"Morning Beard!" Bailey greeted the Assistant Coach when she and Ted met up with him at the bottom of their street for their morning walk to the Dog Track.

"Morning Bailey," Beard smiled back.

"Mornin' Coach." Ted chimed in. Beard ignored him. "I said…oh, we're still doin' this?"

"What's going on with you two?" Bailey asked. It wasn't like Beard to give Ted the cold shoulder. It wasn't like him to flat out ignore anyone.

"Coach is upset with me because he and Nate think we ought to bench Roy. I disagree." Ted explained. "So now he's giving us the cold shoulder."

"He's not giving us the cold shoulder. He's giving you the cold shoulder." She pointed out. "And I know that no one asked, but I agree with Beard and Nate. The team has younger and faster players. Do you really think Roy plays as well as Sam or Dani these days?"

"Well, that's not exactly the point…" Ted argued.

"Huh." Beard scoffed. Ted looked over at his friend who glared back. "I said what I said." Beard's eyes conveyed.

"Well… what does Roy think?" Bailey asked. "I mean he's been a footballer most of his life. He has to know the other guys outperform him."

"O' course he knows! But I still don't think it's right to force him into something he ain't ready to do." Ted huffed. "Taking Roy off the starting line up? That could be the end of his career. Of his livelihood."

"I understand that but Ted…" Bailey comprehended Ted's point about forcing Roy's hand, but he had to remember that he wasn't just the coach for one player. He had to decide what was right for the whole team.

"I'm done talkin' about it. I made up my mind and that's that!" Ted exclaimed. Bailey looked over at Beard, who simply shook his head. Clearly, he'd already exhausted his own energy trying to persuade Ted the day before.

When the three of them arrived at Nelson Road they went their separate ways. Ted climbed the stairs towards Rebecca's office while Beard went right into the locker room and presumably the manager's office. Bailey headed to Keeley's office and sat cross-legged in one of her cushy chairs.

"I talked to Rebecca this morning." Keeley announced as her friend let herself in. "She said Ted forgave her for everything and Higgins is coming back."

"I was there when she talked to Ted. Her apology seemed genuine. It was weird seeing her so vulnerable." Bailey told her.

"Right?!" Keeley gasped. "First time I saw her cry it was almost scarier than the first time I saw her make someone else cry." They both laughed, but then Keeley frowned. "I'm not sure how I can be friends with someone who did such horrible things. I mean she claimed she was my friend but…I mean the photo alone…"

"She wasn't really your friend when she did a lot of the sabotaging Kee. Especially the photo. She grew to love you and I think if she wasn't your friend, she wouldn't have been able to tell Ted the truth at all." Bailey guessed. "She was hurting, and she couldn't see past that pain. I don't think what she did was right, but I feel for her."

"I suppose you're right." Keeley huffed. "You know she told me that girl Bex, yeah? She's pregnant with Rupert's baby!"

"What?" Bailey leaned forward in her seat, scandalized. "Isn't he like sixty something?"

"Seventy!" Keeley clarified. "It's fucking mental! I can't even imagine! Well Rupert makes my skin crawl but…"

"Yeah, what is it about him?" Bailey agreed. "I just want to rage whenever I'm in the same room as him! It's a miracle no one tried to burn down the club before this! Wait, I hate to back track, but did you say Higgins is coming back too?"

"Yes. I guess he really did quit because he didn't want to be involved in the sabotage anymore." Keeley nodded. "So after Rebecca confessed to Ted she paid a visit to Higgins. She told him about coming clean and promised everything was on the up from here on out."

"That's good, I think Higgins is a good influence on her." Bailey smiled. "Uh, listen Kee, there's one other thing I wanted to talk to you about. Did you and Roy talk last night after the game?"

"You mean about him playing like shit?" She asked. "He didn't so much talk as grunt and mumble about it." She laughed. "Why do you ask? Shit Ted's not thinking about benching him, is he?"

"No. He's adamant that he's not going to, but Beard and Nate think he should." Her friend explained.

"And what do you think?" Keeley questioned cautiously.

"I think no one is going to make that decision for Roy. I want to talk to him, but I was hoping the two of you may have already had a conversation I could piggyback off of." Bailey crossed her fingers on both of her hands and showed them to Keeley.

"Aww sorry, Babes. I wish I could be more help." She pouted with sympathy. "But if you can get him to talk to you, yeah? Let me know. I'd love to…how did you just say it? Piggyback off that conversation."

"I'd better get going." Bailey decided, getting to her feet. "Beard and Nate aren't talking to Ted apparently so someone's going to have to make sure training actually happens today. I'll catch you later."

Out on the pitch, Ted was standing about a yard away from Beard and Nate. Bailey strode up and stood between them. She wasn't sure who'd been trying to prove their point Ted or Beard, but most of the drills seemed to be focused on speed. Someone was trying to prove that Roy could or couldn't keep up with everyone else. Despite the other guys on the team trying to push their Captain with words of encouragement he just couldn't keep up.

"FUCK!" The entire field could hear him swear every time he fell further behind.

The team broke for lunch. While most of the exhausted players lumbered into the locker room, Roy took to the stands. He jogged up and up before collapsing into a seat in the middle section. Even from where Bailey stood on the grass she could tell he was glaring out into the middle distance.

"I'm starting to think y'all might have a point." Ted sighed. "I'm gonna try and talk to 'im."

"I'll go with you." She offered. "He likes me better."

"No arguments there, Darlin." Bailey and Ted walked up the stands and sat on opposite sides of Roy.

"All these seats, you two have to sit here?" Roy asked raising his eyebrows.

"You know, during breakfast Bailey showed me a video from Tik Tac…wait those are mints. It was the other one with the short videos. Ya know?" Ted began.

"You two Muppets followed me up here to show me a TikTok?" Roy asked in disbelief.

"We'll, not exactly…" Ted leaned back in his seat and looked down at the pitch. "I was just trying something I learned from my mom. See whenever she has something tough to talk about with me she'll start off talking about, I don't know, something weird. Something overtly nice. And I just thought you might like to see this TikTok we was watching of a cow and a lil goat becoming friends."

Roy looked to Bailey, as he always did, to translate Ted's ramblings into something resembling the Queen's English. She heaved a quiet sigh.

"The coaches have been talking about the Man City game." She decided it was best not to beat around the bush. Roy liked handling matters directly so she was going to. "Most of the discussion has been centered around the starting line up…"

"No! Don't you dare!" Roy looked away from Bailey to snarl at Ted. "You're not fucking benching me!" Ted had been expecting this reaction of course. He didn't think Roy Kent would go quietly to the second string.

"Now hang on, we're just talking…" Ted tried to pacify him. All this did was fire Roy up more.

"Yeah, talking. That's all you do is talk." Roy shot to his feet. "Talking all that bullshit about how you've got my back."

"Hey, I do have you're back." Ted also rose to his feet, but his tone was calm.

"Bullshit!" Roy snapped. "You pretended to be a man of your word. You're fucking full of shit. You can go fuck yourself. Fuck you!" Roy turned to march away, seemingly forgetting that Bailey was still seated behind him. He glared down, a "fuck you" for her burning in his eyes. He looked back at Ted over his shoulder before finally stalking off.

"Roy!" She called after him. He ignored her. Bailey got up from her seat.

"I'm not too sure…" Ted tried to stop her but she followed after the Captain.

"Roy! Roy! KENT!" She shouted at him. Roy stopped walking. He looked at her with an animalistic expression. He was hungry for a fight.

"Not now!" He snapped.

"Yes now." She disagreed, marching over to him. "He didn't deserve that back there."

"Yeah, he did. I don't deserve getting shoved to the side by some Yankee twat who wouldn't know a good player if they caved in his skull with a header!" Roy snarled.

"You want to keep shouting and having a meltdown like a toddler or do you want to hear what I have to say?" Bailey asked. There was no bite in her voice, she was attempting to sooth him. Play the peacekeeper.

"Kinda want to keep shoutin', yeah." He answered honestly but his tone matched hers. He'd stopped yelling.

"He was telling the truth. He doesn't want to bench you. Least of all not without your consent. He cares about you Roy. He cares about you as a player on this team and as a person." Bailey insisted. "I know you're gonna say I don't know anything about football, but think about it, what's better for your career; starting the last game of the season on the bench or playing too slow in front of a live televised audience?"

"It's not right." Roy shook his head. "And I'm not doing it."

"If you won't listen to me and you won't talk to Ted, promising me you'll at least talk to Keeley? Get an opinion from someone who's in your corner. And for the record, Ted and I are both still very much in your corner." She promised.

"Maybe I will." He mumbled so quietly she barely heard him. "I'm taking the rest of the day to clear my fucking head. Will you tell 'im?"

"Yeah, sure." She agreed. He simply nodded. Roy didn't even bother changing out of his uniform. He strode right out of the club house, got in his car, and drove off.

"You okay?" Ted questioned, approaching her from behind.

"Me? He was practically civil with me. Are you okay?" Bailey leaned against Ted, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Oh yeah, I was expectin' he'd rip one of them chairs up out of the concrete or turn green like Incredible Hulk. Ya know 'Roy Smash'! That sort of thing." Ted sighed. "I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this. Let's get some lunch before this whole thing goes sideways again."


A/N: Not a massive post dump like y'all are used to, but tonight will be a double feature, Chapter 47 & 48 will be up!

Thank you to Bufferflydance21 & Clementine Buttersnaps for their reviews of previous chapters. Thank you to everyone for reading, favoriting, following and enjoyign the story so far!