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They were shooting up to the top of the hill. All they had heard was that the Lambo had crashed and Jeremy was furious. As soon as it was safe he jumped out of the crew RangeRover and ran to have a look.
He could see where the car had come off the track and below him was a car, on its roof and on fire. But something wasn’t right. This car was white and the Lamborghini was yellow.
“Hammond’s in there!” The shout tore his eyes away from the wreck that he now recognised as the Rimac Hammond had been driving. James May was running towards him, running, not walking, actually running, looking more terrified than Jeremy had ever seen him. Jeremy had no words. His veins turned to ice and he felt his knees wobble.
Fifteen years of friendship, of near misses and lucky escapes, and finally Hammond’s luck had run out. The emergency service vehicles milling around the burning wreckage seemed distant and small. Everything sounded like it was a very long way away.
Jeremy could feel May panting slightly beside him, fighting to get his breaths under control, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. Then May was calling a nearby marshal over and demanding to know if there was any extra information on what had happened. The marshal got on the radio and after a brief exchange approached them.
“They got the driver out before it caught fire. The body is behind the screen down there.”
Later, much later, Jeremy will reason with himself that it was probably a language difficulty, after all, English was obviously not this man’s first language, and it might not even have been his second. But now, only two words stuck. The Body.
It was confirmation of one of his worst fears. His jelly-like knees gave way, and it was only the quick reactions of James and the marshal that had him descending in a semi-controlled manner to a seated position, rather than falling on his face. Sound fades in and out, and then a crew member is there, sound department Jeremy thinks.
“Jeremy!” The man is saying. “Jeremy, I can hear him on his mic, he’s alive, he’s lucid and he’s talking to the medics.”
This didn’t process immediately, but then the earphones the sound guy had been wearing arrive over Jeremy’s ears and he can hear Hammond speaking.
“I have to phone my wife, I need to speak to Mindy. This will be all over the news and I need to tell her myself that it’s just my leg, my head’s fine. Can somebody please get me a phone, I think mine was in the car when it went up.”
The relief surged through him and his strength came back as quickly as it had departed. He looked at James, and tried to stand up, only to be pushed back down.
“He’s okay, he’s talking, now I need to go and murder him for scaring me so badly.” Jeremy announced with some of his usual swagger back.
“I’m glad, but your face is a funny shade of grey and you just collapsed into a heap. Hammond’s being airlifted to hospital, we’ll go by car and meet him there, but you’re not going anywhere until you’ve had some juice or something and don’t look like your about to keel over. I caught you once, but next time I’m just going to let you fall.”
As James was speaking, a crew member came over with some sugary, sports drink, which tasted disgusting, but Jeremy drank anyway under the careful supervision of his companions.
An agonisingly long time later, they were headed to the car, and Jeremy was now on the phone to Mindy. When she called he wanted to step up and reassure her, but she had had a phone call with Richard and it ended up being the other way around. She would be flying out later that evening.
Later at the hospital, Richard still felt slightly dazed. Maybe he was in shock, maybe it was the painkillers they’d given him, but everything had happened so quickly. And he was annoyed about his phone. He wished he was better at remembering to put it away before filming, and now he had paid the price. Mindy, thankfully, was incredible. Of course she was incredible, she was Mindy, and that meant she was always amazing. She would catch a flight this evening and he would be able to see her soon.
He'd spoken with the slightly intimidated researcher who had been assigned to go to the hospital with him, and he’d apologised to Andy, who was up to his ears sorting everything out with Rimac, and to the director for having a go at him just before the run.
“You know this will be the one that I crash on” didn’t seem overly unkind in the moment, but given what had happened, well…
He hadn’t seen or heard from James or Jeremy yet, but he had heard they were coming to the hospital, he hoped they would get there soon. He was waiting for a scan for his knee to work out exactly what he had done to it, and he hoped the others would be there before then. He had almost no memories of seeing them in the hospital after his first big crash, but he knew from what Mindy had told him how supportive they had been, and if he was honest, he could use some support now. The slight shakiness had yet to go away.
Finally, the others walked in the door to his hospital room, and he smiled.
“Hello, I didn’t hit my noggin, so, you know, no biggie” He joked.
“Hammond you idiot!” Jeremy started, then he continued. Not in the jokey way they use on the show, no lightheartedness about it, but instead laying in to every single flaw that Richard apparently had. His height, his driving ability, the fact that he had destroyed a supercar, his inability to contact them immediately after the crash (never mind that Mindy was his first priority and he had had to borrow a phone to do even that much). Jeremy worked himself up to the point that he was shouting his head off and a nurse came in to ask him to leave.
Thankfully Andy took control, and took Jeremy to get rooms in a nearby hotel so that they could continue to sort out the admin, and Jeremy could calm down, leaving just James and Richard in the room. Richard looked shellshocked, being yelled at was funny until it was genuine and about something serious.
“Is he okay?” Richard asked.
“Are you okay?” James replied, unflappable as always. Richard nodded.
“I’m on painkillers, but they think it’s just my leg, I’ve broken it, possibly quite badly, but there’ll be a scan soon to confirm, now what’s going on with Jeremy?”
“He thought you were dead. We both did. I saw the crash, but there were mixed messages and someone told Jeremy the Lambo had crashed, so he rushed up the hill to see the wreckage on fire. I thought you were still in there, we both thought you were dead. I know we joke about hating each other, but joking aside, believing you had finally bitten it in a crash was one of my top five least favourite life experiences, and I would prefer it if it wasn’t repeated. Jeremy was a complete wreck, then some idiot marshal who couldn’t speak English properly, told us that the driver got out but the “body” was behind a screen. Jeremy just about collapsed. His face was completely grey, his knees just gave out, and my back won’t thank me for catching a six foot five orangutan anytime soon.
Luckily you still had your mic on and you were talking to the paramedics, so the sound guy let Jeremy listen in to what you were saying for a bit. I think that was the only thing that convinced him you were still alive. For a solid five minutes, he thought you were dead and you know what he’s like. He probably blamed himself for it. He’ll come around eventually but it will take more than reassuring him you didn’t hit your head for him to calm down again.”
James was given to long speeches, but they were usually on the topics of engines, or toy trains, or Bach or something else cultural. Richard’s pupils were still dilated from the painkillers, but he was taking this moment very seriously.
“Mate, I’m so sorry, I must have lost concentration for a second, I just lost control of the vehicle. I do know how lucky I am, that must have been awful.” Richard replied.
“It was.”
“I know you’re not a very touchy person but I could really use a hug right now.” Richard was hesitant before asking. He didn’t want to make things worse for James who hated being touched when he was upset, but now he needed one.
James obliged. He hugged the younger man, at first gingerly, then more strongly, tucking his ear into Richard’s neck and feeling the pulse against his ear. The tension that had gripped James since the moment of the crash relaxed slightly.
Richard felt some of the tension slip out of James’ muscles as he prolonged the hug for longer than would usually be appropriate between a couple of mates.
He was okay. He was going to be okay, but that was extremely scary. He came so close to not being there anymore for Mindy, Issy and Willow. After his first crash, he had been desperate to get back to work and to prove himself, but he could acknowledge to himself now, that for a good few months after the first crash, his brain was too damaged for him to realise quite how unwell he actually was, or how lucky he was, or how close he came to not being able to come home.
That wasn’t the case today, and now, for the first time in his life, he found himself questioning whether or not to do some of the riskier stunts going forward.
His leg would need to heal which would give him a bit of a buffer, but after that… After that he would have to make a decision, and he honestly had no idea how understanding or not the others would be able to be.
When Jeremy returned later, Richard was off having his scan and James was in the room on his laptop, which some helpful crew member had provided, writing an article. Jeremy looked suitably sheepish.
“He is really sorry you know.” James said, as Jeremy entered the room, not looking up.
“Where is he?” Jeremy asked. He had probably had at least one glass of rosé James observed.
“They took him for a scan. He’s on painkillers but pretty freaked out about the whole thing, and worried about you because of the way you went off on him.”
“I shouldn’t have done that.” Jeremy mumbled.
“No, you shouldn’t, but maybe he needed to hear it. Last time he wasn’t aware through the scary bit, I know he feels guilty about what he puts Mindy through but it was about time he realised that the way he gets all mother hen because he’s worried about us when we get hurt, we’re his mates and feel the same way about him.” James was in full on lecture mode.
“You have the emotional capacity of a stone, how the hell do you understand this stuff?” Jeremy asked as he planted himself into a chair to wait for Hammond to return.
“Because I don’t get so overwhelmed I faint like a maiden in a Victorian novel and actually think about it.”
“I didn’t faint.” Jeremy insisted.
“Close enough.”
“I didn’t faint!”
“I have witnesses that will back me up when I say you do.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Maybe that would be a good new theme of joke for the show.”
“I will veto that and insist it never makes it through editing!”
“Can’t stop me doing it in front of live audience though, and you know what a live audience has? Twitter.”
“May. Don’t you dare!”
As Richard was wheeled back in, he did it to the sound of the almost hysterical, tension shattering laughter from his colleagues and he smiled. James might be utterly unflappable, but sometimes he was good at saying the right thing.