Chapter Text
Alex Morgan still remembers her very first budget meeting when she landed her dream job at a local news station in Atlanta. Well, dream job might be a bit much, but as a brand new college graduate, it was a good stepping stone on the way to her actual dream job of being the next Diane Sawyer or Katie Couric or Meredith Vieira—minus the whole Who Wants to be a Millionaire stint, of course.
In college, she’d been the star of the communications school’s news station, a low-budget operation that allowed her to anchor the nightly news. Her sights were set on New York City, but the Big Apple’s sights did not seem to be set on Alex Morgan. After more than 20 rejection letters and even more unanswered applications, her adviser gently suggested she send her reel to ABC affiliates around the country and stay open to relocating anywhere.
She swallowed her pride and sent her reel (and a slightly desperate-sounding cover letter) to at least 100 places, and she almost took the very first job that called her back, a tiny news station in Wisconsin, but her adviser told her to be patient (knowing full well that her wimpy California ass wouldn’t survive one day past August 30). Her patience and persistence paid off, and she was rewarded with an associate content editor position at WSB-TV in Atlanta.
Her first day was magical—she can remember the smell of fresh coffee, the bright lights, the buzz of the newsroom, the click-clack of her heels in the lobby when she swiped her brand-new badge for entrance. Her first budget meeting was the first time she felt like she was well on her way to making all her dreams come true. She pitched a story that didn’t get budgeted, but one of the senior reporters smiled at her and told her later she was impressed that Alex spoke up at her first meeting.
Five years later, that reporter, Allie Long, is Alex’s best friend and roommate. Under Allie’s mentorship, Alex successfully went from associate content editor to junior reporter to senior reporter, meaning she’s on the news almost every single night. The coffee smells more stale every day, the lights feel more draining, and the newsroom buzz has become newsroom gossip. Her feet have permanent blisters from the heels she wears daily, and the photo on her badge is way outdated, which she can tell when she holds it up next to her face in the bathroom mirror and counts the lines that have formed since she was a bright-eyed and eager 22-year-old.
Alex slips into the newsroom at the tail-end of the meeting, and Allie holds out a mug of coffee without looking at her. She’d been up too late the night before binge-watching her latest Netflix addiction, and despite Allie pounding on her door to wake her up, she was too late to beat the hellish Atlanta traffic.
The sound of her name being barked out startles Alex, and she spills the coffee on her blouse. “Fuck,” she says under her breath before looking up. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she tells Jill, the station manager who’s staring her down.
“Thank you for joining us,” Jill says. “We were almost done handing out stories, but if you have a pitch you’d like to share, be my guest.”
“Um,” Alex stammers. She struggles to come up with something, knowing by the smirk on Jill’s face that if she doesn’t have something—and something good, at that, she’ll be saddled with whatever story is left over, probably something an intern scraped up from the bottom of the barrel. “No,” she says finally. “I don’t have anything.”
“Perfect, you can take coach then,” Jill says. “Thanks for your ideas, everyone, and thank you to most everyone for being on time. Let’s make some magic.”
Alex rolls her eyes to herself at the not-even-thinly veiled jab. “What’s coach?” she whispers to Allie, who gives her a look.
“You didn’t take out the trash in your mad dash to get to work, did you?” she deadpans.
“Give me a break,” Alex sighs. “I’m sorry, I know. I’ll do it tonight.”
“False, you’re going to be here till like 2 a.m., and when I make dinner tonight, I’ll have to take it out because it’ll be full.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” Alex says. “I promise. I know I’m the worst. Now what’s coach?”
“I don’t know, some high school sports thing,” Allie shrugs. “Ask Tobin, it was her pitch.”
Alex narrows her eyes. “So why isn’t Tobin doing it?” High school sports isn’t just a downgrade from Alex’s usual beat, it’s a complete insult.
“Hell if I know,” Allie says. “Ask her. And you’re welcome for the coffee, by the way.”
“Thank you, my angel, my hero, the love of my life!” Alex calls over her shoulder as she scurries toward the sports “cave,” as everyone else calls it. “Tobin!” she says, bursting through the door. “Can we talk about this coach thing?”
“Good morning to you too,” Tobin says in her familiar monotone, spinning away from her computer to face Alex.
“Good morning,” Alex says, putting a hand on her hip. “First of all, how long is this going to take me? And secondly, why aren’t you doing it if it was your pitch and sports-related?”
“Can’t,” Tobin says. “I know her. Conflict of interest.”
“Okay,” Alex says, tapping her foot impatiently. Tobin just looks at her, an amused smile on her face. They face each other in a silent stand-off till Alex finally huffs out in frustration. “Fine, you win. We both know I was late. Can you just give me the pitch?”
Tobin smirks. “I just like hearing you admit your imperfections, princess,” she teases, rummaging through the stack of papers on her desk. “Here you go. It’s for Thursday.”
Alex rolls her eyes, flipping through the material. All she’s gathering is that a high school in Peachtree City has a new soccer coach. “Why is this a story?”
“I know you aren’t much for sports, but a former player for the U.S. Women’s National Team—that’s soccer, for the record—is the new head coach for the team. That’s kind of big.”
“So it’s a puff piece.”
Tobin sighs heavily. “It’s not a—”
“How do you know this girl?”
“She’s our age, so she’s a woman, for starters,” Tobin says. “She and I played on youth national teams together. But that’s not relevant to the story, so maybe you should get to compiling your questions and research on her, because I have work to do.”
“Got it,” Alex says. Tobin turns back to her computer. “Tobs,” she sighs.
“Hm?” Tobin asks, not turning around.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Thank you for your help.”
Tobin smiles, finally revealing her teeth instead of giving one of those half-assed pursed-lips smiles, a sign that her annoyance with Alex is over for the time being. “Anytime.”
~
Alex feels like she’s in trouble as she shifts against the hard plastic of one of the chairs in front office. When she’d called the coach to confirm that she’d be there for practice and would like to interview her before, she wasn’t exactly prepared for her to say she should come before school even ends, but Alex was so caught off-guard she couldn’t say no. She told her camera crew not to bother coming till 3, but something in the woman’s voice made it impossible for Alex to turn her invitation for a “quick tour and hangs.”
“Miss Morgan?” a voice says from the door. Alex looks up to see a woman who looks about her age at the door, smiling. She recognizes her as the coach who she’s spent the morning researching, but in person she’s like brand new. Her smile is brighter than she’d guessed from the majority of pictures she found from on the field, but maybe her most defining characteristic is her face full of freckles.
“Alex,” Alex corrects, standing up to greet her with a handshake.
“And you can call me Kelley,” the coach says, shaking Alex’s hand firmly. “I thought I told you to wear something you can run around in.”
Alex raises her eyebrows, looking down at herself. “I thought you were kidding,” she confesses. She had changed her blouse from the coffee-stained light blue one to the purple one she has stashed in her drawer in case of emergency. “I didn’t have time to go home and change.”
Kelley shrugs. “No worries, I have a change. You’re probably about my size. I like to make reporters work up a sweat.” She winks, holding the door open for Alex. “How long have you been in Atlanta?”
“It was five years this July,” Alex says. “I moved right after my 22nd birthday.”
“From where?” Kelley asks.
“California. I went to Berkeley for college, but I’m from Southern California.”
“Sick,” Kelley says. “We’re sworn enemies then.”
“Yeah?” Alex asks, kinking an eyebrow.
“I’m a Stanford Cardinal,” Kelley announces proudly, and Alex could swear she literally puffs out her chest saying that.
“Ah,” Alex says. “Sorry, I don’t really follow sports.”
“So you’re here because?” Kelley asks in amusement.
“Long story,” Alex laughs. “But Tobin is my, uh, we’re good friends.”
“I love that dude,” Kelley sighs. “I haven’t gotten a chance to get together with her since I’ve been here, but we had some great times.” She opens a door to a hallway that Alex can tell immediately is the gym hallway because it smells like sweat and feet. She notes the grimace on Alex’s face and laughs. “Don’t worry, you get used to it. I think my nostrils are numb at this point. And my office has an air freshener, so it doesn’t leak through.”
Alex nods, trying to neutralize her face, but she’s sure it doesn’t work. When they finally reach Kelley’s office at the end of the hall, though, she’s amazed. “Holy shit,” she says. Kelley blushes. “Sorry, language.”
“Oh please,” Kelley laughs. “I’m an athlete. But yeah, not bad, right? It kind of doubles as a lounge for my soccer girls.”
Not bad was a wild understatement of fact. Alex is pretty sure the office is bigger than the living area of her apartment, and it’s furnished with a massive desk and a few couches and beanbag chairs. In the corner is a small kitchen area. Once she assesses the room and turns to squint at Kelley, who looks almost embarrassed at Alex’s astonishment, she finally realizes maybe there’s a real story here.
~
Alex gets down to business pretty quickly, pulling out her notepad and tape recorder for their “hangs.” Kelley doesn’t seem to mind, but she also doesn’t seem particularly keen to answer any substantial questions. She redirects the conversation back to Alex at every opportunity, but the conversation flows so easily Alex barely writes anything beyond her name, age, and “Stanford.”
Kelley talks about her family and Stanford (she talks about Stanford a lot) and the chipmunk her father domesticated by accident, but Alex doesn’t know anything about soccer, so she has trouble leading her down the path she wants to get her on… not that she even knows what that path is. But Kelley is easy to talk to and even easier to listen to, and part of Alex doesn’t even want to get to the heart of it if it gives her an excuse to come interview Kelley again before Thursday.
When Alex’s phone buzzes with a text from her camerawoman, Ashlyn, she has barely scratched the surface of what could be a great story.
“Do you mind if we head out to the field?”
“As long as you don’t mind helping me carry cones and balls,” Kelley says, standing up. “After you get changed, of course.” She tosses Alex a Starr’s Mill Lady Panthers soccer T-shirt and a pair of navy shorts.
“I cannot wear this on television,” Alex laughs, holding it up.
“Oh come on, it’ll make for great footage,” Kelley insists.
Alex rolls her eyes but does as she’s told, escaping into the en-suite bathroom (yes, really) to change. When she emerges, Kelley is weighed down with all sorts of soccer supplies (at least Alex assumes that’s what it is).
“Ready to get your ass kicked?”
~
Alex thought she’d be ready—she does Pilates for God’s sake—but she’s winded after warming up with the team for five minutes. She sits on the sidelines with Ashlyn, trying to catch her breath as they watch the girls do drills and sprints and… conditioning? She doesn’t really know what conditioning means, she’s just heard Tobin use it a lot.
“Are we getting an interview with her today?” Ashlyn asks, looking at the darkening sky with concern.
“I got some stuff for sound bites,” Alex says, but she isn’t even sure of that. “We don’t have to have it packaged till Thursday, so we can do that tomorrow if that’s okay.”
Ashlyn smiles. “Yeah, no problem,” she says. “Tobin said you seemed a little nervous about a sports piece.”
Alex shrugs. “I guess,” she says. “I’ve done them before, but I don’t know. This one seems different.”
“How so?”
“I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”
“Jill’s going to want more than B-roll when we get back there tonight,” Ashlyn says.
“I know,” Alex sighs. “I’ll handle her.”
~
She feels less confident than she tried to sound when she finally does walk into the newsroom.
“How’s coach?” Jill asks as soon as she sees her.
“Good,” Alex says. “We’ll have it all packaged for Thursday.”
“Not today?” Jill asks, frowning.
“Tobin said it was for Thursday.”
“It is, but I figured you’d want to be done with it so you could work on other things,” Jill says. “It’s barely a five-minute segment.”
“I disagree,” Alex says. “She’s from Peachtree City, you know. She played high school soccer there. She’s kind of a major star. She scored a goal in—”
“Morgan, stop,” Jill says, cutting her off. “It’s a sports story. A high school sports story. It would have taken one of our sports reporters about two hours to wrap it up. You’ve been here long enough to do it in an hour.”
“Well that’s not—”
“That’s what you’re being paid to do,” Jill says.
“I’m not a sports reporter,” Alex says. “And this isn’t a sports piece. This could get picked up by—”
“Fine,” Jill says. “Do what you want with it. But I need a package on Thursday, no excuses. A five-minute package about their season opener and their new coach’s plans to improve their record. Talk about her superstardom, whatever, but it’s a sports piece.”
Alex purses her lips but decides not to argue. There’s an anchor spot at stake, after all, and the more she can stay on Jill’s good side, the better.
That night, after taking out the trash, she stays up for hours researching Kelley’s career, watching videos from college to her first pro league to international to her second pro league. She learns more than she ever wanted to know about soccer, but the one thing she can’t find is what the hell Kelley’s doing here now, at least not really. There’s stuff about overhauling the team and changing personnel, and there’s stuff about minor injuries and surgeries, but something about her retirement seems fishy.
All she can find is a statement from U.S. Soccer with a quote from Kelley saying—as generically as possible—that she would be retiring from both international and club play immediately. There would be no send-off, no celebration like they would normally do for such a tenured player. She scored a goal in a World Cup, for God’s sake.
She also finds Kelley’s social media, which is a rabbit hole that Alex has no business going down, but she does anyway. Her Instagram is a mix of pictures with her family, friends, and aesthetically pleasing coffee and food outings. Lately there have been some pictures with her new team, but there’s very little about soccer since before she announced her retirement.
Her Twitter tells a different story in a way. She tweets wry observations about the world, but she tweets about soccer as well, cheering on her old teammates in games and live-tweeting them. Alex scrolls back weeks and weeks and still has no idea what to think about this woman.
All she knows is she’s fascinated.