Chapter Text
Charles stared out of the airplane window. Belgium slowly appeared beneath him and he felt the tickle in his stomach as they went further down.
The plane was quite silent. Some of the crew members chatted with each other, but most stared at their cellphones or slept.
Charles hadn`t had a minute of sleep ever since he left at home for Italy and then for the plane to Belgium almost 24 hours ago. He hadn`t slept well the nights before, either.
Spa. It had to be Spa. Until the very last second, Charles had hoped, something would happen to cancel this race. That they couldn`t race there due to Covid- 19 restrictions. He even felt a hint of disappointment when his own test results came back negative. A horrible thought, but still it had been there.
He looked around but no one took particular notice of him. Seb had asked him, if he was alright, when they met up in Maranello for the last briefing.
Charles wasn`t really able to lie to his team mate, so he had just shrugged and mumbled something like “will be fine”. Seb didn`t say a word, but Charles kept recognizing, that the older one got him and his feelings somehow.
When they were interviewed for the Italian press, an event, where Charles usually took the lead, as the press was more interested in him, knowing, Seb would leave at the end of the season, Seb had managed to answer most questions and kept the one topic away from Charles at all.
Charles knew he would thank Seb the next time, he’d met him in private somewhere.
He took out his cellphone which just disconnected with the airplane wifi, as the landing had started. He missed two messages.
This is the third message you’re not replying to. Will have to ditch pit lane rules and come to see you in the Ferrari Box.
Charles bit his lip. He knew he was being unfair. He knew, his friends were concerned about him coming to Spa again, all knowing what happened last year. He knew he couldn’t run from them all weekend. He wouldn’t even make it till tonight, as the Ferrari team would be in the same hotel as the McLaren’s and the Williams’.
Still he didn’t reply to Lando’s third message. He clicked the other one and his stomach sank.
Fu** Charlie. I just don’t think I can do this.
Charles felt his stomach aching as the plane landed on the ground and he pressed his teeth onto each other so strong, he could feel the tension in his head.
You can. We can. We fu** have to. For Toni.
Charles fingers shook so hard, he was barely able to hit the right letters. There was no reply. He and Pierre hadn’t talked for the last week. Knowing, that the other one felt the same, they were just not able to speak about it.
Charles closed his eyes for a moment. Pictures appeared in front of his inner eye. The accident. The way he knew the moment he saw it, that something wasn’t right. As he had known years ago, when Jules crashed in Suzuka.
The look in Anthoine’s mother’s eyes, when she came to him and Pierre to tell them. The moment the world seemed to come to a stop.
Charles managed to work through the grief the last year. Managed to live with the fact that he lost another person, so close to him. Managed to ignore the ache in his stomach, every time one of the boys had an accident. No matter if it was Pierre, Lando, George, Alex or Arthur. He managed to shut down the pictures of another accident of another funeral. Now, with Spa ahead of him, the place he hadn’t been to, since this terrible weekend one year ago, everything kept coming back in waves for the last couple of days.
“Charles!”
Charles jumped at the sound of his name, opening his eyes. Seb stood in front of him, looking worried. “You’re okay? You’re not looking too good.”
Charles tried to focus and felt a terrible headache in the back of his head. “I’m fine. Just tired”, he managed to say and Seb just shot him a long look.
“You know, you have to talk to somebody. Otherwise, driving this weekend will end badly.”
Seb said it soft and very silent, so nobody else would hear it. “Charles!” he said it, like Lorenzo or his dad used to say his name, when they were concerned about him.
“I will”, he muffled and Seb nodded. “Come one then.” He held out one hand and Charles took it. When he stood up, everything went dizzy for a moment and he had to hold on to the seat to get steady again.
“Promise you’ll talk to somebody”, Seb said again and when Charles nodded, he finally walked down to the exit.
Charles took a deep breathe to focus again. He had to be focused. It was a race weekend. No time for emotions, no time for grief.
Grief. The word echoed in his head as he managed his way to the exit, still feeling numb and sick.
He ignored two other text messages from Lando, three from George and one from Max during the afternoon. Did media appointments and interviews. Ignoring the fact, that there was a memorial for Anthonine right out on the track where it happened. Ignoring people asking him, if he wanted to go. Ignoring everything about Anthoine. The farewells, the remembering, everything . The pain in his head got worse and worse, until, in the end of the afternoon, his head and stomach were so bad; he excused himself for the last team meeting and went out to get some fresh air.
He felt dizzy, sick and he was freezing, even though it wasn’t too cold. Charles stumbled out of the pit lane out onto the now empty track. Pretty much everyone had already gone home, he guessed. He hadn’t done a walk around the track. He just couldn’t bare walking by the memorial. It would be hard enough to race by it.
Two corners before the memorial would have come insight, Charles just couldn’t bare walking on anymore. He sank to his knees on the cold ground of the track and buried his hurting head in his hands.
“Charles.” A voice with a soft British accent made it through the muffling sound in his ears, through the pain, the dizziness and the cold. Someone wrapped something around him, a jacket as he realized, colored in black and orange.
“I’m not allowed to wear other team clothes than my own”, he mumbled. Lando sat down next to him, pulling the jacket closer around Charles. “Then you should have brought your own jacket, mate”, he said, still soft.
“I thought I might freeze so much out here, I will get a fever and won’t be able to race tomorrow.” The words just made it out of Charles’ mouth, before he could even think about them. Lando took out his cellphone, typing something. “Just telling the boys I found you. We were all worried sick about you, especially when Pierre said he hadn’t heard from you ever since the flight either.”
“Lando?”
“Hm?”
Charles looked up and his look met the one of the younger one. “I can’t lose anybody else. I just can’t.” Lando pulled Charles in a hug and Charles buried his face in Lando’s jacket. “You know, I can’t promise you, you’ll never lose anyone else again. But what I can promise you is, that you’ll never be alone. We’ll be there. Always. Me, George, Alex and the others. You’re going through this alone for way too long, now.”
Charles shrugged, slowly getting warmer, as Lando still had his arms wrapped around him. “Whom have you been talking to? Arthur or Pierre?”
“Both actually. We needed to know, what had been up with you all week. When I saw everyone leaving and Seb told me, he hadn’t seen you leave so far, I had a vague idea, I’ll find you somewhere out here.”
“My head feels like it’ll explode every second and my stomach hurts so bad, I think whenever I’ll try to get up, I’ll just throw up on your feed and I haven’t even eaten a thing, today.” Charles mumbled. He was glad it was Lando who found him.
Lando who always seemed like the happily ever after fun kid, but he was soft on the inside. Soft and caring like barely anyone else Charles knew. Of all people, Lando was the easiest one to talk to about all the stuff going on in his head.
“I thought you don’t have real migraine attacks anymore.” Lando looked a little concerned when he held out a hand and helped Charles on his feet. “I usually don’t. I guess this weekend here is just a little too much for my head.” Charles fought against the sickness and the dizziness as Lando grabbed his hand.
“Charles”, he started carefully and when Charles looked at him, Lando squeezed his hand a little. “You need to go there. See the memorial, you know. Otherwise you won’t be able to race properly and we won’t let you get yourself in the danger of driving without sleep or proper eating and a migraine.”
“I can’t.” Charles shook his head. “You can. And you won’t be alone”, said a voice from behind. Charles and Lando turned around and Charles saw Alex and George coming up to them.
“We’re here. As long as you need us. We can wait here, just one of you can come with you, but you have to go there, Charles”, George said and put him in a quick hug.
“I probably won’t be able to walk alone so far without throwing up or fainting, so I’m not doing this alone”, Charles said, his voice shaking. He wasn’t ready, but Lando was right. He had to do this. Now. He would never be ready, but Anthoine would never come back either. As wouldn’t his father and Jules. Charles lost all three of them, but Lando was right, he wasn’t alone.
“Okay”, his lips formed the word without a sound and Lando nodded and exchanged a quick look with George. Then both of them wrapped an arm around Charle’s hips and he took both armes around the shoulders of his friends. Alex turned to Lando’s other side.
Like this the four of them made their way up to the memorial. The few meters felt like kilometers for Charles and when the memorial came inside both, his head and stomach rebelled.
“I can’t”, gasped.
“Look at me”, George said quietly and forced Charles to look up to him. “You can and you will. For Anthoine, because he can’t hop in a race car and win trophies anymore, but you can for him.”
The memorial was beautifully decorated with flowers and pictures. Lando and George slowly let go of Charles and he made a few unsteady steps towards the memorial. The moment his head felt like it would explode he sank to his knees again, tears finally falling down from his face onto the cold asphalt.
“I’m so sorry, Toni. So sorry you can’t win races anymore, so sorry we will never be on a F1 podium together, so sorry you weren’t able to fulfill your dreams. And I’m so mad. So mad you left me after Jules and Dad, so mad I had to stand at another grave, throwing flowers into it. So mad you left me alone. And I’m so sorry for being mad. The truth is, Toni, I just fu** miss you. So much. Every day. Every damn day I get into a race car I think about you. About how we promised each other we’ll once rule Formula 1 together. I miss you so much.”
He spoke the words in french, so Lando and the other two didn’t understand was he was saying. Probably through all the tears and sobs, they wouldn’t have understood a word in English either. It was only the second time, Charles cried over Anthoines dead. The first time had been shortly after the funeral, when he had been alone in his car on the way home. Ever since he tried to focus on everything but he fact he had lost one of his best friends.
It was Lando again, who made his way up to Charles, first. “You need to get somewhere warm sometime soon, you know. You look terrible.” Charles chuckled which came out as a weird combination of crying and laughter. “I haven’t slept for the last 24 hours, haven’t eaten, have a migraine and just cried my eyes out, I’m sorry I’m not looking like my best Armani- Advertisement, self.”
Lando crouched down and hugged Charles again. “Thank God, you`re back”, he said silently and sounded truly relieved. George and Alex sat down on Charles other side and all four of them just looked at the memorial for a while, Charles’ head resting on George’s shoulder, his eyes half closed.
“I was horrible the last week, I’m sorry”, Charles finally mumbled. “Sorry for not answering messages and ditching skype and gaming sessions. I guess I wasn’t myself.”
Lando smirked. “As long as you promise me, you’ll be there next time, saving me to get beat up but these two idiots here, I’m all fine.”
This time it was Charles putting Lando in a hug and the almost fell over, as Charles was still feeling shaky and weak but they both laughed. It felt like such a relief to finally laugh again. Charles was pretty sure he didn’t even honestly smile for the last seven days.
“I guess that’s the way Anthoine would like you to be. Happy. Thinking of him, but not breaking under the grief”, Alex said and Charles nodded slowly. He was right. Anthoine would have wanted him to go on. To have fun, to love what he did.
And hour later, one of the Shuttles brought all four of them back to their hotel. Charles almost fell asleep on Lando’s shoulder, still wearing the younger one’s McLaren jacket as he didn’t wanted to go back to get his own. He didn’t want any of his crew members to see him like this. Some things just needed to stay private and this episode was one of these.
Lando nudged him as they arrived at the hotel room and Charles got out of the car. Immediately the dizziness and the headache came back. Charles knew it would take a bunch of pain killers to make this go away in tomorrow’s free practice even if he would manage to eat something and get a proper sleep tonight.
“Why he hell did you get a suite?” Alex was just looking at Lando’s key card. “Maybe because I’m the more successful driver”, he teased and took his card out of Alex’ hands.
“I guess I should go to my room, shower and sleep”, Charles said as he was barely able to keep his eyes open. Lando stopped him, before he could say something else.
“You know the good thing about a suite is a king size bed, that is easily big enough for both of us. I won’t let you go to your room alone. I know you, you will just fall into bed with your clothes on and wake up tomorrow, feeling even worse than today.”
“This is… oh well there might be some truth in it” Charles had to admit. Lando raised an eyebrow. “Fine, then you’ll come with me. Sadly you’re in such a bad condition I can’t use you for a gaming session, would be fun to do one in person, as we did in carting and F4 and F3 times”, he teased him.
Charles had to laugh even though he really felt bad. “I could beat you in any game any time.”
Lando snorted, grabbed Charles by the arm and forced him to the elevator. “We can go by your small little room, getting you things for your sleepover at mine. By the way…” he turned to Alex and George “I have a very big sofa in this very beautiful suite as well and as we are already doing stuff, our team principals wouldn’t be too happy about, why don’t you two come over for a gaming session later. Charles can sleep this one out.”
Both boys agreed and went to their rooms to shower and change. Charles and Lando made their way up to Lando’s suite in the upper part of the hotel.
After he took a shower, Charles at least didn’t feel numb and frozen anymore. Lando was sitting on his bad, his laptop on his lap, when Charles let himself fall on the other side. Lando took a glass of water of the table next to the bed and put three white pills into it.
“Pain killers and something against stomach pain and sickness.”
“Thank you.” Charles drank the glass in one sip and closed his eyes. White flashes of light appeared in front of his inner eye. “I just need a minute until the pills start to operate”, he mumbled.
Lando looked up from his laptop. “Oh no, you’re not gonna fall asleep before you haven’t eaten something. He reached to his backpack on the floor and took out a banana and some chocolate cookies.
“I’ll tickle you every time you’ll fall asleep before you have eaten up”, Lando said with a smirk on his face and Charles laughed, even though sleeping was actually the only thing he wanted to do. But as he knew Lando for several years now, he knew, he wouldn’t stop until he had eaten something, so he forced himself to the banana and two cookies.
“Alright, I did was you wanted, can I please go to sleep now. Otherwise I might throw up on your bed” Charles mumbled as he felt sickness rising up his stomach again.
“Sure.” Lando softly touched Charles’ shoulder. “I’m glad I found you “, he said. Charles managed a half smile already drifting to sleep. “I’m glad you three were there. I’m glad you are always there.”
“We’re the Twichgang now and for all, don’t you ever forget this”, Lando said smiling.
For a while it was silent and as Lando was already sure, Charles was asleep he spoke again.
“Lando?”
“Hm?”
“I won’t lose you, won’t I?”
“Never.”
When George and Alex came by to start their gaming evening, Charles was already sleeping. It was a good and tight sleep for the very first time in quite a while.