Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I can’t be with you anymore,” Sarah, Daniel’s first girlfriend, had said to him rather cruelly, shortly after he had told her to cheer up and that her 67% in English really wasn’t that bad. “You don’t take anything seriously!”

“Course I do!” Daniel had said dismissively, waving his hand as though physically brushing aside Sarah’s concerns. “Yeah, you should have scored more. Two percent higher and you would have had a 69!”

Sarah had given him a withering look, and there had been a suspicious wetness in her eyes. Very unamused, she had stormed off and had not talked to Daniel again until they had finally graduated and she could avoid seeing him entirely.

Daniel himself hadn’t seen the big deal at the time, and had headed home alone, expecting Sarah to call him later that evening and apologise for overreacting. Daniel had loitered around the kitchen, where the phone was plugged in, until his mum had asked him why he wasn’t doing his homework, and then he had gone outside to kick around a soccer ball until the sun went down, one ear directed to the open kitchen window for the sound of ringing. Dinner came and went, Daniel scarfing down a second helping of his mum’s chicken cacciatore, and then he laughed his way through Rove Live, still expecting the phone to ring.

It didn’t, and as the television went dark and Mum and Dad and Michelle started moving off to get ready for bed, it had started to hit home for Daniel.

I can’t be with you anymore.

“You okay there, love?” Mum had asked kindly, seeing him sitting stock still in the dark living room, alone on the couch.

Mum had always had a way of getting to him. He had been fine all afternoon, a pleasant hum of denial playing in the background in his head, confident in the fact that Sarah had just been sensitive. Later, in the dark, he had been defenceless. Sarah had been serious, but Daniel just hadn’t been able to process it until Mum came poking.

To his horror and shame, hot tears had filled his eyes, and his hands bunched up in the tracky dacks he’d thrown on after school. 

The couch beside him had dipped, and there was a gentle arm around his shoulders. “What’s wrong, darling?” 

“Um,” he had said, feeling suddenly intensely vulnerable. “I think Sarah broke up with me.”

Suddenly he was spilling to his mother, telling her what had happened, what he had said, what she had said. Mum listened patiently, just gently squeezing his shoulder and not even reacting when he admitted how he had made fun of Sarah’s grade. “And I thought she was joking, but now I think she really means it, and I just want to go back and not say that!” he finished, and then he was crying properly, fat tears falling down his cheeks, and he had bent forward to hold his knees, hugging them like he wanted to hug Sarah.

“Oh, love,” Mum had said gently, rubbing his back. “It’ll be alright, you know.”

Daniel had sniffed audibly, slightly embarrassed by both his breakdown and by the fact that there was now snot darkening the grey fabric of his tracky dacks. “Why does it hurt so much now?” he’d asked, in a humiliatingly whiny voice - not that a little embarrassment was going to stop him seeking comfort from his mother. 

“Well, there’s a few reasons for that,” Mum had said airily, like it was an everyday occurrence that she comforted her son after being dumped. “One: it’s late, and you’re a hormonal teenager who is going to be hit by more at this hour. Two: it’s a terrible thing to be dumped, especially if you realise you’re a little bit at fault. And three…”

Mum trailed off, her hand stilling as it rubbed Daniel’s back. Daniel looked up at her, blinking aside the tears that were clouding his vision. “Three?” he prompted.

Mum shook herself out of her temporary pause, smiling back down at him and resuming rubbing his back. “Three, sometimes it takes reality a little time to break through to you,” she said. “It’s your little superpower. It helps you keep going even when times are tough. But you might need to learn to be a bit careful of others. Not everyone can delay processing things like you can. Sarah was already upset about her test, wasn’t she? That’s why she was so upset with you.”

“And now I’ve ruined it.”

“Yep, you have,” Mum said bluntly, but her tone was light as she stood up from the couch and looked down at Daniel, hands on her hips. “But that’s okay. You’ll get better at it in the future. Now get up; it’s time for bed.”

Fifteen or so years later, Daniel barely remembered Sarah. He barely remembered what she looked like or what she sounded like. But he still remembered his conversation with Mum like it was yesterday. 

Sometimes it takes reality a little time to break through to you.

Daniel had arrived in Melbourne a little earlier than most of the F1 crew. The plan originally had been to meet his family and spend a little time together. The coronavirus issue had made them a little nervous, though, and his parents had decided to remain in Perth for the time being.

No big deal. Daniel could fly them out to another race on the calendar later. This whole thing would blow over, like swine flu and SARS.

Daniel remembered SARS. A girl in his class had burst into tears after another child had coughed on her, yelling that she was going to die. Nothing had happened.

With no one to hang out with, Daniel took to wandering the city for the days before the teams arrived. He had a coffee at Patricia’s, a tiny little cafe down an alley next to some skip bins. It was busy as ever, the office workers spilling out of the small space into the carpark, talking about stocks or the NBN or whatever business people talked about. Jessica, the barista, still remembered his order even though it had been a year since he was there. She didn’t know him from driving; she just knew him as a customer. 

Melbourne was largely lampooned for being full of almond latte sipping bourgeoisie, but their coffee scene really was good. 

“You think Morrison’s going to shut off Italy next?” Daniel heard one balding suit say, just as he was going to leave the back alley carpark where Patricia’s was located. Daniel paused.

“Nah,” said his colleague. “He won’t do anything he’s not pushed to; he only shut off China to suck up to Trump and no one at the Liberal party’s going to be upset about Iran or Korea either; they hate Muslims and Asians.”

No secret who Suit number 2 voted for.

“Italy’s looking pretty bad, though,” said the first man, a hint of nervousness in his tone. “It’s looking like the virus is all over the country now; it’s gotten into the south.”

Daniel held his breath while still trying to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping. He hadn’t been watching the news; he hadn’t been aware Italy had come under the microscope. 

He had heard that the Australian government had banned anyone flying in from China, South Korea or Iran, and that those few who were allowed in were being quarantined on Christmas Island or Howard Springs. It was the sort of news Daniel didn’t really pay much attention to. It didn’t affect him, beyond the fact that the Chinese GP had been “delayed until further notice”. He vaguely remembered some sort of measures being taken to prevent SARS from entering the country too, though he had been quite young and he did not remember what they were. But all in all, things seemed quite in hand. 

If Italy was in trouble though - if it was on the list to be banned like China, South Korea and Iran, it could end the Australian GP before it had even begun. 

“They’re not going to ban Italy before the Grand Prix,” said the second man, still sounding confident. “Doesn’t matter how much corona they have; they have Ferrari. Too much money in F1.”

It didn’t sound like Suit number 2 was exactly a fan of the sport, but Daniel decided he had better leave in case he was recognised. Suit number 2 didn’t sound too friendly towards his profession. 

Daniel spent the day wandering around the zoo, looking at the cute baby snow leopards and thinking how much Mum would have enjoyed seeing them too. Mum had always been a bit of a nervous person, and he had told her they would be fine coming to Melbourne, but she had wanted to play it safe in case they got sick. 

Looking around at all the families having a good time, all the kids and the couples and the tourists speaking foreign languages, it was hard to believe Mum could ever think there was a problem.

Daniel had been by the giraffes, observing the funny way they ate the branches from the high-up perches the keepers kept stocked, when a woman standing to his right suddenly started coughing in what seemed like an uncontrollable fit. She swung her handbag around, digging around inside as the coughs rocked her body back and forth.

“You right, mate?” Daniel asked, as she looked like she was going to lose her grip on her handbag.

“Yeah,” she said breathily, glancing up at him and grinning almost wryly as he frowned at her in concern. She coughed four more times, then shoved the bag into Daniel’s arms. “Ventolin,” she said simply.

Daniel immediately understood what she was after, and he squatted down to the ground, unceremoniously upending the overfull handbag on the bitumen. It was little wonder the lady had had so much trouble finding what she was looking for - the bag was packed full of old receipts, glasses wipes, a water bottle, suncream - plus what Daniel recognised as menstrual products, and he hoped the woman wouldn’t be too upset at him exposing those in public, given the circumstances. Still, it did make it much easier to find the little blue inhaler, and he stood up and handed it to her as quickly as he could.

As the woman uncapped the inhaler and shook it aggressively, Daniel knelt back down and began re-packing the woman’s handbag. 

He waited with her, still holding her bag, as she took a few puffs from the inhaler and her coughs subsided. “You good?” he said finally.

“Yeah,” said the woman, waving a hand as though it was nothing. “Thanks for your help - I really need to get better about packing my bag properly so I can find it when I need it. That’s the third time I’ve had to upend it - or at least have someone upend it for me.”

Daniel smiled. “Not the first woman’s bag I’ve upended,” he said, then he immediately grimaced. “Ugh, no. That sounded wrong. I just meant - my sister has asthma too, and she also loses her Ventolin in her bucket bag.”

“Oh, it’s not asthma,” said the woman. “At least, I don’t think so; the doctors haven’t said it’s asthma. I dunno. I’m from Canberra actually. Ever since the smoke… I tried to stay indoors but there was nothing to be done really. Seem to have done some damage to my lungs, but at least the Ventolin helps some.”

Daniel nodded, his smile faltering somewhat. He had seen the pictures from Canberra on the news - everyone had - heard the reports that the air in Canberra was so toxic that Australia Post refused to deliver there. Like most Australians, Daniel had more recently just watched the calendar with quiet relief, happy in the knowledge that winter was coming and the black summer was over. He hadn’t really thought about the fact that breathing in air worse than chimney smoke for weeks on end was probably going to leave its mark. 

Daniel had been in Perth. Perth had seen some fires over the summer, but it wasn’t anything too much worse than usual. When not in Perth, he’d been overseas. The majority of the population lived on the southeast coast of the country, breathing smoke for weeks if they were lucky, months if they weren’t. He hadn’t thought before about the permanent toll that might take on some. 

Those sorts of thoughts were a little too dark, though, and the woman seemed to be fine, so what Daniel said instead was, “Shoulda known you were from Canberra. The state of your bag - that’s classic public servant level of organisation right there.”

****

Daniel returned to his hotel early, intending to change before getting dinner and maybe going to Revs. He was bored all alone, and some dancing might be in order to take his mind off it. His phone rang right as he was pulling a new T-shirt over his head, and he spent a little time faffing around trying to get his head to go through the neck hole and not the arm hole, but he managed to get the shirt on in time to pick up the call. “Yeah?” he asked, having not looked at the screen to see who was calling.

“Daniel, it’s Mum, how’re you going?” 

“Yeah, alright, yeah,” Daniel answered. She had made the same call yesterday, too.

“You’re not sick, are you love?”

“Yeah, nah, still not sick,” Daniel said, rubbing the back of his head with his hand. He wondered if Mum should maybe take up meditation again; she was clearly stressed out of her tree. “I’m fine, Mum, I told you. You can’t get corona if you drink Corona, and I’ve been drinking a ton.”

“You’ve seen the news, haven’t you?” Mum carried on, ignoring Daniel’s terrible joke. “About Italy?”

“I heard some bloke mentioning something, yeah. They got corona?”

“It’s quite bad actually,” Mum continued. “The people in the north aren’t allowed to leave at all. It’s looking like they might not be let into Australia either; I’m not sure you’re going to be racing on Sunday…”

Daniel bit the inside of his cheek, contemplating briefly. North of Italy. That was where Ferrari and Toro Ro - no, Alpha Tauri now - were. “It’ll probably be alright,” he said. “I doubt they’ll want to cancel the race. Just relax, Mum, it’ll be like swine flu again.”

“Well, you won’t be making so many pig noises this time, will you?” Mum said wryly, and Daniel grinned, surprised she even remembered. 

“What can I say, I’m a natural comedian,” he said. “If I didn’t like driving things fast I’d be telling knock knock jokes for money.”

“You wouldn’t stoop to knock knock jokes!”

“Nah, I’d probably be trying to make Australian Top Gear, only good this time,” Daniel mused. “Only no one would accept me as a replacement Jeremy Clarkson because my hair doesn’t look enough like pubes.”

Mum snorted, and even though she said “Stop it!” Daniel smiled - he liked making people laugh. Even if his audience was just his mother. “Really though - promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t get too close to the others when they arrive, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel said, already knowing he’d break his promise. It was impossible to be an F1 driver and not get close to people. The dude who spent five minutes with his face next to Daniel’s and his hand in his crotch adjusting his seatbelt for him was probably from a country Mum would deem unsafe. “I’ll try.” 

It briefly occurred to Daniel as he hung up the phone that maybe he should call the guys in Italy and make sure they were doing okay. That thought quickly vanished though as he saw a funny post from his mate Jonno on Facebook, and suddenly his mind was back on going to Revs.

****

Suit number 2 had been right. Flights from Italy were banned from entering Australia mere hours after the Italian teams had arrived. 

Daniel watched them on the news as he sat in the hotel lobby, waiting for the taxi they had called him. A woman was sitting in an armchair near him, a suitcase at her feet and a tired look on her face. “Crazy, aren’t they?” she muttered, shaking her head.

“Huh?” Daniel asked. 

The woman nodded towards the TV. “Letting them in for a car race,” she said. “I’m kinda surprised by Dan Andrews; I thought he would have cancelled it. He was the one who pushed Morrison into making everyone quarantine… Morrison just wanted to let it rip.” 

She was speaking casually, but there was an expression on her face Daniel did not like. She looked as though she was going to start crying.

It seemed a bit of an overreaction, really.

The woman opened and shut her mouth a couple of times, her gaze oddly blank like she didn’t recognise what was in front of her. “I can’t go through this again,” she said softly, almost like she was talking to herself. “I lost my home on New Year’s… the fire. I thought that was it, that was the worst thing that could happen to me, but I could move forward… and I’m still stuck in Melbourne.” She wiped her eyes on her jacket sleeve. It was old, stained and torn in places. “And they’re letting people in for a car race… I just want to be safe…”

Daniel opened his mouth as though to reply, but he had no idea what to say. Not for the first time, he was grateful that wearing a full helmet during a race meant he was fairly anonymous to anyone who didn’t actually follow F1. He had seen pictures of himself in his car all over the city - on tram stops, on billboards - but with his helmet on, this woman couldn’t have recognised him just from those pictures. 

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head and laughing hollowly. “It’s been a bit of a year! The smoke, and then the fire, now this…”

“We’ll be alright,” Daniel said finally. Outside, he saw his taxi pulling up at the kerb. He stood up. “I’m sorry about your house.”

“All good,” the woman replied, shaking her head. “Sorry for unloading like that. I figure being made homeless and living in a hotel and being stuck in a city you don’t know because your town’s burned down gives me license to say what I want.”

“Sure does,” said Daniel, grinning, though he could tell his grin wasn’t as wide as it usually was. “See ya.”

****

The first driver Daniel encountered at Albert Park ended up being Lando, which was good fortune, because Lando was always good for a laugh. He had also spent some time being followed around by Netflix, which he got a kick out of, having been summarily excluded the previous season. 

“You know they checked our temperature at the airport again?” Lando said, the grin on his face showing that he was rather amused by all the spectacle. “I swear I’m getting my temperature checked more than I did when I was a kid and had the flu.”

“Jeez, don’t mention having the flu here, they’ll lock you up!” laughed Daniel. “But it’s alright in England now, isn’t it? This’ll just blow over.”

“Yeah, should do,” said Lando, shrugging. “I mean it’s just a bad cold really. If we just test people it should be fine… Italy didn’t have any tests at first; that’s probably what went wrong.”

Daniel nodded, accepting the easy reassurance. 

It was easy to get back into the swing of things. The paddock was buzzing with the usual amount of activity, and most of the conversation revolved around who would end up winning the season (Mercedes, probably, again) and wild speculation about who would dominate once the rules were changed next year. Daniel spent a long time with his engineers, going over the settings and the plan. Daniel had had fairly atrocious luck when it came to his home GP, and he was just hoping to do better than last year and actually finish the race. 

He was ready. He’d prepared, and the team had prepared, and the car felt much better than it had last year. Daniel could aim for a best-of-the-rest finish, and while his family weren’t here with him, he knew they would be watching back home. 

One of the more unique experiences Daniel had compared to the other drivers was having his home race as the first race, which always meant he started the season with perhaps the strongest media and fan attention. He was pulled in for early interviews with Lewis, Seb, and the new Williams driver, Nicholas Latifi. Usually questions were fairly predictable, and Daniel already had some jokes pre-prepared in his head for the inevitable comments on his bad luck as a local, and some statements he’d workshopped with the people in PR to explain that yes, the car was looking really good this year, it was a definite improvement, and he was excited to see what he could do with it. 

It wasn’t exactly a normal press conference, though. 

Daniel nearly ran into Lewis outside the press room. Normally, they might have hugged, but this time Lewis took a fairly unsubtle sidestep away from him. “I won’t bite,” Daniel joked, even though he knew why Lewis didn’t want to get too close.

Lewis was apparently too preoccupied to notice the obvious joke. “No, it’s not that,” he muttered, looking distractedly around the corridor as though searching for something. He didn’t bother explaining why he was avoiding touch, for which Daniel was grateful; it would have been explaining the obvious and awkward for them both. “Did you hear about the mechanic at McLaren?” Lewis said instead.

“No, what?” Daniel asked, frowning in curiosity.

“He could have it,” said Lewis, and there was no questioning what it was. “Started showing symptoms, so they’re testing him.”

“Hm,” said Daniel. “I would have expected it to be one of the Italian teams if it was going to be anyone.”

“Yeah, I think most people were expecting that,” said Lewis. “I think it’s a lot more common in England than people are saying, though.”

“That’s not what Lando said?” Daniel said. Really, neither Lando nor Lewis were ever going to be particularly reliable; Lando was like Daniel and always wanted to underestimate the likelihood of bad things happening, while Lewis had a tendency to be a bit of a drama queen and seemed to almost enjoy bad news. 

“Well, I think Lando’s wrong,” Lewis said. “Honestly I don’t know why we’re here… interacting with the locals. Australia’s an island; you could keep it out if you wanted.”

“Britain’s an island too,” said Daniel. “You could keep it out.”

Lewis shrugged, a twisted grin on his face. “Too late for that, I think, mate.”

Daniel didn’t have time to reply, because the door was opened and they were being summoned inside. His mind whirred briefly with what Lewis had said, and then back to the homeless woman who was still living in the hotel, in a city she didn’t know. 

Daniel had spent the summer cosseted away in Perth, and had only seen what was happening on the news, but in Melbourne it was obvious that the fires had had an effect on the population. There was a stress and a sadness in the air that hadn’t been there before, and Daniel had heard more than one person comment about how glad they were that winter was coming, and that it was over. Melbourne had not even been too badly affected, having only been blanketed in smoke for what had seemed like a couple of weeks. Sydney had been covered in smoke for months. Canberra had been so badly off they could not see across the street, and Daniel had read the reports of babies being born into hospital wards with their very first breaths being bushfire smoke, the air so bad outside that not even hospitals had been able to keep clear. Even Perth had started to see shortages of P2 face masks because so many were being bought up to be sent over to the east coast, where they had none.

Was it right for them to just waltz in with all their personnel from around the globe, into an isolated country that had already been through one trauma? Was it right for them to put the people through any level of risk for what was really just a car race? 

Daniel sat next to Lewis on the couch, trying to perch himself on the edge and give him a little more room. There was no way possible to give him the proper 1.5 metres. 

The opening questions were simple, predictable, and Daniel slowly started to relax as his pre-prepared answers rolled off his tongue, the comforting sameness of this ritual enveloping him. While he wasn’t as physically close to Lewis as he might otherwise have been, the rest of this scene was very familiar, and that helped to lull his mind. 

Until they got to Lewis, and they asked him about what he had been doing in the Blue Mountains. All the emotions Daniel had just spent the last five minutes hastily burying rose up again, and he wished desperately he had gotten the homeless woman’s name. He stammered out an answer, feeling oddly ashamed to be doing so - he knew he was the token Aussie, but F1 personnel aside, he was probably the least qualified person in this city to be answering, given that he had been off in the most isolated capital in the world, hidden away from the actual horrors of what had happened on the east coast over summer.

He had visited Sydney as a child, and his parents had taken him to the Blue Mountains. He had seen burnt out, desolate forests then. It was natural, his dad had explained - the trees burned in order to reproduce and grow anew. They had been burning for thousands of years.

They had never burned like this, though, and he hadn’t been there. Most of their European audience had no concept of just how big Australia was, and he didn’t want to give the impression that he had lived through it.

He was one of the lucky ones. 

When they came round to him again, and asked him what he thought about them continuing on with the race like nothing was happening, he had no real answer, no pithy remark. He just shook his head.

Lewis had said it all already anyway.

****

Daniel never did get to prove his home race bad luck wrong - or maybe his home race bad luck was screwing him over so bad it was now affecting other people, because the mechanic for McLaren tested positive and that was the end of race week.

Daniel hadn’t really been following the politics of it all. He was vaguely aware there was some big financial issue with who had to pay for the failed Grand Prix, but he was better off just doing what he was told to do and reassuring his mother, who was still calling a bit too frequently.

“You sound odd, darling, are you sure you’re okay?” Mum had asked on their last conversation.

“Yeah,” he had said, a bit weakly. He was watching everyone pack up and go home as fast as they could, and he was left feeling a little stuck - he was at least already in his home country (which was looking more and more fortunate, as it was apparently getting hard for citizens to return home with how many were trying and how many flights were getting cancelled) but he wasn’t home home. Still, it seemed silly to panic. 

“You will come home, won’t you?” Mum said. “I don’t want you in Melbourne anymore. Kathy thinks Mark McGowan might shut the border.”

“He can’t do that, though, right?” Daniel asked tiredly. The world had become very topsy turvey though, and there probably wasn’t much left that was impossible. 

“We didn’t think they could ban people from coming here from Italy either, did we?” Mum said. “And it might be his only chance for secession. Come home, love.”

“Yeah,” said Daniel. “Yeah, okay.”

Daniel probably had the simplest time out of anyone in getting home, and even he found it a little tricky. He couldn’t get a flight out for a few days, and while he was waiting, Tasmania closed their border to the mainland. Mum tried to encourage him to rent a car and drive, but Daniel shot that down.

“It’ll take me two days at least to even reach the border; by then I would have arrived in Perth on my flight,” he said. “If they shut the border before I get home I guess I’ll just have to stay here.”

And really, Melbourne wouldn’t be so bad. The people were starting to flit about on the streets with more of a nervous energy, and even Daniel had started to notice that the rest of the world was really not doing too well, but Australia didn’t have many cases yet, and Dan Andrews had started to be very, very pushy very publicly towards the federal government on keeping it that way. This whole thing would pass them by the same way SARS did, and Daniel was lucky. He had more than enough money to see himself through easily in a city he didn’t live in.

Daniel never did have to stay in Melbourne, though, because his flight to Perth took off without much incident. The airport was chaotic - in theory, the international arrivals weren’t supposed to be mixing with anybody else, but in practice Daniel had wound up walking through more than one crowd of them as he headed for T1. He overheard more than one panicked conversation and saw more than one person crying in public. 

A couple of people on his flight had opted to wear masks - those large, ill fitting masks sold in Bunnings for woodworking that had eventually come to be sold out across the country as everyone had tried to protect themselves from smoke. It was a far cry from what Daniel had started to see on social media from Europe, with the nicely sewn cloth and fancy designs. 

Daniel shifted in his seat, looking down at his phone.

About an hour into the flight, the man sitting in front of Daniel unclipped his seatbelt and brought his knees up onto the seat, turning and looking over the top of the headrest at him. “How’s it going, Dan?” he said, with that instant and unashamedly familiar tone Daniel often got from his more local fans. 

“Yeah, alright,” Daniel replied easily, tugging off his headphones through which he had been listening to music. “How’re you going?”

“Yeah good,” the man responded, a wide grin splitting his face and his head nodding enthusiastically at the idea of talking to a celebrity. “Me and some mates flew in for the GP actually. Bit of a waste of money in the end, hey!”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Daniel laughed. “I tried to argue that we should just do a race where all the drivers have to also get out and change their own tyres so that the pit crews didn’t have to get too close to each other, but Ferrari was worried Sebastian would start to become even more critical of their car if he got that close a look at it.”

“I thought it was a bit of an overreaction really,” said the man. “I mean people get the flu all the time and they come out okay.”

Daniel didn’t really know what to say to that, so he just smiled and nodded.

“Anyway, I’m sure it’ll kick off again in a couple weeks,” said the man confidently. “She’ll be right, hey?”

Daniel’s mind flashed back to Lewis, afraid to touch him, back to the homeless woman he had met, and back further to the clip he had seen on the news of the pregnant girl who had lost her home in the fire, who had begged for help as the prime minister turned his back on her. “Yeah,” he said, though his smile had faltered. “Yeah, she’ll be right.”

****

Perth Airport was smaller than Melbourne, and the crowds weren’t quite so bad when Daniel arrived. His dad picked him up, still driving the crummy Toyota Camry Daniel had begged him to replace, and refusing to let Daniel drive.

“You’ve been on a long flight; you’re tired,” was the first excuse Dad tried. Then, “Besides, you’ll speed.”

“I don’t speed,” said Daniel defensively. “I drive at an appropriate pace for the conditions.”

“Yeah, you speed,” said Dad. “You got an issue with the speed limits, run for parliament. Until then I’m not letting you get a ticket in my car.”

“I’d pay the fine.”

“That’s not the point!” Dad cried. “I’d have to fill in a stat dec to say I wasn’t driving, and you’d need to sign it, and you’re never around to sign it! The last time I just had to cop the demerits because you were in France!”

Daniel turned his gaze to the city skyline out the window, resting his arm up against the car window and feeling the heat from the sun burying into his skin. “Don’t think I’ll go to France for a while, Dad,” he said, losing his cheery disposition rather suddenly. 

He could feel Dad glance over at him, but he didn’t return his gaze. Dad said nothing, but his hand came across to pat Daniel bracingly on the knee.

Daniel’s childhood bedroom was almost exactly the way he had left it before heading to Melbourne; the only difference being the fresh sheets Mum had put out. Daniel still hadn’t even replaced the bed. He wasn’t exactly a tall man, but he was still slightly too tall for the single bed he had slept on since he had graduated from a cot. His half-peeled racecar stickers were still affixed to the wooden headboard from when he had been a child, and there was still a hint of crayon smeared on the frame near the foot of the bed. 

Coming home was like going back in time.

“What do you want for dinner?” Mum asked, interrupting his musings. “You can’t have pasta; I couldn’t get any. We have a little rice left, though.”

“You couldn’t get pasta?” Daniel repeated dumbly. 

“Yes, the shops are out,” Mum said, brushing past him to grab his suitcase and push it over against a wall - out of the way, she would say.

“I can go to Woolies if you want?”

Mum looked at him, an odd frown on her face like she thought he was crazy. “No, they’re out,” she said.

“Woolies are out of pasta?” Daniel repeated, feeling like he was missing something. “You know I can go to another supermarket?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Mum questioned. “They’re all out - pasta, rice, flour - and go easy on the toilet paper; I had to offer a lady in the carpark twenty bucks for half her pack.”

Mum walked around Daniel again, heading out of his bedroom and down towards the kitchen. 

“The shops don’t have food?” Daniel repeated. He was trying to process the thought. During the fires, there had been concerns about the supply chain from the east, but like most concerns, nothing had ever eventuated. 

“Yeah, people have gone a bit mental,” Mum said easily, as though it was no big deal. “Hardly any grains or anything that can be preserved. Lots of fresh veggies, though - I could make you a stir fry?”

“Sure,” Daniel said numbly. 

****

That evening, Daniel learned that the border to Australia had been closed completely, and worse for his personal circumstances, citizens weren’t allowed to leave the country either. Daniel absorbed the news in a sort of stunned silence, his arms wrapped around his middle as though protecting his core, his feet tensing where they sat on the armrest of the chair he was lying across.

“They can’t do that, can they?” Dad mused, giving voice to Daniel’s own quiet disbelief. “It’s a free country; we should be able to leave if we want to.”

“Why would you want to?” Mum asked casually, sipping on her tea. She had become far more relaxed now that Daniel was under her watchful eye, safe and sound back home and not out in the world where people seemed to be dying in droves. 

Daniel settled in to a strange sort of routine over the next few days, somehow torn between regressing into his teenage self and trying to adjust to the strange new world. Meals had changed, because it was hard to find the food they were used to. Daniel tried going online to book a ticket to watch the Eagles play the Demons at the Optus Stadium, only to find that the match would be played without fans. He resigned himself to watching it on TV, but just as he had finally settled into a good mood and was cheering at the victory for West Coast, the AFL officials came out on the TV and announced the end to the season.

Daniel’s world was shrinking in, slowly but surely. 

Mum still insisted on doing the grocery shopping, leaving the house early every day to queue and try and get in as soon as the senior’s shopping hour was over. Once, she managed to get lucky and score a twelve pack of toilet paper, right as they were down to their last spare roll. 

Daniel spent Tuesday trying to do tricks on his BMX. 

Not long after that, Mark McGowan closed the border between Western Australia and the rest of the country, and further divided the state into segments of multiple manned border crossings. Daniel felt an odd mix of claustrophobia and relief that he hadn’t tried to drive - he probably would have made it to Perth by now, but things went wrong crossing the Nullarbor and he was glad not to have been trapped in the wrong section of the state. 

“Looking pretty serious now, hey?” Dad had commented, though his tone was mild - he didn’t seem to be having any of the internal turmoil Daniel was. 

“You kidding?” Daniel offered weakly. “It’s Westralia. The dream is real now.”

Dad didn’t laugh. “That could well be the case now,” he said. “You watch, son. It’s every state for themselves now.”

Daniel largely tuned himself out of the news after that. 

He spent the lockdown at home. He tried seriously at first to keep fit, but after the twentieth no news call from Cyril it was tough to stay motivated, so he mostly messed around in the yard with his basketball or his soccer ball or his bike. 

Charles invited him to sim race on Twitch. Daniel declined. He didn’t want to almost race. It was more comfortable for him to spend his time in the wide open spaces of his parents’ property, pretending nothing was wrong, pretending he was fifteen again and spending a lazy summer at home. He wished he could go to the beach, or go clubbing or just do something, but when he thought of the fact that he couldn’t, he started to feel closed in again, and so he told himself he was staying home by choice.

It was easier than facing the truth. 

He was vaguely aware of what was happening outside the farm that had become his world. He tried to quit social media, but sometimes his finger just slipped and he’d open it and be confronted with more pictures of nurses and doctors showing their bruised faces from the goggles they wore. He’d shut it down quickly, but there wasn’t much to do about his parents, who would discuss the news with each other, or with friends on the phone, or sometimes, with him. He’d try to redirect the conversation and then go outside when that happened. 

Perth was still relatively okay, but the country wasn’t anymore - a ship in Sydney had been allowed to disembark with half the passengers riddled with corona. They had then headed all over the country. Tasmania had had to shut off the north of the state as people died. It still was nothing compared to the rest of the world, yet, and Daniel could feel the world creeping closer. 

One night, after doing a half-hearted job at stacking the dishwasher after dinner, he headed out the back door without announcing it. He walked down through the yard towards the trees, then walked further after that. It had been a warm day, but the wind was starting to cool, and Daniel hadn’t brought a jacket. He didn’t mind though; he let the cold air nip into his skin and fill his lungs.

When he reached a clearing in the trees, he knelt down in the dirt, finally lying on his back in the dust, his gaze up at the galaxy above him.

They lived far enough from the city that light pollution had never been an issue. Daniel wasn’t usually much of a stargazer, and usually his stargazing had to be accompanied by good crowds and good liquor, neither of which he had. It was utterly silent, and he was left with nothing but the small rocks poking into his back, the wind flitting over his skin, and the wide open expanse of the universe above him.

He did not know how long he lay there, the inky blanket peppered with diamonds above him his only companion. He breathed - in, out, in, out. He normally hated to be alone, but alone was the only way he felt normal now. Alone in his childhood kingdom, where he could do what he liked and where no one was dying. 

He blinked harshly, mildly surprised when he felt a tear track down his cheek. 

He might have slept. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know how much time had passed - all he knew was that suddenly, there was a light in the corner of his eye, and he could hear someone calling.

“Yeah,” he said, but the word had unexpectedly caught in his throat, and it came out as a croaky whisper, too quiet for anyone to have heard him had they not been standing next to him. He cleared his throat, then tried again. “Yeah!”

Mum paused, then the light from her torch swung over onto him and she jogged over. “What on earth are you doing?” she exclaimed upon seeing him lying in the dust.

Daniel opened his mouth to answer, but he wasn’t really sure what to say. He closed it and swallowed. 

“Oh, love,” Mum said gently, and then she was getting to her knees next to him. Daniel sat up, briefly reaching up to rub the stones and sticks and dust from his hair.

Then Mum’s arm was around him, and he suddenly burst into tears.

Mum held him as he cried, just the same way she had always done whenever Daniel needed her. He clung to her, his fists balling up in her dressing gown. She rocked him gently, not demanding he do anything other than cry it out, and she pressed a kiss into his hair. Daniel felt all of ten years old again, his mother comforting him after he had been bullied at school. 

Finally, Daniel felt strong enough to lean back, and wipe at his eyes. “Sorry,” he said, and his voice cracked. “I dunno why.”

Mum gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay, love,” she said. “It’s been a big change for you.”

Daniel frowned. “But it hasn’t?” he said. “I’m fine… I’m home and I’m with you and no one’s sick and… and we’re okay.”

“Nobody’s okay,” Mum said softly. “No one. We count our blessings, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a bit difficult for all of us right now. You had been preparing for so long, and now you’re stuck here. It’s a big change - not to mention you’re stuck home all day with your parents when you’d rather be out with friends!”

Daniel’s mind flashed back to Charles, who had invited him sim racing, to Max, who he hadn’t spoken to in far too long, to Alex, who was stuck home with his family with far less space than Daniel had. He knew the sufferings of Formula 1 drivers who got paid Formula 1 driver salaries were nothing compared to the rest of the world, but surely Daniel, who was protected from disease by a hard border around his home and political leaders brave enough to eliminate it entirely; who had his parents’ farm and a wide open galaxy above him to enjoy - surely he had it easier than anyone else. 

So why was it hitting him so hard? 

“You might be a touch depressed, darling,” said Mum, putting her hand on his forehead as though she could check for depression the same way she did a fever. “Come on; let’s go back to the house. I’ll make you a Milo and I’ll make you a doctor’s appointment in the morning.”

Daniel nodded, a sense of relief enveloping him just at the idea of someone else giving him a plan. He climbed up off the ground, then helped Mum up too, because she was fast approaching sixty and her days of jumping up from the ground were behind her. Daniel bit his lip again at that thought. Mum hadn’t even hesitated to get down to the ground just to give him a hug, even though it was hard on her. 

They headed back to the house together, Mum’s torch lighting the path. 

****

The following day, his dad approached him with a request for help on his ute, which had started making a strange noise. Though Daniel could see right through the fairly transparent attempt his dad was making to give him purpose, he jumped on the opportunity, and they spent much of the day quietly working on the vehicle together. 

More and more chores were found for him in the days following, and he settled into something approaching a routine. He fixed up parts of the house, cleared the gutters out and resumed building the shed his dad had started about five years ago and never finished. 

He did as his mother requested and spoke to his local GP. The appointment was over the phone, which was new, and talking about his feelings was fairly new too. He was asked to answer a series of questions to assess his mental state, although it was fairly clear that they hadn’t exactly been formulated with a pandemic in mind.

“During the last 30 days, how often did you feel hopeless?” the doctor had asked - question 4 on the survey.

Daniel frowned, not entirely sure how he was supposed to answer that. “Well, I think I’ve got pretty good reason for feeling hopeless,” he had said.

He was referred to counselling with a mental health care plan. 

Some days after that, there finally was some good news - Western Australia had just about stamped out coronavirus. Mark McGowan announced that the borders within the state would be disappearing, only the main border with the rest of the country and the world would remain up. 

They could start to return to some semblance of normal. 

It wouldn’t be back to normal for Daniel, who spent most of the year travelling for work. But the small freedom he had now to go to the beach or even to take a road trip down to Albany if he wanted was the breath of fresh air that he needed, and he grabbed hold of that small sense of stability in both hands. 

He decided it was past time to call Max. 

“Hey, Dan,” said Max on picking up, sounding strangely sleepy even though Daniel had double checked the time difference and was sure he had called at an appropriate time.

“Hey, Max,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“You know… boring,” said Max. “Haven’t done anything. Played some FIFA…”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” said Daniel, and he felt his old smile stretch back across his face. Smiling felt almost unfamiliar, and he welcomed it back like an old friend. “I’ve just been hanging out with my parents, but they’re letting us see people now so I might call up some old friends.”

“Yeah?” Max asked.

“Yeah, we just about eliminated it,” said Daniel. “Except for people in quarantine who’ve come in from overseas.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end. “So you’re done, then?”

“Guess so,” said Daniel. God, he wished he had more news to share that wasn’t just this goddamn pandemic or the fact that Mum had managed to score some more toilet paper.

“Huh,” said Max, and there was an odd distance in his voice Daniel didn’t like. Then, “My mum’s got it.”

Oh, shit. 

Daniel shut his eyes, wincing at his own insensitivity. “Shit, Max, I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “How’s she doing - is she okay?”

“For now, yeah,” Max said. “They say it hits you in your second week, though.”

Daniel grimaced, wincing as his own mother shouted down the hallway, asking his father where he had put the onions. Max had definitely heard that. “Sorry, man,” Daniel said again. “Let me know if I can do anything, yeah?”

“What can you do?” Max asked rhetorically. “I can’t even visit her; you can’t do anything.” His tone sounded light, but Daniel knew Max. He knew this would be hitting him hard. “You should go. Enjoy your sunshine.”

And Daniel winced again, because he knew Max lived in an apartment and while he had a balcony, he didn’t have the wide open spaces that Daniel was enjoying. “Yeah,” he said weakly, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. “Seriously though, mate, let me know if I can do anything… if you just want to chat, or…”

“I will,” Max said, and Daniel didn’t know whether to believe him. “Bye.”

****

Daniel met up with some old friends from school, and they grabbed fish and chips and sat at on a blanket at Scarborough Beach, shooing away the seagulls as they came close. 

Jonno was tall, big and blond and loud, and as a car mechanic, probably had the most similar career path to Daniel out of the lot of them. Steve had become an actuary, because he had always had expensive tastes and a knack for numbers, and now he drove an Audi R8 which was his pride and joy. Mitch had wound up in the travel industry. Daniel didn’t have to ask Mitch how things were going - the hunched shoulders and the rapid breathing were indication enough that Mitch was under a tremendous amount of stress in his life. 

“I never had to close, even,” Jonno said, snagging a chip and shoving it into his mouth. “We saw a slight drop in business in the first week, but it picked up again after. Quite a few people decided it was a good time to get their cars serviced, since they weren’t really going to be using them.” He grabbed another chip, not caring one iota about talking with his mouth full of food. “One woman comes in a couple of weeks ago, and she’s got this tiny little old Smart car, and it’s falling to pieces, right? And I found out she crossed the Nullarbor in it, and then hadn’t bothered getting it serviced for a year because she couldn’t find the time.”

“She crossed the Nullarbor in a Smart car?” Steve repeated, frowning. Steve was incredibly risk averse, and probably wouldn’t even chance the trip in a brand new Range Rover. Too many variables.

“I shit you not,” said Jonno. “Mind you it’s not the dumbest thing I’ve seen anyone do in a car, hey, Dan?” He nudged Daniel, grinning. 

“Hey, I’ve never done anything that would leave me stranded somewhere,” said Daniel defensively. 

“You’re kinda stranded now, hey?” Steve said. “What are you even doing with yourself these days? You can’t exactly work from home.”

Daniel shrugged, chewing on a chip thoughtfully as though buying time for an answer. It was hard to say - he wasn’t really doing much, and he was oddly embarrassed by that. His counsellor had told him it was understandable, that the whole world was just taking a pause, but Daniel was feeling really quite pathetic. The world might be taking a pause, but Western Australia was getting back on its feet, and what was he doing? Flips on his BMX. 

“Oh, you know,” he said evasively, when he couldn’t stall anymore. “Been helping out Mum and Dad round the farm a bit. Fixed up my dad’s ute.”

Unexpectedly, Mitch scoffed, and Daniel turned to him, frowning at the odd reaction. 

“You’re on holidays!” Jonno cried, slapping Daniel across the back. It rocked him a little - Jonno was a strong guy who could be a little too enthusiastic. “Man I’d love to kick back and just play Xbox all day. You and Mitch should get together; have an unemployed slacker’s Call of Duty tournament.”

Daniel froze, and he felt Mitch still next to him. His mind whirred, trying to find some way to salvage the situation, but his charisma had been damaged by his depression, and all that could run through his mind was oh shit, what’s going to happen next?

“You think he and I are in the same boat?” Mitch snapped, and wow - he was wound so tight that there was really no escaping the onslaught once Jonno said what he had said.

Jonno, for his part, looked shocked, staring at Mitch with wide eyes. “Uh - I just meant you two have a lot of free time… it might be nice to spend it with each other?”

“Time?!” Mitch spat. “I’ve got no free time! I spend all my time ringing up Centrelink trying to get someone to fucking listen to me while my wife is trying to pay our mortgage on her part time receptionist’s salary and he’s - what - living rent free with Mummy and Daddy and his fifty million dollars?!”

Daniel winced, dropping the chip that had been in his hand. An opportunistic seagull picked it up in its beak and scuttled away. 

Jonno had gone very pale. “I didn’t - I just thought - Dan’s bored and you’re - I just -“

“Oh, Dan’s bored?!” Mitch cried. “I lost my job! All my experience and connections are in travel - you think that’s picking up anytime soon?! You think someone was paying me fifty million dollars? You think I have the luxury of being bored?!”

Daniel could have corrected him on his salary - Mitch had overestimated it by quite a margin - but he knew better. The real figure was still far too high to go down well.

Steve’s blue eyes darted between Jonno and Mitch, his gaze wide and frightened. Daniel wanted to disappear into the ground. 

Jonno apparently decided aggression would be a better strategy. “Hey!” he cried. “It’s been hard on all of us - I’m sorry you lost your job, but that’s not my fault and it’s not Dan’s either!” 

Mitch gave Jonno a withering look, then jumped to his feet. “I’ll see you around,” he said, and without sparing a look at Daniel, he turned and stormed off. 

Daniel remained still and silent for several long moments afterwards, a heavy pit forming in his stomach. It was one thing listening to an F1 driver tease him over the size of his contract. It was another thing having an old friend in desperate need berate him for having so much.

“Sorry, Dan,” Jonno said, his voice weak. “I… I didn’t think…”

“’S’okay,” Daniel muttered, shaking his head as though trying to clear it. 

****

By good fortune, Daniel had an appointment with his counsellor that afternoon. While the threat of the virus was largely gone, the clinic was still being cautious, and so he was still having sessions over Zoom in his childhood bedroom, trying not to speak too loudly and broadcast everything to his parents. His parents, to their credit, usually made some excuse for getting out of the house, or at least as far away from Daniel’s room as they could get, while he had his appointments.

His counsellor’s name was Lisa, and she was an older woman with a kind face and long, curled, iron-grey hair. Daniel had never seen a counsellor before. He knew Romain was a big believer and an advocate for the destigmatisation of men seeking psychological support, but Daniel still found it oddly intimidating to log on each week, no matter how nice Lisa was. 

“You look a bit upset today; what’s going on?” she asked, after they had said their opening pleasantries. 

Daniel took a deep breath, and told Lisa about how his lunch had gone with his friends. He told her about Mitch’s situation, and how badly he had reacted to Jonno’s joke, and, shame curling in his gut, he told her what Mitch had said in response. “And this is just the same thing again,” he said, looking down at a speck of dust on his keyboard because he wasn’t able to meet Lisa’s eyes, even through the computer screen. 

“Sorry, this is what again?” she prompted.

Daniel shrugged, swallowing against a lump in his throat. “I don’t have any right to feel sorry for myself, do I? I have the best life out of anyone in the world… people don’t have jobs, Max’s mum’s sick… the world’s falling apart and I’m fine and I just feel guilty, I guess.”

“I don’t think you have the best life in the world,” said Lisa immediately. Daniel chanced a glance up at her, and she was still smiling kindly at him. She hadn’t gotten angry or annoyed when he had mentioned his salary. “Why did you decide to become a Formula 1 driver?”

Daniel shrugged, not really understanding her point. “Because I love it,” he said.

“And you must have worked really hard for it. And you keep working hard every year.”

“Yeah…”

“You’ve had a big change in your life that you weren’t prepared for,” Lisa continued gently. “You loved driving; you loved your career, and it’s been taken from you through no fault of your own. That’s really, really hard. Now you’re back home with your parents, again through no real choice of your own, and you don’t know when your life is going to get back to normal again. It’s out of your control.”

Daniel fiddled with a loose thread at the bottom of his T-shirt. “Yeah,” he mumbled again.

“That doesn’t sound like the best life in the world,” Lisa said. “That sounds like you’re going through a pretty tough period. And it’s wonderful to have family to support you, and it’s wonderful that you don’t need to worry about how you’re going to pay the bills without your job, but we don’t just have jobs for the money.”

Daniel nodded. The knot in his stomach was starting to untangle, and he was beginning to feel slightly better.

“Now, I don’t watch F1 or anything,” Lisa continued, “so forgive me the basic question. Is it something you need to keep fit for - driving those cars?”

The corner of Daniel’s lip twitched upwards - it was a basic question indeed. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Our bodies get thrown around at 5Gs or more; we have to be really strong to withstand it.”

Lisa nodded. “And have you been keeping up whatever exercise you normally do to maintain that strength?” she asked.

Daniel winced. “Uh, no not really,” he admitted. It had been too hard - he couldn’t exactly work with a trainer through lockdown, and besides, he had been too busy feeling sorry for himself to exercise.

“Well exercise is incredibly beneficial for your mood,” said Lisa, “but more to the point, I think resuming those exercises - I’m sure you’ll know better than me what exercises they are - will give you a sense of purpose. It’s part of your job to stay fit, and if you get back in condition you’ll be ready to return the minute they say it’s okay.”

Daniel nodded slowly, a frown still creasing his forehead, but it was more a frown of contemplation than anything else. “Hm,” he said. “You really think they’ll start it up again? Everything’s still looking pretty bad everywhere else.”

“Well, like I said, I don’t follow F1,” said Lisa, “but a lot of sports are looking at different ways they can get going again. People need something to look forward to; they need a sense of community and focus, and sports are a great way to provide that. If you’re up to condition to participate when they do start up again - and I don’t know how long it will be, but they will start up again - you’ll be providing that joy to everyone who watches.”

Daniel nodded, not saying anything, but the knot in his stomach had finally released entirely, and he felt more at peace than he had in weeks. 

“So do whatever it is you do,” said Lisa. “Go to a gym, run around the block - I really have no idea what kind of fitness someone would need to do to drive a car. But tell me about it next week, okay?”

“Yeah,” said Daniel quietly. “Yeah, I will.”

****

From then, Daniel turned a corner. 

He reached back out to Michael, with whom he had not spoken since before the shit hit the fan, and started working out properly again. Michael seemed incredibly enthusiastic, and Daniel got the impression that he wasn’t the only one who had been hit blind by the pandemic and who was searching for a purpose.

He was slightly ashamed of how badly he’d let himself go - he hadn’t been this out of condition in years, and Michael had to adjust his expectations downward more than once. Michael didn’t seem to mind at all, though, and he was patient and understanding even though he himself had never been in better nick. Daniel supposed Michael had coped with the stress of lockdown by exercising excessively while Daniel had pretty much just lounged around. 

As his body grew stronger, his mind grew stronger too. He no longer felt like he was two hard knocks away from breaking down, and he finally felt that he had a purpose. He would get back in that car - no matter how long it took, he’d get back out there and he’d aim to win. He wasn’t in control of when or how the season would start, or how this virus was running rampant all around the world, but he could control his state of readiness for when the time did come. 

He didn’t realise quite how far gone he had been until Michelle came over one Saturday with the kids. Daniel immediately gravitated to his nephew, like he always did, and the child immediately squealed in delight when he saw him, then turned and ran away. Daniel, knowing the script by now, made some funny monkey noises, raised his arms over his head, and began chasing after him in a comically exaggerated gangly run. 

“You can’t catch me, Uncle Danny!” little Georgie squealed, but then he immediately made a tactical error, because he was a kid and kids were stupid, and he ran into the corner of the living room, looking at Daniel running after him with a huge smile on his little face.

“Careful!” Michelle cried as one of the arms Daniel was waving around comically knocked a book off a shelf, but Daniel paid it no mind, catching Georgie in the corner and snaring him in his arms, tickling his belly as the little boy squealed and squirmed. 

Daniel grabbed him around the middle, sweeping him up into the air and making aeroplane zooming noises as he flung Georgie around. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Michelle wincing visibly, but contrary to the chaos he was portraying, Daniel had a sharp eye on every shelf and ceiling fan - everything that might pose a threat to Georgie. He ran around the room, still making aeroplane noises as he flew his nephew like a plane, and the little boy screamed and laughed. 

That was until another noise cut through the cacophony - Mum suddenly started crying.

Georgie still was giggling, but Daniel stopped what he was doing, dropping Georgie down to the ground and ignoring him as he tugged insistently on his shorts, wanting to be lifted up again. “What - I wasn’t going to kill him or anything,” he said, then he gave Georgie a wicked grin. “Mighta made him puke all over himself, though.” 

Georgie laughed again and slammed his little fists on Daniel’s knees. 

“No,” said Mum, shaking her head and dabbing at her eyes with the tissue Michelle had handed her. “No - it’s just… I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Daniel’s wide grin softened, and he felt a surge of compassion for his mother. She was his rock - she always had been, and sometimes it was easy to forget the effect his behaviour and his life choices had on her. She had always supported him, even when he was a little shit who refused to do homework or chores, even when he wanted to risk his life racing, even when he had returned home in a pandemic, depressed and lonely and lacking direction. 

He nodded briefly, glancing down at Georgie, who was now drooling on his knees. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m always okay.”

Daniel spent much of the morning playing with Georgie. It gave Michelle some time to have a proper adult talk with her parents - she still had the baby, but the baby didn’t much care if people talked politics or if it was being entertained at all times. More than that, though, Georgie gave Daniel back that light, confident feeling he hadn’t felt since before the fires had started, almost a year ago. Daniel wasn’t stupid - he knew a lot of people, Michelle included, saw him as immature, or an overgrown child. But he lived his life seeking to be happy, and making others happy made him happy, and the innocent, glowing smile Georgie gave him when he taught him a new clapping game was everything to Daniel. 

His dad put on a barbecue for lunch, and Daniel sat with Georgie on his lap, cutting up his sausage for him and, to Georgie’s disgust, mixing it in with his bowl of mashed pumpkin. Michelle was still talking politics, a note of stress in her voice as she recounted the latest federal attack on the WA border. 

Two weeks ago the conversation might have made Daniel stressed and upset, the way Michelle was apparently feeling now. With Georgie there laughing at the faces he pulled and looking up at him like he hung the moon, Daniel didn’t feel any of that anymore. “Nah, she’ll be right,” he said confidently, the first thing he had said throughout the adults’ conversation. “You any idea how popular Westralia is? No one cares if the prime minister of Sydney comes knocking; Mark’s not gonna budge.”

An odd frown appeared on Michelle’s face, as though she was surprised Daniel knew even this much. “When did you become so wise in politics?” she asked suspiciously.

Daniel shrugged. “Probably round when Get on the Beers was released,” he said, then looked down at Georgie and began doing a terrible beatbox. “C’mon, Georgie, sing with me - beers, beers, beers, get on the beers…”

Georgie looked up at him with a curious smile on his face, then repeated in a small voice, “Get on the beers…”

“Stop corrupting my child!” Michelle said, but there was no heat in her words.

“Yeah, nah, not gonna happen,” said Daniel, tickling Georgie again, which probably wasn’t a good idea now that he had sausage and pumpkin in his stomach. “Fun Uncle Danny, right?”

“Fun Uncle Danny!” Georgie squealed, then leaned up and pressed a messy kiss into Daniel’s cheek. 

Daniel’s smile stretched wider than it had been in weeks.

Later, when Georgie was napping on Daniel’s bed and Mum and Dad were in the lounge with a cup of coffee, Michelle took Daniel outside to the herb garden under the pretext of helping her gather some oregano and basil to take home. Daniel might not have been as smart as his university educated big sister, but he knew people, and he knew a bullshit excuse when he heard one. She wanted to talk to him, in private. He just didn’t know what about.

“So how are you doing, anyway?” Michelle asked. Her tone was light, but it was the kind of forced lightness people adopted when they wanted to have a serious conversation and still come across as non-threatening. 

Daniel looked up at her, noting how her dark eyes were pointing at the plant she was cutting, but her head was angled more his direction than was natural. She was watching him through her peripheral vision. “Better,” he said honestly. “I’m doing better.”

“Mum said you went missing one night,” Michelle continued. “Said she looked for you for ages. Nearly called the cops before she finally found you lying in the dirt a K or so into the bush.”

Daniel gritted his teeth. He hadn’t known what he was doing that night. The fact that he had been stone cold sober made it even worse. 

“I am doing better now,” he said again, and he remembered Romain again, remembered how open he had been about seeking help, not just around the paddock but even to the press too. “I’m seeing a psychologist,” he admitted quietly.

Michelle’s hands slowed, but beyond that she didn’t react. “Is it helping?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Daniel said. He dropped the plant he was working on and sat back on his heels. Suddenly, he felt the urge to talk, to tell Michelle what had been going through his messed up brain these past few months. “I guess I was mostly feeling guilty,” he said. “That week in Melbourne… even when things were fine, they weren’t fine. Before the circus arrived, when I was just wandering around on my own, everyone was just sad. The fires were barely over and nothing was fixed - still isn’t,” he interjected bitterly. “And earlier, in winter testing… people were coming up to me and telling me how sorry they were, was I doing okay… and I was here. The whole summer I was here.” He shook his head, a bitter chuckle working its way through his throat. “Most of them are Europeans. They know Australia’s big but they don’t really get how big, and that not much really reached us… jeez, New Zealand mighta got more smoke than we did, I think…”

Michelle leaned back too, bringing her feet out so they were crossed in front of her as she watched Daniel with kind, patient eyes.

“Then a couple days later on things started to get worse… you know, with Covid, and the questions on the fires stopped. Then I wound up back here, thinking we were all going to die, and I’m just safe again. All my friends are going through absolute shit; they’re in Europe or America and they’re scared to even go to the dentist, and even the ones here are losing their jobs and trying to deal with Centrelink, and I just see those pictures of Centrelink queues and I just feel guilty, because I’m not suffering; I have a home and family and I’m fine.”

Michelle shrugged. “Just because you’re not on the streets doesn’t mean you can’t feel pain at what’s happening around you,” she said gently. “You lost more than me, I think. I already work from home; my life has barely changed at all, apart from the fact that I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to buy toilet paper on eBay this year. You lost your job; I know you don’t need the money, but that still means something. And you’re only human; you’re absorbing the pain from the world just the same as any of us.”

“Yeah, I know that now,” said Daniel. “I really am doing better. I’ve started working out again… gives me a bit of a sense of purpose. And I’ve donated money, but it doesn’t feel like I’m actually doing anything useful to help people.”

Michelle leaned forward, frowning suddenly like he had said something ludicrous. Daniel shot her a questioning look. “Help people?” she repeated. “You mean like, directly?”

Daniel nodded, a frown of confusion on her face. “Uh, yeah, of course,” he said stupidly.

Michelle suddenly gave him a light smack on the shoulder. “You idiot!” she cried, and though the word was harsh her tone was good-natured. “You do know your sister has two kids, right? Two kids who love their uncle?”

“Uh, I don’t really get what you’re -“

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve gone to the movies?” Michelle cried. “Since I’ve had a bath to myself? Since I’ve seen my friends? Please, Dan, I know you love them, and I love them too but please God take my kids away from me!”

Daniel groaned, putting his head in his hands. “I’m an idiot,” he said. “I totally forgot that babysitting would be something useful to you; I only think of it as fun for me and I’ve been feeling guilty for having too much fun.”

“Wait till you clean up baby vomit for the fifth time in one night then tell me how much fun you’re having!” laughed Michelle. “No, seriously, if you take the kids out sometimes, you wouldn’t believe how valuable that would be to me. You really would be making a difference.” She smiled warmly at him. “And for your friends overseas… just give them a call, yeah? When you’re going through a tough time, even though there might not be anything you can physically do to help, just a phone call can be so important.”

Daniel nodded. “Thanks, Michelle,” he said sincerely.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’m going to get to take a piss without a toddler banging on the door… oh, it’s going to be brilliant…”

****

Later that evening, Daniel called up Max. “Hey, man,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“Yeah, yeah not too bad really,” said Max. “They’re talking about ending the lockdowns here.”

Part of Daniel wanted to ask further questions, because from what he had been exposed to on the news Europe still looked pretty screwed as a whole, but there was nothing Max could do about government decisions anyway, so he left it. “Yeah, I’m sorry it’s been a while since we’ve last chatted,” he said. “How’s your mum?”

Please don’t let the answer be “she’s dead.”

“Yeah, she’s fine now,” said Max, and a muscle in Daniel’s abdomen he didn’t realise he was tensing relaxed abruptly. “Seems she just had it very mildly. Might even be a lucky thing; she’s probably immune to it now so it’s one less person I have to worry about.”

“Yeah,” said Daniel. “Now you can just get back to your regularly scheduled worrying about when she’s going to decide you’re too old for her to still be doing your laundry.”

Max guffawed, and Daniel grinned. He loved making people laugh. “Shut up, don’t give her ideas,” he said. “You know the washing machine tried to kill me.”

“Dunno about that, Max, I think most people would anticipate their apartment flooding if they took the outlet hose from the washing machine out of the sink and just left it on the ground.”

“Well how was I supposed to know; it didn’t come with instructions!” Max cried. He chuckled again before quieting with a sigh. “Anyway, how are you doing? I heard Australia is doing well.”

Daniel’s mind flashed to the queues outside Centrelink, to the people still homeless after fires four months or more past, to the infighting between the federal government and the states and the repeated cries that New Zealand was doing everything better. He thought, too, of the zeroes he saw repeated day after day in WA’s local Covid statistics, of the way every state had put aside any former rivalries and had shown a united front to get things done, of the way Mum and Dad and Michelle looked at him with such love even when he felt like a complete screwup. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we’re doing pretty good really. Best we can do with what we’ve been dealt.”

He wondered if Max understood that he was talking about more than just Australia’s response to Covid. 

“That’s all any of us can do, right?” Max said eventually. 

There was a pause, but it wasn’t awkward. “It’s good to hear from you, Dan. I’m sorry I haven’t called… just been crazy; I haven’t had the space in my brain to think. Haven’t talked to anyone.”

“Yeah, mate, I get it,” said Daniel. He shifted, swapping the phone to his other ear. “Listen, man, I know it’s a really tough time. I just wanted to let you know that if you need someone to talk to, I’m here, okay?”

It was a big step for Daniel. When this had all began he would have preferred to shut it all down in his mind and pretend everything was okay, but he really meant it now. He finally had the mental space to spare, and he could help his friends still going through a crisis by being a friendly ear to listen.

“Yeah… yeah, thanks, man,” Max said, his voice quieter now, but somehow more emotional. “Uh, I appreciate it. I feel stupid, you know? I’m doing okay, but I still feel bad inside.”

“I get it,” said Daniel, and he did. He really did. 

Daniel was feeling rather good after his call with Max, and so he decided to make a second one, a phone call to someone on the grid who had perhaps helped him more than he would have expected to. 

“Allô?” came the soft French accent from the other side of the line. Daniel could hear children squealing in the background.

“Hey, Romain,” Daniel said. “It’s Dan.”

“Oh,” said Romain, sounding surprised. Daniel didn’t blame him - Romain was a great guy and they got along, but Romain ran in different circles to Daniel off the track and he wasn’t exactly on Daniel’s usual off-season call list. “Hello, Daniel, how are you going?”

Daniel could still hear Romain’s kids in the background, and he wondered if he had maybe called at an inconvenient time. Still, they didn’t seem to be shouting for their father, and Romain wasn’t making any indication he needed to hurry, and besides, this was a call Daniel had had to work up a little nerve for, so he decided to just get it over with in a hurry. “I’m good now, mate, thanks,” he said. Then he paused, his throat suddenly feeling like it had a rock wedged in it, and his nerve faltered.

Romain seemed to realise Daniel wasn’t finished, and he remained quiet on the other end of the phone. 

“I just, uh…” Daniel started, then he screwed his eyes shut. No way to say it but to just say it. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he said. “I, uh, I guess I took everything that happened a bit hard. I started seeing someone - uh, a shrink, not a girlfriend.” Then Daniel smacked his hand into his forehead, screwing up his eyes in embarrassment. Real smooth. “Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you… I’ve never, uh, seen someone before, and thinking of how you talked about how it helped you… uh, that really helped me feel okay about it. So… thank you?” His tone angled up at the end, as though it were a question, even though it really wasn’t.

“Oh,” said Romain, sounding surprised. “Thank you for telling me that… I must admit, out of everyone I really didn’t expect it to be you telling me this.”

“Um, yeah,” said Daniel, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “I know you must think it’s really stupid; I mean compared to you guys we’re doing fine, and -“

“It’s not stupid at all, Daniel,” Romain said seriously. “What I said before, about me being surprised, I should not have said that. Mental illness can affect anyone at anytime, and we’ve all gone through a lot this year, you included.” Romain sighed. “I felt the same way when I first sought help; I felt like I was being stupid and wasting their time, but I wasn’t. My problems were real… yours are too.”

“Yeah,” said Daniel weakly. “That’s what they tell me.” He cleared his throat, trying to loosen it up. “Anyway, I thought I should tell you that it helped me - not getting help - I mean you talking about getting help. That helped me get help and yeah, it, uh -“

“Helped?” Romain supplied, a smile in his voice. “I’m grateful you told me, Daniel. Thank you.”

The tension Daniel had been carrying for the entirety of the awkward phone call dissipated, and he was left with a sense of peace. “So how are you going?” Daniel asked finally. “I never returned the question when you asked. But that’s just me, isn’t it? Socially awkward?”

Romain chuckled. “We’re doing good, all things considered,” he said. “It’s definitely strange; it’s been a change, but Marion and I are looking at is as an opportunity… we haven’t had so much time with just us and the kids in as long as I can remember.”

Romain really did sound remarkably at peace. 

“Yeah,” said Daniel contemplatively. “You know what you sound like, Romain?”

“What’s that?”

“Grid Gandalf. A wise old man who doles out advice to all the kids around him.”

Romain chuckled again. “You know I’m only a couple of years older than you,” he said. “What’s Gandalf?”

Daniel groaned. “God, you’re kidding? Gandalf? Lord of the Rings?”

“I’ve not read them. I didn’t take you for the fantasy nerd kind.”

“Hey, I watched the movies!” Daniel said defensively, though there was mirth in his voice all the same. “Look, bugger off will you, and don’t tell anyone about the Gandalf thing.”

It was a good time to wrap up their conversation anyway; Daniel heard a thump from the other end of the line and then a child start crying. Romain said something in French, but he didn’t sound too fazed. “Bye then, Daniel.”

****

Over the next few days, Daniel managed to call every single driver on the grid, just to ask how they were going. Some conversations were short and perfunctory - Kimi, Valtteri, and Kevin all lived up to their Nordic stereotypes and didn’t seem to want to chat about anything all that deep or meaningful. Others were long and draining - Lewis in particular spent a long time complaining bitterly about the Covid response in the US and UK and didn’t seem particularly amenable to Daniel’s attempts to relieve the tension by joking. 

Some, like his conversation with Lando, were fraught. 

“I just wanted to see how you were getting on,” Daniel had said to Lando. “I know things aren’t going all that great where you are, and if you just wanted someone to talk to who’s a bit less involved… well, I’m available.”

There was a long, pregnant pause. “I’m…” said Lando in a wavering voice, and then, to Daniel’s alarm, he started sobbing. 

“Oh, mate,” Daniel said gently. 

Lando cried for a few minutes, and Daniel just sat and listened patiently. Once upon a time, he might have made a crack about Lando being a wuss, but he was older and wiser, and he understood the fear and horror that could come from watching your world close in around you. 

“Sorry,” said Lando at length, sniffing and then groaning. “I didn’t mean to just lose it on you…”

“It’s okay, man,” said Daniel sincerely. 

“It’s just that I don’t really have anyone to talk to right now,” Lando said. “My parents are stressed enough already; they don’t need me making things worse. I tried talking to Carlos, but I think he’s taking it really hard too… he can’t even talk about it…”

Daniel made a mental note to check in specially with Carlos. 

“I’ve been streaming, and I thought it would be a cool way to give people a break, let them take their mind off things, but now it just feels like a useless chore I have to do.”

“It’s not useless, though,” said Daniel. “I’m sure people love what you’re doing.” He leaned back in his chair. “Of course you don’t get to actually see them enjoying it through a computer…”

“It’s stupid,” said Lando bitterly. “I’m fine. I don’t have to go work in a hospital, or anything like that, but I still just feel sad all the time.”

“Yeah,” said Daniel gently. “I get that… that’s how I felt, too.”

“Yeah?” Lando asked weakly. 

“Yeah, really.”

“I didn’t think it would be like this,” continued Lando. “I thought it would just disappear, you know?  And then it didn’t, and I just got to the point where I couldn’t ignore it anymore.”

And Daniel smiled. He knew fans, and even others around the paddock, had been comparing Lando to himself for a while, saying Lando could be a younger version of Daniel with his sense of humour and easygoing nature. But this was the first time Daniel had seen more of himself in Lando than just a love of laughter. “Sometimes it takes reality a little time to break through to you,” he said gently. “But when it does… it hits you hard.”

“Yeah,” Lando said, and Daniel thought he heard a hint of curiosity in his tone. “How’d you figure?”

“We’re pretty alike, you and me,” Daniel said simply. “Except for the fact that I’ve got pubes.”

Lando guffawed, and when he started speaking again, he sounded lighter. “How’d you deal with it?”

“A few different things,” said Daniel. “Avoided the news if I could… course I had to follow a bit, but I tried not to doomscroll. My mum was really helpful. And I felt a lot better after I started training again; sort of gave me a purpose, I guess. Gotta get back on the podium at some stage.”

“Yeah, not if I have anything to say about it,” said Lando softly.

“We can share,” said Daniel. “Me on top - you can have second.” He paused. “And I’m seeing a shrink.”

“What, really?” Lando said. “You?”

“Yeah, me.” Daniel knew he gave off an air of permanent cheer, so he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that people were so surprised he wasn’t coping. “Might be worth a go; you can afford it.”

Lando sighed. “I spose having no Covid for your grandma to catch must help too,” he said, a note of bitterness in his voice.

Daniel clenched his jaw briefly, but he knew better to get angry. Lando was just a poor kid in pain who saw, from his perspective, a friend on much greener pastures. “Yeah, it does,” Daniel said bluntly. “And I suppose having millions of dollars helps you, too, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going through a tough time.”

Lando didn’t answer, but Daniel could hear him breathing.

“Look, mate, I’m not gonna go through all of why this year has sucked for me too, but you know it has, and not just the Covid either. I had a tough time, but I’m getting there, and I know I’m lucky to be in a place that’s back to normal. That’s why I want to help you, because I know you’re not there yet.”

Lando still didn’t say anything for a moment, but Daniel held his tongue, and Lando eventually croaked out, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, mate, I get it.” Daniel decided to change the subject. “Now you’re a kid, right? My nephew’s birthday’s coming up. What’s more popular with babies right now: Bluey or Shaun the Sheep?”

Lando laughed again. “Dickhead,” he muttered. “Thanks, Dan. Really. I think I needed to hear that.”

Daniel smiled. “Sure,” he said easily. “Feel free to call me, too, yeah?”

“Yeah, definitely. Thanks, man. Have a good… what time is it there?”

“Night,” said Daniel.

“Yeah. Goodnight then.”

“Night, Lando.”

****

Daniel’s days found a new routine. He exercised with Michael, he cleaned up around the house, and he talked frequently with Max, Lando, and Pierre, who had also latched on to the offer of a friend who wasn’t already up to his eyeballs in Covid in his own life. He babysat regularly, and Michelle said he was a pro by now at changing dirty nappies. He went out with his own friends, going to clubs at night or the beach during the day, and he sampled a lot of local tourist ventures like skydiving, wine tasting, or windsurfing. There were no international or interstate tourists anymore, and the operators were grateful for the local patronage. He even made things right with Mitch, who was in a better mood because he had managed to get lucky and find a job coordinating fly-in-fly-out workers in the mines up north. It wasn’t as glamorous as his old job, but it paid the bills and Mitch said the people he worked with were welcoming and grateful. 

Daniel was watching TV with his parents when the call he’d been waiting for came in. 

“Hello, Daniel?” And there was only one person in the world who pronounced his name like Danielle.

“Cyril!” Daniel cried, waving his arm in his dad’s direction to get him to turn down the volume on the news report - something about a hotel quarantine breach in Melbourne. They’d be alright. Australia had had what seemed like dozens of breaches by now, and they always were alright. “Shit, man, I didn’t expect to hear from you!”

“Hm,” Cyril said. “We need you in Austria in a couple of weeks. The FIA has announced a start to the season again.”

“Oh,” said Daniel, his mind whirring. This was the news he had been waiting months for, the news he had worked so hard to be ready for.

On the couch, his parents had stopped watching the TV and were staring at him, their expressions unreadable.

“Daniel? Is there a problem?”

Daniel’s little safe haven with his parents had been a godsend, but it was time to get back out there in the world and do what he was born to do.

“Nah, man,” Daniel said. “Just trying to think… how am I gonna get there? There’s no flights… and shit, I just remembered I gotta apply to leave the country…”

“We will arrange a plane,” said Cyril easily. “You just be ready for the plane, yes?”

“Yes,” said Daniel. “Definitely, yes.”

Across from him, Mum looked down to the ground. 

****

Daniel had been anxious about getting an exemption to leave Australia, but permission came surprisingly easily. Michelle had scoffed when he had told her.

“My girlfriend Naomi couldn’t get an exemption to visit her dying father in Ireland, but you get one to drive a rocket car,” she had said sarcastically. “Yeah, okay then.”

Daniel had mostly gotten over his feelings of guilt, but they did resurface after he heard that. He knew the queues for citizens wanting to come home were well into the multiple tens of thousands, and he knew he could buy himself a quarantine place at a private location if he did need to come home. There wasn’t a risk of getting stranded for him. 

Abandoning his dream for a fit of principle wasn’t going to solve anything, though, and so Daniel packed his bags and headed for the airport. He sat in the back - Dad still insisted on driving and Mum had the front passenger seat. She was being rather annoying. 

“You’ve got a mask, right love?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Hand sanitiser? I put some travel packs in the kitchen this morning - you did grab them, right?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“And you’ll wash your hands? Better than what you’ve been doing, I mean - it’s a miracle you’re not dead of food poisoning, honestly -“

“Yes, Mum.”

“Hey, watch the tone,” said Dad. “We just want to look out for you, yeah? This year can’t be like the other years - you can’t go out partying with your mates or anything. You gotta be careful.”

Daniel shifted, meeting Dad’s eyes in the rear vision mirror. “Yeah, I know,” he said softly. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

In the mirror, the corner of Dad’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “We love you, son, you know that, right?”

Images seemed to flash before Daniel’s eyes - Mum comforting him after he was dumped by his girlfriend; Dad cheering until the tendons in his neck stuck out when he came in second in Melbourne seven years ago, and the way he had almost fallen over when Daniel was disqualified. The way Mum had looked for him after he had walked out of the house that night, held him as he cried, and set him on the path to healing.

“Yeah,” Daniel said sincerely. “Yeah, I know.”

The airport was practically deserted. No cars were driving through, not even taxis, and a couple of buses were sitting abandoned in the drop off zone. “Shit,” said Daniel. “Looks like Canberra in January.”

They had their pick of carparks, so Dad drove up as close as he could get and turned off the car. Mum or Dad or whoever was driving him to the airport usually just dropped him off outside, so Daniel was slightly surprised when his parents both got out of the car with him, and Dad even took his bags out of the boot, even though Daniel was younger and stronger.

They were trying to take care of him, until they couldn’t anymore. 

There was only one person stationed at the security area for international departures, and she had been playing on her phone, a bored, glazed look in her eye. “Oh,” she said, perking up when she saw people approach. “Uh, I just need your boarding pass, passport, and statement of exemption to leave Australia, if you’re a citizen.”

Daniel nodded, swinging his backpack round to his front and fishing around for the documents. It was strange, not having the documents ready and yet not also causing a massive queue behind him while he fished around.

“Wait, aren’t you that guy?” the woman asked bluntly. “On that Netflix show?”

“Ah, you got me,” said Daniel, finally finding what he was after and handing the papers over. “Yeah, I play that kid on Stranger Things.”

“Hm, I think you might want to go back to the buzz cut then, it suited you better,” she said wittily as she read through his documents. Dad laughed and slapped Daniel on the back. “Why d’you wanna leave Perth anyway? God’s country here.”

Daniel’s mouth twisted up in a grin. “You got that right,” he said. “You enjoy it on my behalf, yeah?”

She smiled and handed his papers back. “Have a nice flight,” she said.

Mum and Dad couldn’t accompany him past that point, so Daniel turned back to them. 

Dad smiled, a hint of moisture in his eyes, and swept Daniel up into a bone-cracking hug. “Good luck, son,” he said. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Daniel shook his head into Dad’s shoulder. “I won’t,” he promised. 

They broke apart, and Daniel turned to Mum. Where Dad’s eyes had been slightly moist, Mum had tear tracks down her cheeks.

Daniel leaned in and hugged her too. Her hands swept up, underneath his backpack so she was gripping the back of his shirt. “Be safe, sweetheart. Please, be safe.”

Daniel nodded. “I will, Mum. I swear,” he said softly. “Thank you. For everything.”

She gripped him tighter. “You’re my baby boy,” she said. “The only thanks I ever need is seeing you come home at the end of the day.”

“I’ll come home,” he said. “Soon as I can.”

She squeezed him tighter for a moment, then let him go, reaching instead to wrap her arm around Dad’s waist. Daniel took up the handle of his suitcase and gave them one last smile. “Bye Mum. Bye Dad.”

And he turned, walking across the line that marked the Australian border, out from the safety of his bubble and into the rest of the world. 

Michael was already on the plane when Daniel arrived, sitting and staring contemplatively out the window. He smiled up at Daniel when he boarded. 

“It’s weird, hey?” he said, nodding out at the tarmac. 

Daniel nodded, taking the seat opposite Michael. The private jet Cyril had organised was small, but it still felt very empty with just the two of them. 

“You okay?” Michael asked. 

Daniel looked out the window. Inside the terminal, he saw two lone figures standing vigil behind the glass, watching him silently. Though he doubted they could see him, Daniel lifted a hand in a small goodbye anyway. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, I’m good.”