The first novel Jamie wrote was when he was sixteen – he was emotionally exhausted from his father coming back into his life, from the work he did at the Man City Academy and angry that he couldn't tell anyone but his Mum he was bisexual.

When Roy Kent met Jamie Tartt, he thought…fuck this, not again, and walked out of the room.

Following the events of the show, where Jamie is secretly and best-selling and critically-acclaimed author he and Roy find their way to each other finally.

Author's Note: This story assumes that a range of fictional characters are real within the world of Ted Lasso.

Timeless

by luvsbitca

Jamie

The first novel Jamie wrote was when he was sixteen – he was emotionally exhausted from his father coming back into his life, from the work he did at the Man City Academy and angry that he couldn't tell anyone but his Mum he was bisexual. He had always had very vivid dreams and one day he was especially pissed off; his father had given him a fucking black eye, he hadn't played well that day, and he couldn't stop thinking about Roy Kent absolutely railing him so he pulled out the crappy laptop he'd bought second hand and started writing about a Pict warrior, famed in his lands for uniting the tribes around him against Angles of Bernica. If the warrior resembled himself, and the Druid mentor that shared the story, and the warrior's bed, was modelled on Roy no one but Jamie needed to know.

When the book was published…which was a fucking miracle, history scholars praised the depiction of the time period and the people but questioned the editing of the Pictish included as being based on current English phonetics instead of the Celtic phonemes that would have been more accurate. They updated the spelling of those words with the second edition. The book had been published by a niche publisher but it exploded…and was hated by bigots, for the deep and meaningful love between the druid and warrior. It had done so well that Jamie had been able to pay for his mum's car to be fixed and for them to take a trip to Amsterdam.

Roy

When Roy Kent met Jamie Tartt, he thought…fuck this, not again, and walked out of the room.

Jamie

Jamie's second novel was set in 1944, it started in a crowded street when a fly boy, Jonathon, met a man named Douglas who had been wounded during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Douglas was shipping out the next day to return to the fight. They met at a small restaurant over breakfast and spent the day together before Jonathon had to go back to his work dropping bombs on people he didn't know. The book was full of longing and need and hiding their love from everyone else and even one another as they wrote letters back and forth. Jamie had a crush on this boy at his school and he couldn't do a fucking thing about it but Douglas was still based on Roy fucking Kent even though it was filled with all of the longing of his dreams and desires to just not love football as much so his dad would leave him the fuck alone and he could just be a little bisexual prick in Manchester.

The book included scenes of Jonathon dropping bombs, and almost dying over France. But it peaked in a scene where Douglas was at the Battle of the Bulge, his name included on a list of dead soldiers. Jonathon mourning his death before Douglas came home, missing a leg, unable to sleep through the night, but home in England and he sent one last letter to Jonathon, telling him that readding those letters had been what got him through months in hospital, the pain, and the desire to just die already. The book ended after their reunion with the two of them living on a farm in Yorkshire – two ex-soldiers recovering from the war together and breeding sheep.

The book was lauded for the honest description of the war and the homophobia at the time as well as being described by one critic as "Much like Jane Austen is wrongly assumed to be just a romance author J. George is definitely more than just the author of wonderful homosexual romance novels they are meticulously researched and written socio-historical novels of life for the missing voices of the queer community."

Jamie had just finished high school; he was full-time at one of the lower feeder teams for Man City and his father was fucking living with him. He felt like he'd betrayed his mother by allowing it to happen but what else could he do; it was his dad. He knew his dad would fucking lose it over the writing…already something that would make James Tartt think his son was 'artistic' and Jamie had heard enough about his fucking mum making him a fucking soft little bitch, if he knew Jamie wrote queer novels who knew what the man would do.

Roy

When Jamie Tartt toasted to Roy Kent's death at the Charity Gala, Roy wanted to scoff…if fucking only.

Jamie

The third novel Jamie wrote was a retelling of the King Arthur myth, but this time Arthur was the one torn – torn between Merlin and Guinevere. Arthur had his knights, men and women who stood with him against all those who wanted to stop Arthur from bringing Albion together. The book was set even earlier than the Pict one, set in a fictitious England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales from long before even the minimal recorded history of the Britons. Instead of a castle, their grand home was a slightly larger tent. It broke Jamie's heart to write but in the end Arthur chose Guinevere – carrying on his line and ensuring the future of his people until they were wiped out.

This novel was reviewed as a new classic of the Kind Arthur oeuvre and as an interesting meditation of the choices that had to be made by people throughout history.

Just after the book came out, Jamie found out about tumblr and found a safe way to interact with his fans. He discovered shipping and learned just how violently the supporters of Arthur and Guinevere and Arthur and Merlin felt about the ending of the book.

He had long ago made the realisation that he could never be both Jamie Tartt, the best fucking ascendancy man in football, and J. George. There was a fair amount of speculation online that the J stood in for a female writer which would have made Jamie chuckle once, would have amused him that his writing was good enough to be speculated about, now though he just thought of it as one more reason that he father would have of suspecting the truth about the man who he had spent the last few years turning into a man just like James Tartt but without the drinking problem because Jamie couldn't afford to lose the only thing that made him worthwhile to anyone but his mum.

Jamie used the money from selling the rights to his second novel for a movie, to buy his mum's little council house – it was in her name, James Tartt would never be able to fuck with his mum about losing her house again. Georgie, his literary namesake…not for George Eliot, had met Simon and he seemed like a good guy but they all had at the start. Simon might actually be one, it'd been two years and he hadn't done any of the shit James Tartt did. Jamie still didn't want her dependent on a man, even one who seemed like a good guy.

Roy

When Keeley started flirting with Roy, he thought…fuck it, this time he was going to get the fucking girl.

Jamie

Jamie's fourth novel was written in the months he first started playing at Man City; he wasn't getting any playing time yet, so he had plenty of time to plot out his writing. His father had fucked off with some woman who didn't seem to mind him being a drunk bastard. Jamie knew it was shitty of him, but he was just glad for a while it was someone else's issue so long as he got James tickets to every game.

It was the tale of a Duke in the 1500s, he must have remembered the man's name from history books or movies so he changed it, not wanting to deal with any descendant having an issue with Jamie writing about their ancestor's sex life. He'd made the decision to write something similar to his last novel – again the character standing in for Jamie was a Duke, one of Queen Elizabeth I's men, one of the ones who supported her in keeping England free from the French. Jamie had given up pretending he wasn't using each character to write about Roy Kent after the first book – this time Roy's character was a spy, working for the Queen through the Duke and Jamie was torn between his love for this man and his wife, who he cared for but didn't love as so many marriages of the time had been. In the end, the Duke admitted all to his wife, who already had a lover but used another man to make a spectacle of the Duke and allowed him to instil her in another house, close to her real lover, while he and his spy lived their lives.

He had to laugh when he read the review asking just who in his pseudonym's life was a little prick that needed to be reminded that he wasn't the best thing in the world…they would never know that he was the person who knew he was the best fucking thing in the world and he knew that Roy fucking Kent was better than he was.

Roy

When Jamie came back to Richmond, Roy was damn certain he was never going to fucking go back there and coach or anything else.

Jamie

Jamie's fifth novel was about a knight, chivalrous and true, sent to ensure that the prince betrothed to his Queen's daughter arrived alive and well to seal a treaty of peace. In the journey of long months between one city and their destination the knight and the prince fell in love. Just before the crossing of what was now the English Channel but then as La Maunche, the Prince asked the Knight to run away with him. They did, allowing their ship to sink in the cold waters as they rowed away heading for the coast and the North where no one would ever recognise them. Soon after, the Princess married the Prince's younger brother and their love and reign was celebrated down through history.

The book was well received by the audience who appreciated the twist in the characterisations of his main couple as well as the interesting take on the true story of a prince dying just before he could make it to his wedding and the happy outcome of the successful marriage that followed.

Roy

He hated himself but he fucking knew he was going to have to fucking well go back to fucking Richmond and he hated the entire fucking universe for making it happen. It didn't fucking mean he had to fucking coach Jamie Tartt.

Jamie

His sixth and seventh novels were written in pain-filled bursts when he was having his identity subsumed by Man City and he felt the sting of rejection. He wrote about the dreams that broke his heart – the ones where he never gave Roy's character a chance and he ended up dying before he could even know what if felt like to kiss the love of his life.

The books were critically acclaimed, he'd won fucking awards for them – he'd paid actors to go and accept the awards, different ones so they understood it wasn't him, and they spawned the type of response on tumblr that made him wonder if football wasn't his future but writing could be. Then his fucking dad had shown up again because he was back at Man City finally and Jamie didn't want to play this fucking game anymore.

His eighth book was started the night he ended Roy fucking Tartt's football career and he realised that he didn't like the person he was. He went home to his mum's house and hid out for a week. In this book he was a spy, cocky and sure of himself but perfect for the job of being the man that was caught, the one that was seen, the one who's name people knew while Roy's character worked in the background and was the faceless, nameless ghost who actually acted like a spy instead of his character who was always introducing himself and blowing things up. He didn't want to think too deeply on why he chose this story to tell but he did like the idea of having a cat like Roy's character did but who liked Jamie's character more in the books.

Roy

When Zava came he knew that he had no choice anymore, he couldn't run from it, so he agreed to train Jamie fucking Tartt. He hated himself.

Jamie

His ninth book was written in three parts…on the way to an island where he was going to fuck strangers, after becoming the fucking loser, and then in the time where he didn't know what to fucking do with his life. It was about a teenager – who knew he was different, knew something wasn't 'right' about but it wasn't until he saw the new boy in school – and he fell in love, and he knew that he was what his book-father whispered about, he was that thing that it was better to be dead than to be. It was a book about friendship and how the love that could have become something else turned into the type of friendship where you followed them off to war, praying they survived and lost them on a battlefield. It was the only book he'd written where it was from Roy's character's perspective. He suspected he should stop thinking of the main characters in his books as stand-ins for he and Roy…it was strange and stranger still now that he fucking knew Roy Kent hated him and would never look at him like the characters in his books looked at one another. Jamie's character died on the battlefield but he never felt that pain of missed love because he had loved and been loved in return but it was simply platonic. Roy's character went on…a decorated soldier and good man who found romantic love and had a family – he made that bit up, in his dreams it all stopped when Jamie's character died; it always did.

Jamie knew why he wrote, each time he got the story down on paper the dreams stopped. New ones came, there were always new ones and honestly Jamie wouldn't know how others slept and didn't remember their dreams.

According to his Booker Award, 'J. George, with this book, went from the niche author who wrote queer historical fiction of his early books, through the social and sexual commentary of his middle books, the studies on grief, choices, and the human need for love in his other critical successes, to a book where he is showing the skill, deftness of prose, dedication to his time period and character to become the greatest social commentary writer of inclusive stories in the United Kingdom, without basing any of his novels in the current climate of bigotry and prejudice.' Jamie didn't want it to go to his head but Roy Kent was coaching him, he was allowed to be a prick sometimes, Keeley was his friend again, and he was a fucking Booker prize winner.

Roy

Fucking Amster-fucking-dam.

Jamie

Jamie's tenth book was the hardest to write but mostly because he didn't feel right, like he had something wrong in his soul. Until he went and saw his mummy. Until Ted told him something he'd never thought of before, until Roy pulled him aside after his goal and whispered in his ear.

You are fucking Jamie fucking Tartt!

That night, after Keeley and Roy left him alone, he sat down with his laptop – a very nice one these days with good security and started writing. Being out with an injury gave him time to catch up. His literary agent was wondering why his turnaround was slower than normal and when the newest book would be with the editor.

This book was set in the mid-1850s about a man who assisted Joseph Bell, and the army man who came back from the war changed and in need of a friend. This book felt too big for a single tome but Jamie decided to ignore a lot of the romance this time to focus on the work his character did against someone who deeply reminded Jamie of the woman who'd been leading the Angles of Bernica in his first book, though this time it was a man…a mathematic professor of all things. The book ended with Jamie's character's death and the heartbreak that Roy's character felt having to go on.

Roy

Roy would never have even known who J. George was if his sister hadn't left the book behind when she moved back out of his place following the combustion of her marriage. It was just sitting there on her bedside table when he'd gone in to strip the bed and turn the room back into his spare room. He'd decided to leave Phoebe's room as a place for her to hang out when she came over since he'd offered to help Ruth out with Phoebe's school pick-ups and taking her to the therapy that Ruth thought was important now that Ruth had finally left that piece of shit she'd married. Roy had shook his head at the cover of the book – two men wearing clothes from…Elizabethan times, looking at one another longingly.

He hadn't planned to read the book but there was something about it that kept pulling at him. He was miserable at having just left Chelsea for Richmond who were playing so poorly his failing skills were still seen as impressive, and he thought he might as well wallow in his pain a bit more by reading whatever trash his sister had thought would make her feel better as she mourned her marriage.

Then he started reading the book and he realised what it was…he devoured the book, travelling to three different bookstores until he had all of the author's previous works.

Jamie

Jamie came back from Brazil depressed, not like he'd been before the Man City match, but restless and unhappy. He missed Roy. He missed 4am training, he missed convincing Roy to come inside afterwards for a drink. He missed seeing him at the club, he missed the swearing, he missed looking at the other man. Roy had become the fucking centre of Jamie's life since Zava had shown up…his real-life, actual, in person life and now Jamie hadn't seen him since that stupid fight when Roy told him that he wanted Keeley not Jamie. Jamie hadn't even wanted to get back together with Keeley, he loved her but not like that, not anymore.

He started a new novel while he was trying to work out what to do about Roy.

His eleventh novel was set in the late 1880s, Jamie's character was the son of a well off businessman with an opium addiction and a mean streak that he liked to inflict on his children; the oldest of which was Jamie's character. Jamie's character, Edmund, was a man of twenty – studying medicine at Cambridge in Pembroke College. He had a livelong friendship with a man, Lucas, who was the son of Edmund's father's business partner. Lucas was working with his father, the bright hope of both Edmund's and his own father. Edmund was in love with Lucas and one day, under a willow tree he kissed the other man…

Jamie left the book there, before his character realised that his father was a vicious killer who had to be stopped and who he ended up poisoning after he couldn't get anyone to pay attention.

He left the laptop open, his book open and lighting up his house as he grabbed his keys and headed out of the house. He drove to Roy's formulating a plan. He parked his car, badly, and rushed over to knock on Roy's door – his knuckles rough against the wood until the door was yanked open.

"What the fuck?" Roy asked.

"Please don't hit me," Jamie said, fisting his hand in Roy's top and yanking the other man forward. He paused, just before their lips met to breath for a second and let Roy yank away but he didn't so Jamie closed the distance between them and sealed his lips over Roy's.

Jamie's head exploded in a twirling mass of knowledge, pain, and realisation just before he fainted in Roy's arms.

Now

Roy caught Jamie, pulling the other man into his arms and over the threshold.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, he couldn't lift Jamie with his knee like it was, so he had to wrestle the other man into the lounge room and rest him on the couch.

Roy sat on the coffee table and stared down at Jamie. He dropped his head down into his hands knowing what was coming.

"Roy?"

Roy looked up. "Jamie."

"I know you."

Roy's smile was sad and beautiful, wistful and resigned.

"It's a good thing."

Roy slammed his hands down on the table he was sitting on and then stood up. He started pacing and swearing. "It's not a fucking good thing, you don't have any fucking idea. You remember some of it, you don't remember the pain of outliving you, constantly fucking outliving you and having to spend the rest of my life, every life, mourning you. You think it gets easier? You think it doesn't kill me in every lifetime to watch you die. That fucking book you wrote where I went on after you died to have a wife and kids – absolute fucking bullshit, I drank myself into an early grave. When you fucking well chose Guinevere over me and I had to fucking stand by your side it killed me. You might be the fucking star of your story but I'm sick of loving you and watching you die. I'm fucking sick of it," Roy said, tears streaming down his face.

Jamie stepped into Roy's space with no fear, wrapping his arms around the dark-haired man and holding him close. Roy's head hit his shoulder and Jamie felt the sobs wracking his body.

"Roy."

"You're a little fucking twat."

"I am a little fucking twat."

Roy growled and yanked himself away from Jamie's embrace.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I came to kiss ya, innit, I as writing about the time we was…holy shit, me dad was fucking Jack the Ripper."

"Until you poisoned the fucking bastard."

Jamie sat down, but there was nothing but air beneath him, so he ended up on the floor. "Holy fuckin' shit."

"Jamie?"

"All me fuckin' books is real, they all fuckin' happened, it weren't just in me brain that it was you and fuckin' me."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Roy said. "How the fuck do you write so well?"

"It's like another fuckin' persona, innit?"

"How'd you know?" Roy asked. "Normally you don't remember until you kiss me…sometimes you never know because you never want me like that."

"What fucking bullshit," Jamie said. "Every fucking life…you are the best fucking thing in my life."

"You keep picking her."

Jamie waved a hand. "It's possible to love two fucking people, you morose twat, and I can fucking love you to the ends of the fucking earth and love her as a fucking beacon of light and chose to fucking chose her just because I have to for fucking male primogeniture or…it's only happened like a dozen times and it doesn't change me fucking loving you."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck you right back, you think it's harder for you just because you remember?"

"Yes."

"You're right, it fucking must be but that doesn't stop that I've been fantasising about you since I first saw you and every fucking book I've written was written about you and in every life I've ever lived you've been the single most important person to me whether I was in your bed or not."

"I'm fucking tired, Jamie. Every time I wake up in a new life, I know I'm going to meet this fucking man who is going to be the fucking love of my life and every fucking time I know I'll probably lose him to some woman, or I'll lose him to an early death. Do you know what none of your fucking novels included? That every fucking life I get to watch you die, every fucking time, I then live on. In the late forties you died. I live on for ten fucking years afterwards. In 600 you died at twenty-nine and I lived to the fucking unheard of age of sixty-three. I don't want to do it anymore, I don't care if Albion needs you, I don't care that each time I know I'm at least going to have time with you because every fucking time I end up alone and heartbroken. That's nothing on the times when you fucking choose Guinevere."

"Guinevere?" Then Jamie remembered and realised. "Keeley?"

Roy nodded.

Then Jamie realised that Uther had looked so much like Rupert, that the team were his Knights of the Round Table – Lancelot reincarnated as Sam, Gwaine as Dani, Percival as Isaac, Owain as Colin, and on and on… "Fuuuuck."

"Yeah, fuck!"

"Do you want me to leave?" Jamie asked, looking up at Roy.

"Fuck no!"

"You…"

"I wouldn't fucking exchange having you for not having you."

"But…all that…you been complainin' this whole fuckin' time."

"Because it's a fucking shit situation but fate called on you to save fucking Albion and for me to be at your fucking side each fucking time…honestly it's better than if Albion didn't fucking need you all the fucking time and then I might fucking just be wandering the world alone and fucking old like some of the Merlin stories waiting for you to fucking come back for me."

"Instead each life we find one another."

"Without fail."

Jamie reached up to take Roy's hand. "Come down 'ere and kiss me you grumpy fucker."

"I can't because of my fucking knee."

"You need to do something about that, you grumpy old fucker," Jamie said, standing up and reaching out for him. He yanked Roy over and kissed the grunted reply out of his mind.

He remembered a million kisses as their lips pressed together and yet this one was still their first proper on in this life, as Jamie and Roy. Each time it was different but it was always Jamie kissing Roy and remembering a thousand lifetimes…he pulled away.

"I'm a fucking footballer."

"You're really fucking smart."

Jamie pushed him and then yanked him back again. "I get it when I was King Arthur or Robin Hood, and I get it when I was the son of fucking Jack the Ripper, I get it during wars and saving you from having to marry a reincarnated Guinivere and shit but this time I'm just a footballer."

"One life we were servants in the Scottish Highlands."

"Oh yeah…you'd keep me feet warm in winter and our boss was in love with her housemaid."

"She was only the fucking housemaid when people came to visit."

Jamie shrugged.

"Every life you're a contrary little pain in my arse…but that life we helped save the man who would raise Lloyd George."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I don't always work it out straight away, a couple of times it was after another reincarnation but we're always important somehow and it's not just you being a fucking king and a fucking twat."

Jamie laughed and kissed Roy again. "I'm movin' in."

"What?"

"I'm calling some movers and bringing all my shit here."

"Fuck no."

"Okay, we can bring all your shit to my place."

"No," Roy rolled his eyes. "We need to decide what to bring, you can't just bring it all here."

"But I can move in 'ere?"

Roy grunted and bared his teeth before yanking Jamie into him. "Yes, but you still have to take me on a fucking date."

"So many fucking dates," Jamie said.

"I don't normally remember as soon as we kiss, do I?"

"No."

"Maybe things is changing."

Roy's eyes flicked over Jamie's shoulder.

"Apart from the time, this time we can have kids…oh man, we can have so many fucking kids."

Roy's eyes flicked up. "We're not the same people, we've had different influences and lives; just because we remember past lives doesn't mean that we don't still have to go through the normal stages of shit."

Jamie laughed. "Yeah, whatever, take me to bed, Roy Kent. Then Roy Kent can fuck Jamie Tartt in this life because we have never existed before and you can learn my body like the maps explorers of old used to rediscover lands that had been mapped by another's hands. We can go on to forge this life and if you want we can pretend we haven't lived in the ages past and we can build this life on virgin land instead of on the ruins of times past and civilisations that have fallen to the ages."

"Fuuuck," Roy said, low and breathless.

"I'm gonna love fuckin' railing you while talkin' to ya like that."

Roy's head thumped down and he groaned.

"Made ya cock jump, didn't I?"

"Fuck yes."

"Want to take me upstairs?"

"Fucking hell, if my knee weren't shit I'd fucking carry you u-fuck!"

Jamie had bent and scooped Roy up, starting for the stairs. "You're getting that fucking knee fixed but for now let me."

Roy made an indecent noise and wrapped his arms around Jamie.

James Crimm, Independent Contributor

Author of 'The Richmond Way' colloquially known as 'The Lasso Way' and the official biography of the Jamie Kent (nee Tartt) 'I Was a Sexy Little Baby'.

Sir Jamie Kent

20th October 1997 – 11th July 2096

A Life in Football and Service

Following the passing of Sir Jamie Kent, previous Prime Minister, at his home in the South Downs surrounded by his husband, children, grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, his husband Roy Kent announced that the celebrated statesman, footballer, and author had written one final book that would be published on the first anniversary of his death.

Sir Jamie Kent was ninety-eight at his last birthday and was known to still be writing until he finished his eighty-ninth book just seven months prior to his death.

Jamie Tartt, as he was known at the time, came out as bisexual following Richmond FC's Champions League winning game against Real Madrid in the 2022-23 season. The following year he married Roy Kent OBE and changed his name though he kept Tartt professionally until his final game.

Two years after his retirement he announced that he was also J George, named for himself – J and his mother – Georgie. His books have been long held to be at the forefront of the early 21st century's renaissance as a cultural superpower.

When, ten years later, Jamie won an election in his local constituency of Richmond Park following a well-publicised public argument between Kent and the standing member for the area on a range of issues. Jamie Kent's rise from there for PM was something he joked 'even I couldn't'a dreamed up for one of me books'. His election win came at a turbulent time for the UK and following his retirement from politics, a day that was marked not by the celebration of an election win for his opposition but rather celebrated as a mature and timely decision by one of England's greatest statemen. He was quickly enshrined with the likes of Winston Churchill and Lloyd George. He chose to step away from politics at a time when the country was finally recovering from a decade of repeated trouble and need for his firm hand on the country and their future. Once called a 'pretty-boy footballer who wouldn't know how to pay a bill let alone pass one' he proved to be a popular leader and while he was known to call situations in parliament he didn't approve of 'poopy', he proved himself to be a strong leader in times of trouble. His husband, the former coach of England who helped lead them to the first World Cup victory for the country since 1966 with his husband as top goal scorer in his final game at a national level, was known to swear at foreign statesmen when they were rude about his husband or when he was in a good mood as well as being one of the most well-loved figures in English politics.

Coinciding with their retirement, the two men moved to the South Downs and their retirement was marked by stories of people attempting to work out where they were, journalists unable to find them, and rumours that they had lied about where they were living. When I visited their home to report on their fiftieth wedding anniversary, I took a number of wrong turns and had to get assistance from two lovely couples – one man keeping his bees while the man behind him napped in his oatmeal-coloured jumper and a redhead man and his blond-haired 'angel', before I was able to find the house. These two couples have also entered into folklore as some form or gatekeeper to the former PM and his husband and family.

Jamie Kent was survived by three children, seven grandchildren, and just two years before his death they welcomed a great-grandchild who was joined by a sibling just two weeks after his death.

I personally met Jamie during his first stint at Richmond FC, a time he described as a mixture of repressed bisexuality, misguided paternal mimicry, and exceptional football played by himself. I saw him just six months before his death and while he was no longer 'the prickiest little prick I've ever met' as described in his wedding announcement by Roy Kent, he was still a man of great contradictions and England, the UK, and the world will be sadder for his death.

Sir Jamie Kent will be farewelled in a State Memorial by King George VII with his actual funeral being a private one held by his husband and family.

The family asks that any condolences people wish to leave be done so through the Kent Foundation or the Queen Mother's Shaping Us initiative.

Epilogue

James T. Kirk stopped on the street and turned to investigate the little shop – an antique shop and it really looked like one, the doorway was like something out of an old movie. Something about it called him inside so he walked through the door. He drifted through the furniture, drifted through the aisles until he found a tub full of photos…actual paper photos, he picked them up and flipped through – couples through time, two teenagers looking at one another the way he recognised in a driveway, two soccer players hugging on the middle of a pitch, two farmers standing in front of a farmhouse with their arms around one another, he continued flipping through feeling like he was looking at people he knew and lives he wasn't part of. At the very bottom of the box was a set of books, all matching and bound in what felt like real leather, he opened the first book a novel by an early 21st century author named J George. He felt like he knew that name…but where from…he realised all of the books were by the same author. He brushed some cobweb off the cover of one and flipped it open to the first chapter…a book set in the 7th century in what had been Scotland. He put everything back into the box and paid for it. As he stepped out of the shop, he almost collided with someone walking purposefully down the sidewalk.

"Sorry," he said with an easy grin, looking up and realising he'd almost walked into a Vulcan.

The End

I truly believe that should King Arthur be real and should he have been reincarnated in this century he'd have been Queen Elizabeth II and anyone who disagrees can offer up a better option in the comments :)