i don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you (Ted Lasso)

they're gonna crucify me anyway

It takes a couple of hours for Thea to realise the gravity of what she's agreed to.

She's performing.

In front of actual people.

Tonight.

Thea stumbles out of her bedroom in a pair of ratty gym shorts and a t-shirt that is more holes than fabric these days and prays to whoever is listening that Casey is still home. And, luckily, she is. She opens her bedroom door after the very first knock, her phone pressed between her shoulder and her ear, a distant voice barely audible as she hangs up and turns her full attention to Thea. Seeing her own panic reflected on Casey's face makes the knot in Thea's stomach grow.

"Hey," Casey says. "What's going on?"

'I made a mistake,' Thea wants to say. 'More than one recently, actually.'

"I need a dress," she says instead with an awkward shrug. "And, uh, other..."

"What sort of other?"

Thea shrugs again, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly like a doll with a broken drawstring, before breaking into a peel of laughter. "The sort of other that you wear when you're performing." There's a film of hysteria vacuum sealed around her words. "Which I am." She can't see herself, but her eyes feel wider than they usually are. Or maybe they're not. She's never really considered how open her eyes are at any given moment. "Tonight."

There are a thousand other things that she needs to be saying right now, but, before she has the chance to even work out what those are supposed to be, Casey pulls her into a hug. "Your choice?" She asks softly, letting out a sigh of relief when Thea finally nods. "Then we're going to make you the hottest girl to ever step on stage. My guarantee."

The two of them spend the next six hours going through every item of clothing that Casey owns. It's amazing how much she manages to fit into a room without it ever taking on the same cluttered feeling that Thea has unintentionally cultivated in her own room. Early 2000s pop blares from a Bluetooth speaker on Casey's dressing table. Thea's hands tremble to the beat of each song.

"Am I crazy for doing this?"

Casey glances over her shoulder from where she's sitting cross-legged searching through a pile of shoes. "I don't think so." She tosses two pairs into the, thankfully, shrinking pile of things that Thea still needs to try on. "I don't know, I mean, it's a bit impulsive. But it is for charity." She shrugs. "D'you think you're gonna be able to handle it?"

"Of course," Thea nods but she isn't sure. "It's only one night."

As the evening grows closer, she starts getting texts from Keeley.

They haven't spoken much outside the brief conversations on Match days, but this isn't exactly the start of a budding friendship. More a professional partnership. In the emoji-filled texts and brief phone calls that Thea manages to answer, Keeley volunteers to take over any and all PR that Thea might need for the next couple of days. Free of charge. Which is kind of her. Because despite the agreement Thea has with Higgins to keep everything low-key, she knows that it's a necessary evil. People are going to have things to say and Thea doesn't want to hear a single one of them. So she gives her passwords to Keeley and gives her permission to do whatever she needs to do. Anything to keep her from having to deal with the reality of it all.

And, maybe, she starts to understand why everyone ends up falling in love with Keeley.

It's almost impossible to stare into the abyss of never-ending kindness and not.

Then comes the rest of the cavalry from Nelson Road. Some names she recognises, some people she hasn't had the chance to properly meet yet. All nicer than they have any right being. She only answers a few of them. Colin's message is filled with so much concern that she has to reassure him for her own sake if not his. The same thing goes for anything that Higgins sends. Just reading his words stresses her out, so she can't imagine what being inside his head feels like.