A/N: It's halftime and Jason has a big decision to make, will he play, can he even continue playing if he wanted to or will take a seat. Once again I want to give thanks to DaveThewithWordsmith for reviewing and giving great feedback, everyone else please review so I can get your feedback as well. The more reviews I get, the more motivated I am to keep writing and the faster chapters will come out.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Boondocks, Aaron McGruder and Sony Pictures does.

Chapter 9 – Can He Play?

"Get this off," Rummy ordered as Hiro and Caesar gingerly lowered Jason into his booth. The two boys complied and once again helped Jason remove his shoulder pads. "It's too bad we did not have an x-ray machine in the building. This could be much worse than a simple bruise. If it's broken letting you go out there again is too much of a risk."

"Well, well, well how is my little team doing," Ed Wuncler said opening the locker room door without even knocking.

Behind him Ed sauntered in and went to stand behind Rummy. "He doin' aight?"

"I'm not sure. It could be broken, but we have no way of finding out without going to the hospital and then he would have to be removed from the game," Rummy said felling Jason's ribs again.

"We have an X-ray machine here," Wuncler sr. said. "This is a state of the art facility I built to try and get an NFL team; it has everything a real professional team would need."

"We have an X-ray machine, where?"

"Down the hall," Wuncler said waving his bloated hand in the direction of their medical bay.

"Then I need to get him down there now," Rummy said motioning for Ed who was closest to come help him.

"Not so fast. I want to have a few words with our star here," Wuncler stopped them looking at Jason.

Rummy was about to argue that they did not have enough time, but Jason waved his late brother's friend down and turned his attention to Wuncler Sr. "What's up boss?"

"You've done a tremendous job so far," Wuncler started with a cheery smile but then it turned dark. "But I paid you for the full tournament so you better get out there and produce or I'm shipping you back to Canada."

"No worries Mr. Wuncler I intend to keep playing. This is nothing for the Great One" Jason assured him with is cocky smirk as Ed and Rummy helped him to his feet. "I still have to pay that hippo back anyway so I'm not going anywhere."

Wuncler's cheery smile returned again. "Then go get checked out and make sure you are back for the second half."

"Let's go, Rummy, Ed," Jason said using Ed as a support so they could walk faster. Now that the adrenaline began to slow the pain was getting worse.

With the trio gone Wuncler turned to Huey who was standing in the middle of the locker room before a whiteboard waiting to give his halftime speech. Everyone stood looking at Wuncler waiting for him to talk. Huey scowled at him, his feelings for Wuncler growing even worse after that display. No respectable man black or white would threaten a clearly injured player into continuing to play, but then again Wuncler was nowhere near respectable in Huey's book.

"You guys have done a great job so far, but don't screw up you need to win this game," Wuncler said with his fake smile.

"We aren't going to lose," Huey replied rather harshly.

"You better not," Wuncler said equally as harsh, there was no love lost between the old billionaire and the young revolutionary. "I see you got the new equipment."

"It's slammin' B," Cindy exclaimed giving her hand a flick.

"I'll take that as a good thing. If you win today more good things are sure to come. With every win there will be bonuses, with every lose consequences, so for your sakes make sure you win," Wuncler said before leaving the room with his words hanging over the team.

"Ya think he'll get us some nice rims maybe some twenty fours or somethin'" Riley said his eyes lighting up.

"He's not Santa Riley," Huey sighed remembering all the years when they were little that Riley would terrorize the mall Santa for not bringing him rims or all the other nonsensical things he asked for.

"He's fat, white, and old nothin' closer to Santa dan dat," Riley replied.

"Ignoring the moron in the corner," Huey continued, drawing everyone's attention to the whiteboard. "So far we've been lucky. We've managed to get a couple of touchdowns thanks to the skill of our offensive trio, but we should also have a much large lead coming to this point. Our defence has been lacking and we've been letting them get easy yards."

"Their receivers are just too good," Cindy complained.

"I'll admit that Johnny is a damn good receiver and Mina is a little above average, but that is all they got. They may have been a really good team the last two years but their talent has dipped significantly this year and with their quarterback questionable for the next half their offense is going to stall. That being said it is their defence that could end up crushing us. With the behemoth Rex leading them, we could end up with more than just one bruised and battered player. We need to tighten up our defence, make sure we have two guys handling Rex at all times and make sure we throw good blocks for our ball carriers."

"Right," Everyone said before Huey continued.

"If we can seal Rex and Johnny then we'll be able to hold on for the win. Cindy, Riley, and Hiro I'm going to need you three to step up to cover for Jason because I don't think he will be able to do much in the next half."

"What about me?" Jazmine asked her eyes still red and puffy. "I can catch the ball too and if Jay can't do it then I will."

"No," Huey said definitively.

"Why not I'm not useless," Jazmine said her voice beginning to rise.

"I know you're not, but you are the kicker and I can't have you getting hurt for no reason," Huey partially lied. He did not think her useless but he could not tell her straight that he was not deliberately passing to her because he was afraid she was get hurt like Jason. Jason had proven to be a resilient player and his incident with Rex would have been much, much worse if it had been Jazmine in his position.

"He's right Jaz. None of us have any practice kicking, only you do," Caesar backed up his best friend aware of what Huey was trying to do. "If you hurt your leg or back trying to catch a ball what are we going to do when we have to kick the ball?"

"I guess you're right," Jazmine said looking down at the floor.

"Don't worry gurl, you'll get ya chance to shine," Cindy comforted her best friend, hugging her best friend to comfort her; even she knew what Huey was trying to do. "Just hang in there."

Huey checked the clock above the door that rather than showing the time showed the time remaining before the next half. "Riley go check on Jason and see if he is coming back."

"Aight, but not cuz ya told me too. I just don't wanna win dis way nigga," Riley said grabbing his shoulder pads and helmet in case he did not come back in time and headed out the door.

No longer needing Ed's support, Jason walked between the two ex-marines holding his side as they came to the door leading into the medical area. Inside there was only one large medical room as that portion of the new stadium had not been completely finished, as such both teams needed to share the only finished medical facility. When the stadium was completely finished both teams would have their own medical facilities among other things.

Entering the medical room they found the last three people they wanted to find in the room. Sitting on one of the two beds in the room without his upper equipment on was Kyle. Sitting in the corner similarly without their upper equipment and in their blue and gold under armour were Rex and Johnny while their trainer was looking over the quarterback.

Hobbling over to the other bed Jason could not help but smirk, Riley would be happy to know they had done more damage than simply knocking the wind out of the cocky quarterback.

"I'm gonna go prep the X-ray machine, Ed you watch over JJ," Rummy said before disappearing through a second door to where the X-ray machine was located.

"Looks like I did a number on you," Rex sneered, getting up from his seat to stand next to Kyle. Almost reluctantly Johnny followed. Jason could tell the receiver did not share his teammates' feelings toward his injury. "But don't worry rat I'll finish the job next time."

"Keep dreaming," Jason coughed a wince at the pain breaking his cocky smile. "Even with this injury I'm still too fast for your slow ass."

"Well you aren't going anywhere right now," Kyle threatened. "If you can't leave this room, then your team loses by forfeit. Rex." The giant defender stepped forward cracking his knuckles. "I don't care how we win as long as we win."

"Brah this ain't cool," Johnny protested blowing strands of his dirty blonde hair out of his face. "I don't want to win this way."

"Quiet Johnny," Kyle hushed his receiver who had shame written all over his face. It was obvious to Jason that he did not want to win this way.

"Where ya goin'?" Ed asked stepping in front of the giant teen that stood nearly a head taller than Ed who was by no means short himself.

"This does not concern you," Rex tried to threaten the shorter psychopath, but Ed was not having any of it.

He pulled out the Colt 1191 he had hidden behind his trench coat and pointed it up at Rex's forehead. "You'd better back the fuck up. I have no fucking problems blasting ya ass around dis room."

"You wouldn't," Rex stammered, his eyes crossed to look at the chrome gun that was nearly touching his forehead.

The medical door opened just then with Rex leaning back from the psychopath Ed who though smaller looked like the bigger man. "Yo shit, dat nigga gonna get wasted," Riley said coming into the room. "Put a cap in his head Ed."

"Hey, hey, hey there is no need for this brah, it's just a game," Johnny tried to reason with the two sides.

"I told you to shut up Johnny. You may be a good receiver, but I have no problem disposing of you," Kyle snapped at his receiver, sliding off his bed to advance on Ed.

With everything going on no one noticed the other door open. "Step back motherfucker," Rummy said pulling out his own Desert Eagle from inside his jacket and firing a round at Kyle's fight causing the quarterback to jump back up onto his bed. Jason and Riley looked at the other psychopath, not surprised he had the Desert Eagle on him, but that he had been able to hide it until then. Without his trench coat he did not have many placed to hide something as big as a Desert Eagle.

"I think it's time we left," Kyle's trainer said, his eyes shifting quickly between Ed and Rummy. "You should be fine for the third quarter. We have no reason to stay here.

"I agree," Kyle said, hesitantly stepping down from his bed his eyes glued to Rummy's gun.

"Get steppin'" Ed laughed shaking his gun to the door.

Rex, Kyle, and his trainer quickly left the room walking backward too afraid to show the two ex-marines their backs, only Johnny remained still in the room.

"I'm sorry about that brah," Johnny apologised as he got up. "I just wanna play football."

"That's what we're all here for," Jason agreed. "We'll see you on the field, I hope you don't hold anything back just because of this." Jason pointed his bandages.

"I don't plan to, brah," Johnny smiled and left the room normally.

"The machine is ready," Rummy said putting his Desert Eagle away under his suit jacket where he had shoulder holster for the large pistol.

"Good let's get this over with before we run out of time," Jason said, sliding off the bed and following Rummy into the next room.

"Ya should have capped dat niggga," Riley said once they were gone. "I would have been like pleckow, pleckow and the nigga would have dropped like a rock."

"Next time," Ed promised putting away his gun in his belt behind his back.

Back in the locker room, everyone sat silently watching the clock count down the last five minutes. Everyone was in their own world; no one dared talk, each hoping that good news would come for the medical room. They had come too far to go out like that.

"We're done," Rummy said coming out with the x-ray. He put it on the x-ray viewer and stood back to analyze it, but it was just a blur of white and black.

"Well what's up?" Jason asked, unable to get back on the bed, he leaned against it instead.

"Hell if I know. I ain't no doctor," Rummy said, ripping the x-ray away.

"You said you knew this stuff," Jason wanted to shout but it hurt too much.

"I know the fundamentals to diagnose something as simple as bruised ribs," Rummy explained. "It was an unknown unknown that I would have to use that machine. I'm surprised I even got it turned on and something came out."

"So that means we're back ta where we wuz at da beginning of halftime," Riley groaned. "That's uncool Rummy, very uncool."

"I guess it's come to this," Jason said dejected.

"Come ta what?" Riley asked looking at his rival.

Jason pushed off the bed and went over to the counter on the far side of the room where the medical supplies were held. He put his hands down the table and hung his head. "I've decided."

Will Jason risk his very life to keep playing or will he accept his injury and take a seat? And if he does quit what is going to happen to the team?