Chapter Text
Love never came easy to Gabriella Teller.
Her family was her first love. A mother who tucked in toy cars along with her daughter. A father who worked hard to provide and made it to every ballet recital. Even a weird uncle she would be forced to write to each holiday.
Her mother was the first to go. Her mother had gotten sick suddenly and was dead just as fast. Her father stayed longer, but disappeared when she was seven. Her uncle was, thankfully, too busy to care fulltime for a child. The world moved fast around her, and suddenly she was a Schmidt.
Gaby packed up all of her belongings, said goodbye to the only home she had ever known, and left Germany.
As she lost her friendships in life, Gaby found a second love in her new home, mechanics. Ballet practice was forgotten, and Homework left unfinished because of the hours she spent under cars. The hours she spent awake at night after she developed insomnia were occupied by fiddling with auto parts.
Gaby grew into a mechanic at her foster father’s shop, with brown hair pulled away from her face with a bandana. Coveralls enveloped her skinny figure, and grease covered her tan skin.
Mechanics was the only thing that stayed constant when her foster family died. After crying for hours, Gaby could be found where she always was, in her shop. What was once the Schmidt’s garage, became Gaby’s.
She was content being alone. Well, not alone. She had her love of mechanics to keep her company.
A man showed up. He arrived in his expensive car and flirted endlessly with her. When she fixed the minor damage to his car, Alexander Vinciguerra asked her out for a drink. Why the mechanic said yes is a mystery even to her, but she found herself in bed with him hours later.
She thought it might be love. He would show up at the garage every couple of weeks and sweep her off her feet. He would take her on expensive dates and buy her lavish gifts. Every date ended with them in her apartment having sex.
Alexander Vinciguerra left Gaby’s apartment after one of their dates and never came back. She waited anxiously for him to passionately take her away again but met his wife instead.
Victoria Vinciguerra was a tall, blonde, supermodel-like woman. Everything Gaby was not. Victoria arrived in her expensive car with her husband in the backseat and screamed at Gaby, humiliating the mechanic in front of her colleagues. Gaby was called a whore, slut, and bitch multiple times before Victoria took her car and drove away with a smirk on her lips.
Gaby removed herself from the glares of her coworkers and locked herself in the bathroom. Thirty minutes later, she emerged with puffy eyes and a runny nose. Ignoring the looks sent her way, the mechanic went straight back to work.
Her love life was filled with meaningless flings and drunken one-night-stands after that. Every weekend, Gaby would find herself walking home with messed up makeup and heels in her hands. Gaby wanted nothing to do with love after it had abandoned her so many times.
Until they showed up.