having her as a girlfriend.
And when she comes to pick him up after training one day and he introduces her to Roy, the sparks between them are instant. They’d seen each other around, over the years — Jamie had forgotten that — and they start pretty much pulling each other's pigtails immediately. It hurts, of course it does, but when Roy greets him with an honest to God smile the next day, and a fistbump, Jamie knows he made the right choice.
~
Sam Obisanya signs for AFC Richmond on the last day of the summer transfer window and arrives in London during the first week of September, and this time Jamie is ready to be the best damn teammate ever. He can’t quite remember the name of the Nigerian food that Ted had gotten Sam for his birthday, but Google gives him the answer eventually and he orders in a couple of packs ready for Sam’s first day of training. He sneaks in early so he can hide them in Sam’s locker with a card saying welcome to the team.
“What have you got there, Tartt?” A hand clasps his shoulder and he jumps and turns slightly to smile at Roy, rubbing at his eyebrow a little nervously.
“Oh, nothing. Well, it’s just something for the new guy. He’s pretty young. I thought it might be hard for him, being this far from home. It’s just a card. And some Nigerian snack food.”
“Hmmm,” Roy tilts his head and examines him. “Aren’t you full of surprises.” He squeezes Jamie’s shoulder once and releases him, making his way over to his own cubby and stripping out of his leather jacket as he goes.
Sam seems suitably touched when he pulls the chin chin out of his cubby and unwraps it. Jamie hadn’t signed his name on the card, so Sam doesn’t know to thank him specifically, but it turns out he doesn’t need to be told thank you to feel good about doing something nice.
“Hey Sam!” Jamie calls, as Sam heads towards the door at the end of training. “Wait up a sec.” Sam pauses and Jamie catches him up easily. “I wanted to see if you wanted to come round to mine for dinner? Unless you’ve got other plans for the evening?”
“Oh!” Sam seems pleased, and that feels good too. “No, I have no plans. If I am being honest I was probably going to sit alone in my new house, avoid unpacking and freak out a little bit over being so far from home. Dinner sounds much nicer.”
“Sound,” Jamie says with a grin. “Do you have a car yet? Otherwise I’ll give you a lift.”
Sam does not have a car, so Jamie drives them both back to his.
“Alright, I’ll be honest,” he says, staring into his open refrigerator and assessing the contents. “I might have jumped the gun a bit. I am not a good cook. I could heat up one of the nutritionist’s meals, but that’s too depressing for your first night here. So… take-away? You can choose?”
“Yes to take-away,” Sam says, accepting the can of Sprite that Jamie hands him from the fridge. “But you choose please, I would not know where to start.”
Jamie casts his mind around for options. "Would you be up for something, like, traditionally English?" he asks, and Sam nods. "Cool, well we could go Indian. My regular place has about a million different dishes that I'm working my way through trying. Or there's a very good fish and chip place around the corner."
They end up doing Indian and if it’s not all on their approved plan — onion pakoras have zero nutritional value, but they’re delicious, so Jamie doesn’t care — he thinks Claire the dietician will understand that warding off homesickness is a good reason for an extra cheat day.
Sam is as sweet as Jamie remembers, kind of naïve, but it isn’t annoying any more. He seems thrilled at the prospect of being Jamie's friend, of hearing all about the Premier League and getting his advice. It's the kind of thing that would have gone to Jamie's head if he'd given Sam the time of day before, but this time he's just determined to be there for Sam, to help him succeed.
"You ever play further forward?" Jamie asks, during an ad break in Made in Chelsea — he insisted it would help Sam learn more about British culture, and Sam hadn't argued. When Ted had edged Sam closer into what Jamie saw as his territory on the pitch, into goal-scoring opportunities, Jamie had been furiously jealous, but now he thinks maybe he can speed up that transition. "I was watching some tapes of you before you got here and I think there's some stuff we could try." He's not sure if Cartrick will go for it, but maybe he can ask Roy to put in a word.
Sam's face lights up at the thought. "I have often thought I would like to try playing in midfield. Do you really think I could?"
Fuck he's nice. Jamie likes him, really likes him, and when he thinks about how he’d spoken to Sam in the past, Jamie feels sick to his stomach.
~
In October, Pep calls Jamie to check in.
Jamie hadn’t been expecting it. The last time he’d spoken to Pep had been the week before pre-season. He’d been called into Pep’s office and told he was being loaned out, and the choice was Richmond or Southampton.
Jamie had been crushed, angry, devastated and a whole bunch of other emotions he couldn’t identify. And it all must have shown on his face because Pep had come around the desk to sit on the chair next to Jamie.
“Listen to me, Tartt,” he’d said. “You are a solid player, with natural talent, but you have the potential to be a great player only if you can get the time in on the pitch. I cannot give you that time right now, but you are never going to get the experience you need sitting on the bench. This is a good thing, yes? You will get a chance to make an impact with another team, and come back to us in a year full of new skills and experience.”
At the time, Jamie had been too angry to recognise that Pep was right, and that starting at Richmond every week would be good for him. It had felt like he’d failed, like he was being sent away in disgrace, and Jamie’s dad’s reaction to the news had only solidified that opinion in Jamie’s mind.
“Jamie,” Pep says as soon as he answers the phone. “How are you?”
“Umm, yeah I’m good,” he replies. He shoves the hand that isn’t holding his phone in his pocket. He really hopes that in this timeline, Pep isn’t about to recall him earlier. He isn’t ready to leave again, not with everything going so well.
“I am glad to hear it. Listen Jamie, I just wanted to call to check in with you. We have all your stats and I have been watching some of your games, you are doing very well! Your scoring from the box is as good as we knew it would be. But possession, excellent, and the long passing, the crosses. You have really upped your awareness of the other players on the pitch.”
The knowledge that Pep didn’t just send him down to Richmond to forget about him is both good and bad. Good, because it’s nice to hear that this Pep has been impressed by Jamie. Bad because Pep didn’t call him last time round. That means he must have been watching and not liked what he’d seen. The thought fills Jamie with shame, but he pushes it down.
“Thanks gaffer,” he says. “I really appreciate that, I’ve been working hard at being a team player. I’m glad it shows.”
“It shows very much,” Pep says, his voice sounding warm over the phone. “I’m very pleased with how you have approached this loan. Listen, I am letting you go now, I know you need to prepare for your match against Wolverhampton this weekend, but I just wanted to check in and see how you are feeling.”
And then he’s gone without waiting for Jamie’s goodbye. It makes sense, he’s a busy man Pep Guardiola. The fact that he thought to call Jamie at all is nice.
~
There’s something to be said for having Roy Kent fighting for you instead of fighting with you.
It’s mid-November and Jamie has continued to gel really well with the team. They’re playing Leicester City in the cold and the rain, but Roy and Jamie are so in sync today, and the game is going Richmond’s way.
They’re up 2-0 when Roy sends a beautiful ball flying Jamie’s way. He spins deftly, weaves it around Fofana and into the box. He’s about to whack it into the goal to make it 3-0 when Söyüncü comes out of nowhere and sends him flying.
Jamie’s never been one for making too much of a fuss when he goes down, but this one does knock the wind out of him and he gives himself a moment to catch his breath.
“Oi!” That’s Roy yelling. It’s really nice to have it be directed at anyone other than Jamie. “You fucking prick, I’m going to rip your fucking head off.”
A few more people are shouting now, and Jamie forces himself in a seated position in time to see Isaac yank Roy away from Söyüncü. He looks furious as he stalks over to Jamie and holds out a hand.
“You alright?” he asks as he pulls Jamie to his feet.
“Yeah,” Jamie grins. “Was just waiting for you to finish defending my honour.”
“Fuck off, you prick,” Roy says affectionately, ruffling Jamie’s hair. “You good to take it?”
“Of course I am,” Jamie scoffs. Look, he might be trying to keep his ego on a short lead this time around, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to pretend he's not the best penalty scorer on the team. “Who else is going to do it? You?”
Roy rolls his eyes, but he’s suppressing a grin as Jamie collects the ball from the ref and lines up his shot.
Obviously he makes it.
~
In the new year, when Ted finally shows up, Jamie isn’t quite sure how to feel about it.
The thing is, with everyone else, he knows he had been the one at fault, before. So he’d known it was on him to make sure it worked this time, to put the effort in and fix things. And he had! Sam and he are as thick as thieves these days, Colin and Isaac are proper mates, not just hangers-on, and the fact that he gets to wake up every day and play football with a Roy Kent who likes Jamie is nothing short of miraculous.
But honestly, where Ted is concerned, Jamie doesn’t feel like he’s that much at fault. He still doesn’t get it. Yes, he was a dick to Ted at times. Well, he’d been a dick in general. But when he thinks back on it, he feels like Ted gave up on him pretty quickly. Roy had been even more of a dick directly to Ted, and Ted had breezed right past Roy’s obvious hatred and eventually won him over. But Ted sent him back to City without so much as a goodbye or a text to check in afterwards. Ted walked away after watching his dad throw things at Jamie’s head. And months later, when Jamie had mentioned needing to get away from his dad, Ted had almost seemed to say having a father like James was a good thing. Fuck that.
Point is, Jamie doesn’t actually think he has to put the work in with Ted to make things better. He just needs to keep doing his thing, not give Ted anything to complain about, and if Ted wants to build a relationship with Jamie of any sort, then he can be the one to make the first move.
Infuriatingly, Ted does just that, approaching Jamie on his very first day at the ground.
“Jamie Tartt,” he says, holding a hand out for Jamie to shake. “I’ve heard all about you from Nate the Great. He says you’re an amazing player — and I have to say that tracks from what I saw of you out there on the field today — but more than that he says you’re the first to help him out if he’s got a lot of equipment, or kit —” he makes finger quotes around the word kit, and Jamie assumes, from his prior knowledge of the man, that he’s only just learned that word today, “— to clear up at the end of the day. I have to say I’m really looking forward to working with you this season.”
And then he’s off to speak to Roy, who looks about as enthusiastic this time round as he did before. Jamie’s nice to see some things have stayed the same. Fucking Ted though. His words have made Jamie feel flush with pride. How’s he supposed to hold a secret grudge against the man when the first thing he says to Jamie is so fucking nice. The prick.
~
He’s not quite sure, but Jamie is worried he might have fucked things up again at the gala, despite his best efforts.
No Bex this time, he’s content to fly solo and just keep his fingers crossed that whoever wins him in the auction understands boundaries and personal space. He wears a shirt this time — it’s February, it’s fucking cold — but Roy and Keeley still tease him about Cheryl’s interest, and even in this timeline he can’t help getting a bit sulky about it. He doesn’t like being made fun of, and he slumps off to the bar to lick his wounds.
Like before, Roy follows him over there, but their conversation doesn’t go quite the same way.
“Listen,” Roy says before Jamie can speak. “That was a dick move. Keeley and me, we like to wind each other up a bit. I think because we both like you so much, we forgot you didn’t sign up for that.”
Jamie doesn’t think the warmth that spreads through him has anything to do with the champagne and the WKD he’s now drinking. He turns to lean back against the bar and smiles at Roy, forgiving him immediately.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I know you were only messing around. I just don’t like being mocked. Half the time it goes over my head. I take things very literally, and then it’s only later on that I realise people were taking the piss. It makes me feel stupid, that’s all.”
Roy’s closer to him now, holding eye contact, his expression serious. "Fair enough," he says. "Sorry for making you feel like shit."
He’s so intense. Having Roy Kent’s full attention on you is a lot, and it’s all Jamie can do not to squirm under the scrutiny. This close, it’s hard to ignore just how fucking magnetic Roy's energy is, and it's like the words are being drawn out of him.
"It's just, okay. The thing is. It's also maybe kind of worse because it's you? Only 'cause I, like, had a poster of you on my wall as a kid. Whole… childhood hero thing, you know? Stupid, but I think you in particular making fun of me might be, like, very bad for my brain." He makes a face that he hopes gets across the embarrassment of it all, baring his teeth and scrunching up his nose apologetically.
"Not stupid," Roy says. “Thanks for telling me that, I’ll watch out for it in the future.”
"That would be good." He claps Roy on the shoulder awkwardly and all but runs to Sam’s table. There are no spare chairs, but he nudges Sam over enough that Jamie can perch on the edge of his seat.
Fuck. Whatever the timeline, Jamie doesn’t think Roy finding out about the depths of Jamie’s long-harboured obsession with the man will end well. Except when he risks a glance back over at his actual table, Keeley smiles at him warmly, but Roy just nods, his face unreadable.
~
The match against Watford, his last match with Richmond, never happens. Or rather, it happens. They still play Watford at home, but it’s nothing like before. All of the matches have been different, really, thanks to the way he plays with Sam now, the way he plays with Roy, and everyone else as well, and as a result, Richmond is a fair few spots higher on the table than they had been this time last year. Last season. Last time. Whatever this is. Jamie’s past questioning it. The point is. This one. Jamie had been dreading this one. This is the one where he really, really fucked up. This is where it all fell apart, and he doesn’t trust that this isn’t where it’s all going to fall apart again.
But Jamie scores, and points at little Henry Lasso in the stands as promised. Sam goes down, but Jamie doesn’t step over him like he’s a pile of rubbish. He doesn’t fight with Roy on the pitch. He doesn’t get carded. He doesn’t get benched.
He doesn’t get sent home in disgrace.
~
Jamie groans as his phone goes off next to him. He doesn't look at the screen to see who's calling. He knows who it'll be. Everyone else knows better than to disturb him the day after a match as brutal as yesterday's against Liverpool.
"Jamie Tartt!" Sure enough, it's Dani's cheerful voice on the other end of the line. "What are you doing, amigo? I would like to do some penalty practice. Come to Nelson Road with me?"
Jamie had been looking forward to Dani's arrival, and Dani had been just as energetic as before, just as friendly and kind. What is different, this time, is Jamie's reaction. It turns out a hug from Dani Rojas is like being jumped on by a giant golden retriever. Jamie’s a fan. And they click together on the pitch immediately — instant chemistry out there, a partnership of a kind that Jamie's never experienced with any other player.
There had been a hint of trepidation that Dani showing up would mean Jamie would be sent back, even though he hadn’t done anything bad this time. But of course, no manager in their right mind would turn down the opportunity for two strong strikers who worked well together, so no such thing had happened.
"Dani, no." Jamie leans his head back against the sofa. "Think about it. If we show up at the training ground someone will rat us out to Ted and he'll give us that lecture about how important rest days are to let our bodies heal. And I'll be honest mate, my body is killing me after yesterday. Don't you want to do something fun on your day off? Relaxing?"
"Yes," Dani says immediately. "I would like to do something fun, and nothing is more fun than football! Football is..."
"Life." Jamie finishes his sentence. He rolls his eyes, but he's smiling now. "Alright, how about this. Come round mine, yeah? We'll play some pretend football on the Playstation, and if you can go an hour sitting still, we can kick a ball around for a bit out back. Sound good?"
"Si, absolutely. I will be there in thirty minutes. Maybe we can order in some delicious food, too?"
"As long as it's Chatora," Jamie says. "I still haven't tried that tandoori salmon dish and I think today's the day."
Dani agrees and Jamie hangs up the phone. He looks around. His house is in pretty decent shape, but there are a few dirty bowls and plates out on the kitchen island. Not enough for a dishwasher load, so Jamie takes ten minutes to do the washing up before Dani gets there. He scrubs and rinses things methodically, all the while thinking about meeting Dani — the first Dani — and what that had all meant.
If he was honest, after being sent back to City, he’d thought about Dani Rojas a lot. He'd looked him up online and watched a few videos of him playing back home in Mexico, and he'd focused in on him when watching Richmond's games too. He’d been full of resentment and humiliation after Ted’s very public dressing-down, and Dani’s arrival had left him more confused than anything else. He’d meant it when he’d said chipper twats could never back it up on the pitch. He'd always thought that to be a truly great player, you had to be aggressive. And that wasn’t just his father’s bullshit. Look at Roy. But Dani didn’t fight with the opposition, or the ball. He danced with them. The indisputable proof that you could be a killer player without having a cut-throat attitude had been a surprising one, but it had stuck with him.
He’d given it a go, when he got back to Manchester. Well, he was never going to be sunshine personified. He’s not on Dani's level. But he’d been friendly, and he'd opened up more to the team off the pitch and had passed more on it. His dad had hated it, obviously, but the rest of the City boys had seemed to like him a bit more.
The doorbell goes just as he's drying off the last of the cutlery — something he'd learnt from his mum, she hates the watermarks you got from leaving them to air dry — and he opens the door to Dani's megawatt smile. "Jamie Tartt!" he cries, like he hadn't just finished speaking to Jamie on the phone less than an hour ago. "Thank you for inviting me over!"
"Yeah, yeah." Jamie accepts the hug with a long suffering sigh, but Dani's enthusiasm is contagious and he can't stop a smile from spreading across his own face. "Come on in. I've got this new decaf coffee I bought for when you were next around. It's cinnamon flavoured, tastes a bit like churros. You'll love it."
~
Richmond’s final fixture is still against City, but the stakes are much lower. For starters, they’re well clear of the relegation zone. City already have the title in the bag, but without Jamie on the pitch, Roy doesn’t make that miraculous tackle and ruin his knee, and City don’t score a second goal. Jamie’s watching from the owner’s box with Keeley, and when the whistle blows and the final score is 1-1, they leap up and hug each other before making their way down to the pitch.
Richmond have held the champs at a tie, and the point for the draw means that they’ve finished in the top half of the league. Roy gets another year of playing football, maybe, and Jamie? Well, Jamie doesn’t know what he’ll be doing next.
Pep had found him at Nelson Road before the match, sought him out, even, and congratulated Jamie on an excellent season and his achievement as Richmond’s top scorer. “This is what we wanted, Jamie,” he’d said. “Now you go on break, then we must talk about what next year will look like for you.”
Back to City. He can’t deny he’s excited by the prospect. It’s a nice feeling, his boyhood club, after having been so burnt out on them. He suddenly realises that he hasn’t seen his father all year. That he’s not worried about seeing him tonight. It’s as if he simply hasn’t existed.
He thinks he’s going to maybe talk to Pep — or more likely one of the assistant coaches — about James. When he does go back to Manchester, he’s got to see if the club can do anything to help in terms of keeping his dad out of Jamie’s ear and away from his game.
Only… He thinks he’s going to ask if the Richmond loan can be extended by another season. He doesn’t know if it’s possible, but he’s not ready to go home yet. There’s more he can do here.
First thing tomorrow, once he’s woken up and recovered from the hangover he knows he’s going to have after a mad night of celebrating — maybe the rest of the lads won’t see this season’s finish as a particularly big deal, but Jamie, who knows how much worse it could actually be, will be making sure it’s a night to remember for everyone — he’s got to set up a meeting with his agent, to weigh up his options.
That’s the plan anyway. But when he does wake up, it's to a pounding headache, a wobbly stomach and limbs that don’t quite want to work. And he’s not in his house. He’s back in that hotel room. Baz, Paul and Jeremy are passed out in a pile on the bed, and Jamie’s curled up on the sofa. Fuck. Shitting fucking fuck. He’s in the awful timeline again, the timeline where everyone fucking hates him, where he fucking hates himself.
He checks his phone and sure enough, it’s early afternoon on the 7th October, 2020. Fuck, he wants to cry, but he’s not going to do that in front of these three. He gets up and makes his way over to the bathroom, narrowly avoiding tripping over an empty bottle and crashing into the desk.
He stares blankly at his reflection in the mirror, then splashes water on his face in an attempt to make himself look and feel more human. He pisses, washes his hands, and brushes his teeth. He can’t be here when the three of them wake up, so he dresses and gathers his things into his small suitcase as quickly and quietly as he can and leaves the room, pulling the door closed behind him and turning the handle as carefully as possible so as not to disturb them.
He does stop off at reception on his way out to order a mountain of food to be sent up to the room in an hour's time. He thinks they’ll need it. Then he stops off at a Costa, sunglasses firmly on to protect his headache from the bright afternoon light, and makes his way to a nearby park where he can hopefully have a breakdown in peace.
Except the breakdown doesn’t come. Because as he sits down on a bench, his phone rings and it’s Ted’s name on the screen.
“Jamie,” Ted says as soon as Jamie answers. “Glad to catch you. Listen, I’ve given it some thought and you know what, maybe I was too hasty in my decision-making process last night. Like I said, you're a great player, and you deserve that second chance. It’s not going to be easy, mind you, folks here are not your biggest fans, but if you still want to come back, if you’re willing to put in the work to fix things, well then Richmond has a place for you.”
“Yes.” Jamie says immediately. “Yes, I want to come back. I’ll do the work, I’ll do anything.”
It’s going to be tough, he knows that, but he’s ready. He knows these people now, knows what he’ll do differently. He knows how to be their friend. Well, no, he doesn’t, he supposes. Not if it was all just a dream. But he knows how to want to be their friend. And sure, he’s starting on the back foot this time round, but he’s never been scared of a little hard work. He can do this. He has to.