Archive of Our Own

It’s a little embarrassing that Etho knows nothing about Joel right up until the moment that False introduces them. To be fair, he’s sort of been thrust into this other side of motorsports all at once. It’s kind of his own fault that he’s only been keeping up with Formula One and the junior series since the accident— as painful as it is to watch McLaren move on without him.

Even before the accident, he never really paid much attention to endurance racing and GT. He’d catch MotoGP when he could, but for most of his life, he was solely focused on his own corner of the sport.

It feels like the fifth event False has insisted he come to in the past week. Meetings with the very odd ConCorp CEOs, tours of the factory where they’re developing the car, practice sessions with a variety of touring cars at a large private track on ConCorp owned land— it’s been a lot recently.

Etho likes having a busy schedule, but it’s still a lot all at once. Especially since all he’s really been doing is physical therapy with Beef and getting out of his house with Pause.

When presented with an actual endurance driver— one of the drivers he’ll be teamed with no less— Etho feels just as woefully unprepared as he felt when ConCorp first called him and pressured him for an answer.

Etho knows a little more about endurance racing now. He’s been carefully studying the rulebooks in between running around everywhere that ConCorp wants him and keeping up with Beef’s new PT workouts. But if it wasn’t for False actually walking him up to another man and saying, “This is Joel, he’s going to be one of your teammates at Le Mans,” he would still be clueless.

Etho immediately regrets accepting the champagne flute that was handed to him just moments ago at this half-formal half-casual luncheon thing. At least reaching out to shake Joel’s hand would alleviate the awkward stretch of silence that follows False’s introduction.

Better late than never, Etho tells himself as he sticks his hand out anyway. Joel’s handshake is firm, but it doesn’t last very long. Etho hopes that Joel can’t feel how clammy his own hand is. Gosh, he is so terrified. Making a good impression with his teammate, who probably knows everything there is to know about endurance racing, is somehow scarier than talking to the two sharp-smiled CEOs with more money than a pantheon.

“Etho,” Joel says with a small nod. Then his mouth curves in a slight smile. “Congratulations on your comeback. What, has it been two years now since you were in Formula One? Two and a half?”

“Just about that,” Etho says. It still hurts, but it’s not as bad as that announcement over the summer break, when his eyes were glued to the television screen in his hospital room. He tries to keep his tone casual and unaffected. “McLaren’s, uh… moved on. So here I am. Gonna race at Le Mans.”

At least the team’s performance sucks now. It makes Etho a little bit happier to see them struggling.

Joel’s smile widens, and Etho’s heart jumps as he worries he somehow already did something wrong.

“Their loss,” he says, speaking as confidently as if he was talking to a journalist. “Just imagine how embarrassed they’ll be when we win.”

Etho is nodding before he fully processes what Joel says. “Wait. When we win?” he repeats. He glances over to see if False is laughing at Joel’s remark but she’s already vanished into the crowd of very expensive people all around them. It’s just Etho and his champagne flute against this unknown and oddly intense guy named Joel.

“Of course,” Joel says plainly. His smile falls and he takes a step closer. “I don’t lose, Etho. I don’t. It doesn’t matter that we’re going to be the innovative entry— I’m going to Le Mans with every intention of winning. I’d expect a guy with two Formula One Driver’s Championships to think the same.”

Etho nods, because what else can he do? He doesn’t feel the same confidence as Joel, but the other man’s energy feels impossible to sway. Just from these first initial moments, Joel is charismatic and crazy— the exact combination that builds a great driver. Etho on the other hand… well, he knows he loves racing and he wants to get back in any form possible… but he just doesn’t know.

Joel is watching him, so he manages to speak up.

“I’m not going to lose,” he says. He doesn’t think he says it confidently enough. Joel doesn’t look convinced.

Thankfully, he’s saved by False returning with someone new to introduce to them. Maybe Etho is a coward for taking the quick and easy way out of his stilted conversation with Joel, but he simply doesn’t know how to convince Joel of something that he isn’t sure of himself.

It took him months to be able to walk properly. It took him even longer to feel comfortable enough in a car to feel like he could race. And during that whole time, the nasty clawing doubts settled in— the fear that, as unfair as it felt to be dropped by McLaren, maybe they were right to do so.

“I’m looking forward to the race,” the new rich lady says— Etho has already forgotten her name. “Cub and Scar have a viewing party planned in Monaco, simply lovely that time of year, don’t you think?”

Etho nods and makes the usual awkward pleasantries until the woman walks away, leaving him, Joel, and False alone.

“Tomorrow afternoon, the CEOs want you back on the track,” False reminds them. “And there’s going to be some promotional pictures before that, so…” she trails off, giving Etho an assessing look and frowning slightly.

Great. Etho is messing up with both of them today. He takes a sip of his champagne because things can’t possibly get more awkward than this. Maybe he shouldn’t be drinking it on a nearly empty stomach though.

“We’ll make it work,” False mutters. “You’ll be meeting Lizzie tomorrow as well. She’s at the factory right now. Joel’s worked with her in the past, she’s very good.”

“Good,” Etho says. Another driver who he’s sure to disappoint.

“How early are we supposed to be there?” Joel says.

“Wels will pick you up around eight o’clock,” False says. “Until then,” she nods to the crowd around them. “Enjoy your time here.”

And she leaves them again, clearly having more things to do. Etho kind of wishes he could follow after her.

“You don’t have to—” Joel says, and then stops.

Etho feels stiff as a cardboard cutout as he braces himself for what Joel’s about to say. Does he hate him already? Does he want to work with someone else?

Joel shrugs. “I guess I get it. It’s been a while. And what happened— yeah. But I watched some of your practice sessions on their track. You’re good.” His confident smile returns. “I was excited when they told me it was going to be you. Confused at first, but excited. Who wouldn’t want to team up with a great driver like you?”

“I, uh,” Etho stumbles for what to say. “I didn’t know. Um, about who I was going to be teamed up with. Until now.”

Joel bursts into laughter. And for some reason, that makes Etho relax a little.

The next morning, Etho is awake and pacing the rental house at six o’clock in the morning. Pause is still shut up in the other bedroom, stubbornly refusing to help. He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on Etho for Beef while he’s in Washington (as if Etho needs watching) but in reality just spent far too many hours playing video games with him last night.

“Pause, I don’t know what to do,” Etho says for the hundredth time. “I think he hates me already.”

“That makes two of us!” Pause shouts from behind the locked door. “Go to sleep for another hour and forget about it!”

Etho sits on the couch and screams softly into a decorative pillow. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Good,” Pause says. “Cry. Throw up. You’ll look extra stupid in those photos they’re going to take. I’ll get them framed and put them all over your house.”

Etho puts his head in his hands.

“Why the fuck are you so worried now?” Pause continues. “It’s just, like. Promotional stuff. Training. Meetings. You said you missed it.”

“But there’s Joel! Joel is—” Etho waves his hands around frantically. He tried to explain this last night and Pause just didn’t get it. “He’s so… he wants to win!”

“Don’t you want to win?”

“I— yes,” Etho says. “But I don’t think I can. Not right now.”

“You’re fucking pathetic,” Pause says.

“I don’t know anything about Le Mans!”

“Then fucking learn, you big baby! You didn’t know shit about Kyalami and you got pole position. Just do that. You’ve got, what, like five months until Le Mans? Plenty of time. Not like you’re doing anything else besides crying at me.”

Etho drapes himself on the couch and puts the decorative pillow over his eyes and sobs.

But by the time Wels shows up in a big shiny car with tinted windows, he feels like the worst of the anxieties have been cried out of him.

Wels takes him straight to the factory, where False and Joel are waiting with a young woman that Etho hasn’t met yet.

“I’m Lizzie,” she says, taking the initiative to introduce herself. “Nice to finally meet you, Etho. I’ve watched a lot of your races.”

“You have?” Etho says. He needs to remember to look up recordings of whatever races Joel and Lizzie have done.

“Sure,” Lizzie says. “Pretty good. But we’ll be expecting much more out of you in order to win the 24 hours of Le Mans.”

Oh great, she’s intense too. But she doesn’t linger on him like Joel did; she simply moves on to follow False and Wels further into the factory. Unfortunately, it means that Etho is walking alongside Joel.

“As far as I know, they’re still working on it,” Joel says. “The car. But it’s at the stage that they want us running tests on it. Which is why all the ConCorp executives are going to be here later.”

Etho winces. “They’re going to be watching?”

“That’s right,” Joel says. He tilts his head and side-eyes Etho. “So don’t hold back. Show us everything you’ve got.”

Etho really, really doesn’t want to disappoint Joel. So he manages the most confident face he can and tells Joel, “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet, Joel.”

Joel grins. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

And several hours later, after a photo session that takes entirely too long for Etho’s liking, Etho thinks he manages to show it. ConCorp’s experimental car is wildly unfamiliar and strange, but at least he’s familiar enough with the track now that he gets the hang of it.

Lap after lap, he starts to feel more comfortable. The car is fast, and with every successive lap he puts in, he pushes a little bit more to feel where the car’s limits are. It’s a little unsteady through some of the turns, but once he knows where to expect that, he pushes a little bit more. Carefully, because it would be hugely embarrassing if he made a mistake on the first day driving the car, but still.

When he gets out of the car, Joel is waiting for him at the side of the track with his visor up. His eyes are gleaming with something positive, and he claps Joel on the shoulder before getting into the car himself.

It’s good. It’s good enough that Etho forgets to glance up at the opulent viewing platform above them, where False said the CEOs would be watching.

Five months later, Etho is in Le Mans, France, and he still doesn’t know how prepared he is for all of this. Obviously, he hasn’t been slacking off in those months, but no matter what he’s done, he still feels like it’s not going to be enough. Since the phone call from ConCorp, time has been moving faster than ever, between the constant grind of training, practice with the car, more weird ConCorp events like corporate board dinners and golfing, and more physical therapy than Etho would have wanted at this point.

(He wishes he could just be at the same physical form he was before the accident, and no amount of kind reassurances from Beef make him feel like he’ll get there. It should have happened by now. It’s been nearly three years.)

It’s Saturday afternoon, a week before the race, and Etho is in a weird sort of rushed limbo state. The ConCorp car has cleared all of the pre-race checks, handled mostly by Joel and False. That at least alleviates the fear of being disqualified or cast away before they even had a chance to get on the circuit. False had assured them that the rules are more lenient on their entry because it’s the Garage 56 innovation, but Etho still had more than a few nightmares that they’d show up and be turned away immediately.

Pause gives him shit every time he tells him about the nightmares. Etho keeps telling him about them though, in the hopes that one day he’ll agree that they’re silly.

He, Joel, Lizzie, and False are at a party right now, exclusive to the participants and volunteers of the event. Ordinarily, Etho would feel weird about going to a party before the race week even began. However, he does want to support the volunteers, so he didn’t put up a fuss when Wels explained the event while going over the schedule.

And yet he still feels weird. For his own reasons, of course.

He’s not holding a champagne flute this time. There are far less social expectations here than at most of the things he had to go to for ConCorp, so he’s in one of the casual ConCorp logo shirts that he’d been given and the most comfortable slacks he has. Really, if he could just be wearing his normal clothes, he’d be doing that but there’s some level of comfort in wearing sponsor logos on himself again.

It’s the best he’s got at the moment.

So far, the sensation of a race week hasn’t quite clicked yet. Sure, he’s in Le Mans and surrounded by the personnel, but he still feels like he’s one wrong step from being told he needs to leave.

False unfortunately disappeared with Wels and Lizzie almost as soon as they arrived at the party. At least he has Joel, and he’s been stuck to the other man’s side as if by superglue for the past forty-five minutes.

“That’s the Vanwall team over there,” Joel is saying, gesturing at a trio of people in the center of a small crowd. “Another team we need to beat. They actually reached out to me because they wanted me to drive for them but I’d already signed the contract with False.” He chuckles. “So we definitely need to place higher than them. Obviously we will; we’re going to beat everyone here.”

“Mm-hm,” Etho says. He looks away from the Vanwall team, feeling a little lightheaded. There’s got to be a table full of nonalcoholic drinks or little French desserts somewhere close by. Hopefully both.

“E-Etho?” comes a voice from their right side.

Etho turns to see a pair of older guys with rapidly growing grins on their faces. They’re both fairly relaxed in their attire, although one of them is wearing a loose tie and the other has an impressive but untidy mustache. Mustache guy hits the tie guy on the arm excitedly.

“What did I tell you! It is real him!”

The other guy is speechless, and if it weren’t for the brightness in his eyes and the smile on his face, Etho would be worried he’d done something wrong. A nudge in his side from Joel reminds him what he’s supposed to do in this situation. He walks closer to the two guys and shakes their hands, one after another.

“I can not believe it when you have the crash,” the tie guy says, his hand trembling when it leaves Etho’s. His French accent is heavy, but his words seem to be chosen with care. “I see you in front of me first in Monaco when you win pole position and I am a fan ever since. It is an honor to meet you.”

“Thank you,” Etho says. “That’s… pole position? Really?” He qualified on pole on his first race at Monaco, just over twelve years ago. And every time he’s met fans, there’s always been someone who claims to have been following his career since the early days. But it’s still a shock, especially now, nearly three years after the accident.

The guy nods excitedly. “Pole position in the rain! I did not believe it. I know you are the best! And— and now you race at Le Mans! You are back!”

“Oh, he’s back alright,” Joel says, slinging an arm over Etho’s shoulder. “And you’re going to get to watch him win again. Be ready for it!”

“Yes!” the two guys cheer.

“I am cheering for you, Etho!” the tie guy says.

They chat for a few minutes more. The two explain that they’re both safety marshals and have been volunteering at races around France for about fifteen years now. They’ve even worked at a few Formula One races that Etho competed at, which makes Etho feel the need to apologize for never having great results in France. He’s never even been on the podium at France, although the men assure him that they’ve enjoyed following his career regardless. Etho quickly manages to find a pen and he signs a program for each of the guys, and then he and Joel take pictures with them.

“There you are,” Lizzie says, when Etho and Joel eventually depart from the pair. She has a small smile on her face, but it quickly turns into something more serious and she steps a little closer to them. Despite how short she is, she can be menacing. He’s been working with both her and Joel for months and the thought of disappointing her is even more terrifying than disappointing Joel. (Although, despite never having been able to match Joel’s enthusiasm and energy, he still doesn’t think he’s managed to disappoint him. Which is… well. Etho doesn’t want to ever find out what it would mean to lose Joel’s faith in him and in the team.)

“People have been asking about you,” Lizzie says. “I agreed to go and find you, because these are nice people, but you’d better say very nice things about me in return.”

“Of course I will,” Etho says immediately. “You’re great. You and Joel are my favorite teammates.”

It’s not even an exaggeration to say that. Having teammates who actually act like they’re all part of the same team is way better than a teammate who resents your skill and tries to run you off the track during the race. It’s something Etho would never say to a reporter, but he feels comfortable saying it to the two people in front of him now.

The compliment does the trick, and Lizzie’s back to smiling at him. Joel throws his arm around Etho’s shoulder and coos at him.

“Aww, Etho, you’re gonna make me blush!”

He’s already blushing, but Etho thinks he might be as well due to Joel’s close proximity, so he doesn’t point it out. Maybe it’s the light in here. Or the heat of early summer lingering well past midday.

It’s easier to mingle with the volunteers and even some of the other drivers and teams as the party progresses. Lizzie and Joel know a whole lot more people than Etho does, although almost everyone recognizes Etho. It’s more than a little terrifying and he’s all too happy to hide behind Lizzie whenever people start asking questions.

“My daughter is bringing her whole family for the race,” another volunteer says after she’s gotten a picture with the three of them. “She wouldn’t stop complaining about McLaren after you left, although she still wears the shirts and stuff. She says they’re Etho shirts, not McLaren shirts.” And she laughs and Etho hopes that his accompanying laugh doesn’t sound as strained as it feels.

He’s all too eager to leave that interaction.

“I didn’t even realize you were coming back until that announcement,” someone whose name Etho has already forgotten says. “You definitely kept the world waiting for quite a while. I thought you were gone for good. What’s the big plan now, huh?”

Etho at least remembers that Joel told him that this guy has a motorsports blog, so he needs to be careful with his answers. He buys himself a few more seconds to think about how to reply to that same looming question that he honestly doesn’t even know how to answer for his own twisting doubts.

Thankfully, Lizzie’s been dutiful in mentioning ConCorp at every possible opportunity, so Etho’s old habit of constantly putting his foot in his mouth isn’t as apparent.

“Le Mans is big enough to hold our attention for now, I think,” she says. “The three of us have been working with ConCorp’s team for months now getting the car ready for this week.”

The guy nods. “Time to see it all pay off, yeah? Well,” he breaks into a grin. “I guess if you win the race, you could be looking at a Triple Crown in the future.”

“Hm, maybe,” Etho says, feeling weak at the idea. A crazy idea. Foolish. Never gonna happen. Although he has always been fascinated by the Indy500…

“Well, great to see you here,” the guy says. “Good luck.”

Etho moves a little closer behind Joel as the guy leaves. If he stands close enough, maybe people will stop recognizing him.

Joel glances over his shoulder. “Do you need to leave?” he asks.

“....no.” Etho says.

Joel turns around. “Oh, for goodness sake,” he mutters. “We’ve been here long enough. You don’t have to keep torturing yourself if it makes you that uncomfortable.”

He starts to head directly towards the exit. Etho falters, but his desire to leave outweighs his worry that it’s still too early. And Joel is walking at his usual quick pace, which is even better. Etho’s chest feels lighter already.

“The line for autographs is going to be crazy on Tuesday,” Lizzie laughs, appearing on Etho’s other side with a bounce in her step. “Joel and I could probably walk away whenever we want and they won’t even notice.”

Etho blanches at that. “Please don’t,” he mumbles. Marshals and volunteers and other drivers are one thing but just the thought of endless lines of enthusiastic fans make him anxious. In the past, he always dreaded fan meetings, because they would wait for hours just to get a picture with him and talk for ten seconds at the most. That’s hardly enough time to give them a good memorable experience, and it was draining trying to keep his own attitude upbeat for such a long time. And because they waited for so long, it was hard to say no when they asked to take selfies in silly poses or handed him gifts that he knew his team wouldn’t keep.

“What?” Joel says. “No way! I’m staying as long as Etho’s staying. He’s on our team now, and I don’t care, I’ll sign McLaren shirts or hats or whatever they bring.”

Lizzie looks around Etho to give Joel a dry look. “Do you think McLaren fans are even going to know who you are?”

“They will!” Joel insists.

Etho smiles. He feels so much better now, walking between Lizzie and Joel as they lead him out through the doors.

Something that Etho has noticed in the months he’s spent training with Joel (and Lizzie) is that Joel is good. He’s very good. ConCorp have a huge collection of both vintage and new sports cars along with their crazy experimental designs, and Joel can drive any of them with no problem at all. Even when Joel wasn’t doing test drives in the ConCorp car, he would apparently spend countless afternoons at the CEOs’ track driving whatever car they told him to drive. Etho tagged along plenty of times— not just to avoid Beef calling him incessantly for neglecting his physical therapy, although that was an added bonus— and watched Joel show off his skills from trackside.

Now that he thinks back on it, the CEOs are a little bit weird for doing that. Sure, Joel can apply skills from driving similar cars to the ConCorp car, but there’s not a whole lot to be gained from having Joel drive a pearl white Aston Martin DB5 for nearly an hour.

Besides the pure beauty of watching that, of course. Etho supposes he can’t judge them for that. He was staring too.

So sure, they’re a bit strange, but they’re the ones with the money, so they can be as strange as they want. It’s the payoff with competing in a sport as expensive as racing— the drivers simply have to dance to whatever tune the owners and biggest sponsors are playing, whenever they ask for it. Etho is thankful that they haven’t made him, Joel, and Lizzie record any cheesy ads… yet. They had to do a lot of photo sessions, but the amount of products they had to hold in those sessions was fairly minimal.

As far as weird rich people go, they’re pretty pleasant, but that might just be because Etho can count the number of times he’s actually spoken to them on one hand. Mostly he talks to False, who is scary.

But one thing’s for sure, they made a great call when they got Joel to drive for them. Etho is almost certain that he could put Joel in a Formula One car and Joel would be qualifying in the top ten on debut. He’s strong, he’s smart, he understands the machinery he’s working with, and while Etho has only seen him actually compete in race recordings, Etho knows that Joel is ruthless. Heck, he knew that when he first met him at that awkward lunch thing all those months ago.

On Sunday, six days before the race, Etho is content to hang back in the pit garage with the team and review the onboards and the data that Lizzie and Joel start to compile with their test laps. They only have a short window of time, and he’d rather let the more experienced endurance drivers take the wheel. He’ll get his time on the track on Wednesday, after all.

“You’re not scared, are you?” Lizzie’s tone is teasing, but light. It’s barely audible in the garage.

Everyone else on the team is occupied right now, or watching the screens with their headsets on. Etho has his resting around his neck as he remains in the back. Far enough from the track that he feels… more grounded, but also drinking in the sounds of the car like a man on the brink of dehydration.

Lizzie moves so she’s just slightly in Etho’s field of vision. She’s still in her fireproofs, but her helmet, HANS, and gloves have all been put away. There’s a small smile on her face. “Intimidated? Nervous?”

Etho hums. “Not… not nervous.” He wants this. He knows he wants this. He wants to be here, racing again. At this point, there’s no turning back. There’s no running, no backing out and letting someone else take his place. He’s put in too many hours, and ConCorp expects him to perform at his best now.

His best…

What will his best look like now?

Joel is out on the track, just doing a few brief runs for testing purposes. He looks amazing out there. He’s putting in his best. Etho’s seen his best.

So—

“The week has only just started,” Lizzie says. She sits down in the nearest chair and stretches backwards. Etho spares a moment to envy how easily she’s able to pull her body like that. Even with all the time that’s passed, it’s hard for him. Thankfully Beef is in Canada now, so he’s none the wiser.

“At least I’m not in Barcelona,” Etho says, dragging his thoughts to a different topic.

“Is it that bad?” Lizzie says. “I’ve never been to that one.”

Etho chuckles. “Oh, it’s awful. I’ve had enough of it to last a lifetime. I think racing there once was too much.”

“What about Valencia?” Lizzie says.

Etho groans and covers his face. “No. Don’t remind me. Have you ever been in a really fast parade, but for almost two hours? It’s like that. There was only one overtake when I raced there, and it happened on the first lap.”

Lizzie laughs. “Oli and Joel and I watched that race after we did a weekend of rallying for fun.”

“Sorry it ruined your weekend,” Etho says.

Lizzie shrugs. “We muted it and played poker instead. Oli lost, so we made him try to commentate on the remainder of the race. It made it a lot more entertaining than what was actually going on.”

Etho is silent for a moment. Then, “Rallying? I didn’t know that.” He supposes it makes sense. Joel has shown over the months how adaptable and confident he is in any type of car, any type of conditions.

“Oh yes,” Lizzie says. “We became friends when we were both rallying, and then we went to ROC and met Oli and the three of us ended up getting into GTE.”

Etho has heard Joel and Lizzie mention Oli before. “Is he still racing?”

“Oli? No. He’s a YouTuber now. His videos look like clickbait. I think you’d hate them. But he did a really sweet video about how Joel and I are going to be racing with you.”

“Mm,” Etho says. “I’ll avoid watching that, thanks.” He doesn’t need any more pressure than what is already on him, constantly building every day. By Saturday, it might be so bad that he’s actually concerned he physically won’t be able to race.

No, no, he wants to be here. He wants to do this.

Right?

The car returns then, and the powerful mechanical noise fills the garage and floods all of Etho’s thoughts away. And they remain distant, out of mind as Joel climbs out and lifts his visor.

His eyes are beautiful, Etho thinks.

As Joel predicted, Tuesday is intensely busy. Etho at least had an inclination that their entry would garner a lot of attention, but this exceeds his expectations. It honestly exceeds most F1 weekends. It’s like a home race at Gilles Villeneuve packed into a single day. Multiplied by at least two or three. There are so many people here, so many people gathering to start the race week and there hasn’t even been any racing on track. Even in the ConCorp hospitality, Etho can hear the music and chatter. He can smell food from the vendors set up everywhere, blanketing the Circuit de la Sarthe before the familiar weight of engine oil and exhaust sets in.

Some of the mechanics go out early to take photos of the insane lines of people waiting to get merchandise at the Team ConCorp tents. Etho glances at a few of the pictures as the team talks about it and feels butterflies fill his stomach.

The constant press of journalists and VIPs requesting his attention (and answers) in both formal and informal interviews makes things even worse.

“So is this your big comeback?”

“Yes. This is my comeback.” Etho feels like he’s made out of wood when he says that. Joel claps him on the back right afterwards and immediately starts talking about something only tangentially related, so he’s saved from further elaboration.

Later: “Do you have plans to return to Formula One after Le Mans?”

“Hm, who knows,” Etho says, wishing the floor would open up below him.

A particularly persistent journalist even tries to follow them to the hospitality, trying to get Etho to elaborate on what this partnership with ConCorp means for his longstanding partnership with McLaren.

“Fuck that guy,” Joel mutters when they’re finally inside, safely away from the borderline stalker. “And fuck McLaren too.”

That puts a smile on Etho’s face.

The sheer amount of papaya orange in the lines of people waiting to meet them is daunting. It’s all too easy to look off into the distance and see… just so much. It’s far more than Etho was expecting.

False has a few extra people from the ConCorp PR team here to help things move quickly. Etho is thankful for that, because otherwise, he’s sure he’d be here until Saturday morning meeting all these people. They’re all very nice, but there’s just so many of them that Etho ends up repeating the same platitudes that feel empty after the first twenty.

At least he has Joel to fill in the space whenever he has no idea what to say.

“Etho!” A pair of twin boys clad in bright McLaren orange yell as their parents try to keep them from jumping straight into the drivers. “Wow! It’s Etho!”

“Yeah, it is Etho!” Joel yells back at the boys. He gives them fistbumps, and Etho follows up with his own.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe this,” the next person in line says in a frantic mumble. Their hands shake when they pick up their signed ConCorp poster. “I’m going to get this tattooed,” they say.

“Uh.” Etho says eloquently.

“Where?” Joel asks.

The person covers their face with the poster. “On my, um. My ass.”

“Good place for it,” Joel says, giving them a thumbs up.

It takes a few people for Etho to shake off his reaction to that.

“I never thought I’d see you at Le Mans!” a guy says after getting a selfie. He’s trying to act cool because his girlfriend is right beside him, but Etho can see the starry look in his eyes. “I missed out on seeing you in F1, and I couldn’t believe it when I heard the announcement. This is so big.”

“It’s going to be even bigger when we cross the line in first place,” Joel chimes in. “Right, Etho?”

“Yeah!” Lizzie says.

Etho agrees with his own cheer, momentarily caught up in their energy, and the guy goes still, staring at him in amazement. His girlfriend ends up having to gently drag him away.

“This is the first big thing I’ve done since I retired,” the next person, an elderly woman, says. She has the team sign a large floral bonnet, as well as the official ConCorp car poster. “My husband and I always said we’d finally get out and see you race live, after watching you win for so many years. He’s staying with relatives today, but we’ll be cheering you on from the grandstands starting tomorrow!”

“You won’t be disappointed come Sunday,” Joel promises her, signing his name extra big on the poster. “Etho’s going to bring it home for us and for everyone like you too!”

“Thank you,” Etho says awkwardly.

He looks at how many people are still waiting in the line and then looks helplessly over at Joel.

Joel pats his shoulder comfortingly. “It’ll be over soon enough,” he says. “And then there’s another fan meet session after the pit stop challenge.”

“No…” Etho says.

Etho barely has time to recover from Tuesday when Wednesday is right on its heels.

And Wednesday is the Day. The day he’s been wanting for nearly three years. The day he could practically visualize when he started adjusting his physical therapy to include training. The day he imagined every time he drove on ConCorp’s track and wished it was somewhere else.

Training and practicing on a private track is nice, but this is the day that he proves to everyone, including himself, that he’s ready to be back on a racing circuit. That he belongs on the race track. He might be able to avoid most of the criticism from journalists by simply not reading any of their articles, but only the presence of being on the track will silence the doubts in his mind. He needs to go flat out, in a proper racing car on a proper racing track, surrounded by other professional drivers in the best cars that modern mechanical engineering can produce. He needs to smell the exhaust, hear the scream of engines, feel the vibration of the machinery through every square centimeter of his body.

All of that will fix him.

Hopefully.

The day starts warm and Etho knows it’s only going to get hotter. It’s making the blood sing in his veins. He’s suited up already, even an hour before free practice starts, watching the mechanics set up the car.

“It’s not going to run away on you if you look away for a second,” Joel says, showing up to lean against the wall beside him.

“I know,” Etho mutters. He can’t stop looking at the car though. Soon…

Joel just nods. After a long yet comfortable stretch of silence, he says, “You’re going first, you know. In practice.”

That startles Etho. He looks at Joel. “Huh? Why—”

Joel gives him a look that cuts him off. “Etho, every bloody sports reporter in France has walked by the garage entrance at least three times already today just to get a look at you in here. For goodness’ sake. You’re going to go out there and prove to them all why you’re Etho, and why they should never forget that. McLaren finished eleventh and fourteenth at Barcelona. Don’t you want to rub it in their faces?”

Etho can’t help the laugh. Joel laughs along with him. “It’s so embarrassing,” Etho admits. “I have to watch it, but I end up pacing the room cause I just can’t. Their strategy was so awful. Why would you double stack in that situation?”

Joel’s laugh continues, and it quiets the buzz of nerves in Etho’s chest. Beef was worrying him out of his mind earlier today as he talked Etho through his morning physical therapy over the phone, but that’s not quite so present right now.

“So I’m going first,” Etho says. He hunches in on himself a little. “Agh, all the cameras are gonna be on me.”

“Well… that is what False wants,” Joel points out. He gestures at the bold ConCorp logo painted across the admittedly beautiful blue and white livery. Etho looks, and then looks back at Joel, standing in the sunlight. Their light blue fireproofs match, apart from the names embroidered over the heart and the flags on the backs of their necks. Etho honestly prefers the blues over the horribly clashing orange and whatever color of the sponsor that was paying McLaren the most money at the time. Neon pink, slate black, aqua blue, highlighter green…

“You look good like that,” Joel says.

Etho goes still. He should return the compliment to Joel, because Joel looks amazing. He’s looked amazing every single day they’ve been in France, more alive than ever with the race drawing nearer every day.

The words get caught in his throat.

The paddock has been lively this whole time, but it truly resonates with an electric sort of energy as the time before the practice session ticks down. Unable to wait any longer, Etho puts his ear plugs in, then slides his balaclava over his head, then lastly comes the helmet.

He’s got a new helmet design for Le Mans, a throwback to the original design worn on his Formula One debut with the Lotus team. A simplistic pattern of gray, green, and white, with a bright red stripe on the right side, just behind the visor. His old sponsor logos are gone along with all the obligations they once held him to, with only ConCorp’s logo across each side.

It’s freeing.

The design is striking and Etho hopes everyone will notice the intentional similarities. He doesn’t even mind stepping out to the opening of the garage where cameras immediately turn to fixate on him.

They’re there, but Etho doesn’t have the care to look at them. Right now, his body is blissfully light, unhindered by all the clawing fears and doubts. Right now, he’s ready to get in the car.

And the car is ready for him.

Right now, it’s just Etho, the car, and the instincts that he’s spent years developing. His body might still be a bit off, his limbs still aching with pain that refuses to fully go away— but his mind remembers. His arms and legs might be slow to react at first, but they find their places and it’s like he never left. This is right. This is him.

He’s belted securely into the seat, higher up than in a Formula One car, looking through a windshield instead of straight into open air. It’s a different car, but it’s the same thing. It’s racing.

The mechanics roll the car out of the garage and set it on the ground. Etho breathes in and out.

He’s calm.

It’s okay. He’s ready for this. He wants this. He wants to be here. He can do this.

“Everything looks good,” comes a voice on the radio. The race engineer— Pearl— Etho has spent a few weeks working with her back in Washington, getting used to her style of communicating, as well as her colloquialisms. She’s less straightforward than his old engineer back in Formula One, but she’s still very good. Etho has had time to get used to her, and he’s comfortable.

“Ready to show them, Etho?” Pearl says, with a twinge of something lighthearted.

Etho smiles. “They’re not ready for what they’re gonna see,” he says, and it sounds like he’s just echoing what Joel has said to him for the past few days (the past few months, really), but right now, he thinks he can believe in it. He really wants to believe it.

The engine, rumbling with bounded energy, comes to life as he accelerates and leaves the pit lane.

It’s just a warmup lap, but Etho comes alive.

Circuit de la Sarthe is difficult. A simulator doesn’t come anywhere close to the real thing. The track refuses to just hand over all its secrets on the first warmup lap, but this isn’t Etho’s first time on an unfamiliar track. He pays attention to the camber, to the breaking zones, to the angles of entry, and the frankly ridiculous length of the Mulsanne straight. The Esses are beautiful, and Etho already decides he wants more of them.

He should put in another warmup lap, but he’s impatient. He wants to go on a flier. So he does.

He’s grateful for Pearl’s timely warnings about the positions of other cars and occasional feedback on the data coming back. He’s easing himself back into this— being on a track with other cars, so many different cars doing different runs. Etho doesn’t exactly forget that they’re all there, but he can’t help but become more and more enamored by the feeling of the car.

It’s not his old McLaren.

But right now, Etho could care less about the McLaren.

“Box this lap,” Pearl says, after a few laps of Etho’s simulated race pace.

“Already?” Etho says, feeling light enough to joke.

Pearl laughs. “You’ve been out there for twenty minutes. Lizzie’s up next. And I know you don’t care about it, but the broadcast keeps cutting to you. False is pleased about it. You look really great out there.”

Etho swallows, getting slightly unsteady through Arnage. “Great,” he repeats.

When he pits, he keeps his helmet on for a while. He doesn’t need the cameras to see just how pale he is.

Etho’s eyes are fixed on the timing screen as the minutes of qualifying tick down. All the French food and drink and sunshine must be getting to his head, because he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

Someone’s going to pull the rug out from under him.

This is a dream, right?

Because right now, Joel is running the ConCorp prototype in ninth position. Ninth! P9!!! That’s ridiculous! It’s way higher than anyone— probably even the CEOs— expected of the car. It’s impossible. Someone must have swapped that car with something gloriously illegal while nobody was paying attention.

Because this… this can’t really be happening, can it?

The mechanics, engineers, and other team personnel are either jumping around the garage in excitement or gripping their hair and staring at the data along with Etho. There was a loud cheer when the car jumped from P36 to P9 as Joel made what’s probably going to be his last clean flying lap of the qualifying session. Etho shouted too, proud of his teammate and excited to see such a good time on the board. Now that energy is hovering over the whole garage as they wait for the other cars’ results.

“We told you we’d do it,” Lizzie says, even as the two of them watch the faster hypercars start to cross the line. Track evolution is high, and the latest runs start to push ConCorp down the order. P11, P12, P13. Still way higher than the P50-something that Etho was expecting of a car that was more or less for exhibition.

“There’s no way it’s going to stay that high up,” Etho says.

“Hey!” Lizzie says. “Don’t let Joel hear you say that! And don’t say that to me either! We’re going to win, and it doesn’t matter that we don’t have a hypercar, or that we’re technically slower than them. We are going to win! Right?”

“Mm,” Etho hums.

Lizzie scoffs, but gives up the argument and walks over to the other side of the garage. Etho nearly falls into the routine of worrying how he’s ruined things again, but then the garage erupts with shouting and applause.

“That’s probably it,” someone says. “Not fucking bad.”

Etho checks the screens again and he gasps.

P19 is the final result, as long as there are no penalties or withdrawals at the front of the grid. Wow. Etho was not expecting this at all.

The late runners are taking their cooldown laps now while the broadcast starts playing highlights of the session. The French commentators are talking excitedly, but Etho tunes them out as he always does. He heads outside of the garage, eagerly waiting for the car to return.

As always, there are camera operators and a few people with microphones hurrying over to the garage as the session concludes. They’re all eager to get videos, soundbites, quick statements, anything to satisfy the endless needs of their audiences.

Etho isn’t afraid of them right now.

He’s waiting before the car is even on the trolley to grab Joel and pull him out of the car. He squeezes Joel in a tight embrace, shaking him and screaming under his breath. The whole team is swarmed around them, clapping Joel on the back and jumping up and down.

Joel is warm and covered in sweat from being in the car, but his grip is strong as he hugs Etho back.

“P19!” Etho says. “Aw, snappers! I can’t believe you did that!”

“I told you!” Joel shouts back. “We can do this! We’re going to do this!”

Etho thinks he might be giggling. He’s ecstatic. He feels like a completely different person. Lizzie’s joined the group hug, and the voices of the mechanics and engineers are surrounding them even further.

This feeling is addictive. It’s so good. He’s so happy. He can’t remember the last time he was this happy.

He doesn’t want this to end.

But it does, and it feels far too soon that Joel is letting go of Etho and turning to look at someone.

At Sausage, the team’s media relations manager, who is doing his best to wrangle what looks like a dozen reporters pressing on all sides of the team’s huddle.

Etho’s good mood promptly evaporates.

Right. That’s also a thing that happens after qualifying.

The team quickly moves away as cameras press their way towards them, pointing at Etho rather than at Joel, who still has his helmet on.

“So, Etho!” the first and loudest reporter shouts, pushing her microphone uncomfortably close to Etho. “You’ve qualified in P19! How did you get that kind of performance out of the car? Is there some kind of secret?”

“Well,” Etho says, pausing to mentally rehearse something that won’t sound stupid. “Joel was the one who pulled us into that place in the end. He’s a fantastic driver, and I’ve learned a lot from him since we’ve started working together for this project.”

“How did that— this partnership with ConCorp— happen anyway?” the reporter says, eyes lighting up. “Everyone thought you were out of racing for good. That crash was brutal, and nobody saw you for so long. In fact, I think people were setting up candle vigils for you at Monza the past two years.”

Etho would rather not have that image in his mind. “Yeah, uh, ConCorp reached out to me with this opportunity, and I wanted to be a part of it. They’re doing some incredible work back at their factories. Some really cool work in aerodynamic design and turbo hybrid engineering.” He mentally thanks False for her list of phrases that she wanted them to include on ConCorp’s behalf in any interviews they do.

The reporter nods. She looks like she wants to push for more, but a larger press team is pulling in right behind her, so she presses her lips together quickly and instead asks, “And do you think the car is going to have the pace— or even the ability— to make good on the position you’ve qualified in?”

This time, Etho speaks exactly what he’s thinking. “I think with the team we’ve got, we’ve got a chance of winning.”

Hours later, Etho is sitting through a team briefing which— while blissfully free from the regular strained tensions of his old McLaren briefings— is still taking entirely too long to wrap up.

Etho is tired. His body is aching from rushing through his stretches this morning— sorry Beef— and he just wants to get back to the hotel and sleep. Sure this is important… but he’s physically and mentally done for the day.

He knows by now that Joel and Lizzie are both extremely thorough with their planning. The three of them have sat through countless strategizing meetings with Scott, Ren, False, and the heads of engineering back at the factory. Etho thinks they should be happy enough with all that previous data and they should be able to speed through this briefing.

But no, everyone wants to lay out all the details for flexible tire management strategies, confirm the estimated times for their stints, review the telemetry, scrutinize the performance of the gearbox, pull up compilations from the wind tunnels, and so much more.

Etho is close to falling asleep. Yeah, yeah, he knows it’s important that they’ve got all of this figured out, but it’s late. He’s pretty sure they’ve gone through all of this before. Can’t they just be done with it already?

He realizes he actually managed to doze off for some amount of time when Joel gently slaps his hand over the table that Etho’s resting his arms against. Etho blinks awake, but thankfully nobody is staring at him.

Sausage is standing in front of the room now, with a video thumbnail projecting onto the wall behind him. It shows the ConCorp car, with Etho’s face along the right side and ‘ETHO AT LE MANS!’ written across the bottom.

Etho immediately wishes he’d slept through this part of the briefing instead.

“And like you said,” Sausage is saying. “The more people are talking about it, the better. No matter what they’re saying. Because it’s such a shock, they’re talking about ConCorp even more than they’re mentioning McLaren. Higher on trending, people are sharing pictures— and I have to say, the timing of the official team photos was perfect, because most blogs and personal social media accounts are still using those instead of the ones taken today—”

Joel leans closer and whispers to Etho, “You’re basically the only person everyone’s talking about, Etho.”

Etho covers his face and groans. “Why just me?” Sausage is still talking in the front, going into detail about the statistics on the ConCorp social media posts about the team.

“Why not?” Joel whispers back. “It’s cause you’re so hot.” He snickers as Etho flinches at the compliment. “Everyone’s got their eyes on us now. So everyone’s going to be watching us when we win on Sunday.”

“Etho?” False’s voice cuts through Etho’s little corner of embarrassment and he quickly straightens up. “Everything okay?” She glances sharply at Joel, who quickly slides his chair away from where it had been pressed up against Etho’s.

“Y-yeah?” Etho says.

The meeting has halted now; everyone’s attention is on Etho. Nobody is speaking. Etho should probably say something, but he’s forgotten how to say things. It’s terribly reminiscent of when he woke up from the coma and could barely say Beef’s name.

His body suddenly aches. He’s not sure if it’s real pain or just the memory of it all, but it’s rooting him to the chair and he doesn’t know what to do—

Then, in the midst of the uncomfortable silence, someone’s stomach rumbles loudly. A handful of people laugh, as well as Joel, who stands up and claps a hand casually on Etho’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Joel says, stretching his arms above his head. Etho finds himself staring at the skin around his waist that is exposed as his shirt rides up. “I think that’s a sign that we need to get out of here. False? Is it fine if we finish this tomorrow?”

“That’s fine,” False says. “Get some rest everyone. Itineraries will be the same— Wels will notify you if anything changes.”

As everyone starts to talk amongst themselves and the room fills out with the sound of chairs scraping against the floor, False pauses and looks at Etho and Joel.

“Good job,” she says, looking from one of them to the other. “We look good out there. Things are going better than I thought they would.” And then she smiles, just for a second, before she’s walking away from them to where Scott and Ren look like they’re still talking about the strategies.

Etho breathes a sigh of relief.

“Come on, Etho,” Joel says, his voice softer than it was a few moments ago. “Let’s get back to the hotel.”

Maybe Etho leans into the supportive arm Joel puts around him as they leave. Maybe.

Etho is extremely glad that he isn’t the first one in the car on Saturday.

He watches Joel take off cleanly on the starting grid, weaving nimbly to avoid a messy collision that happens right as the close quarters cars make their way into Dunlop.

The incident is pretty typical of a first lap, but Etho is still relieved to see Joel make it through unscathed, losing a few places due to being cautious moving around the collision but ultimately making up two positions as several cars are forced to slow down and pit on the end of the lap to repair damages.

Tense minutes pass. Joel completes a second lap.

Etho hardly dares to blink, let alone move from the spot where he’s staring at the camera feeds. There are so many cars on the circuit, still so close together and battling for position.

Joel makes it through his third lap unscathed. He’s in unbelievable form, taking the car to the very limits of the braking zones and flying smoothly through the turns. Gaps are starting to grow between the cars— a clear sign that Joel is doing exactly what he said he would do. Exactly what Etho’s seen him do since he first met him.

Of course he’s doing amazing. He’s a professional. He’s skilled and smart. It’s— it’s what Etho used to do. What Etho should still be able to do.

On Joel’s ninth lap, Etho finally manages to sit down and try to relax. Even so, he can’t ignore the flurry of activity from the mechanics and tech analysts around the garage, reporting all their data to Ren, who relays the important things to Pearl. He continues to watch it all happen. It’s odd seeing the race from inside the garage. The only times he’d sit in the garage during a race in Formula One was when he had to retire early. So sitting there now has him feeling jittery and off.

Lizzie sits down next to him with one of ConCorp’s branded sports drinks in her hand. “He’s got it,” she says. “Your turn is coming soon enough. Take it easy.”

Etho rocks back in his seat, looking back at the screen showing Joel’s onboard. “I don’t know how I’m going to take it easy. This is intense. How does this go on for twenty four hours?”

He’s watched Joel and Lizzie race at other events from the past like Silverstone, Spa, Sebring, and Fuji, and even six hours for each of those races felt like an eternity. Now Etho is here, half geared up, just over three hours away from getting into the car himself, and he can’t decide whether that’s too soon or torturously far away.

Lizzie passes over a cold unopened bottle. “Once you get into your first stint, you’ll get the hang of things. It’s not as bad as you’re thinking. You’ll only be driving for two hours— isn’t that the normal length of the races you’d do? By the end of that first stint, you’ll probably be ready to sleep.”

Etho doesn’t know about that. Every time he forgets to blink for so long that his eyes start watering, he worries that he’s going to miss something crucial in the brief moment it takes him to rub at them.

He still takes the bottle from Lizzie and drinks half of it all at once.

It tastes like artificial blue. Etho doesn’t pick up another bottle until the tire team starts moving around the garage in preparation for the first pit stop.

Etho hovers just at the edge of the garage, eyes wide as he watches the crew go through their practiced motions. He watched them practice the stops before, so he’s prepared for all of the steps that his previous self would have considered unnecessary. Endurance races don’t have sub-three second stops. They’re doing fine.

And when Joel pulls out of the garage without needing any particular work done on the car— only fueling and a tire change— Etho thinks he might be able to relax now. He sits down, turns on his phone long enough to reply to Pause and Beef’s encouraging messages (and then turns it back off), and spends some time sampling the assortment of snacks that ConCorp has provided.

Etho continues to pay close attention to the race. There haven’t been any retirements yet, although several teams have dropped considerably in the order. Joel keeps driving in near flawless form, occasionally making Etho tap his hands on his knees with the urge to be racing as well.

Two hours have already gone by since the beginning of the race and Etho has carefully watched every minute of it, but he’s still taken aback when Lizzie starts preparing to swap in. Etho follows her at a distance to the edge of the pit box when Pearl makes the call to Joel.

The car is smudged with grayish black from exhaust fumes and there are more than a few bugs that have been partly vaporized against the body, but it looks as good as when they started the race. After Lizzie gets in and drives off down the pit straight, Joel pulls off his helmet and walks into the garage, a light bounce to his step. Etho is ready to meet him. He goes still when he sees just how drenched in sweat Joel is.

He offers him one of the drinks from the fancy ConCorp refrigerator.

“Thanks,” Joel says, his voice hoarser than it was on the radio that Etho may or may not have been listening intently to for the past forty-five minutes.

Etho waits for Joel to drain half of the bottle and drop heavily into a seat. He grabs a clean towel from a nearby stack and rubs it roughly across his face and then over his hair.

Outside the garage, the race continues. It’s only six o’clock.

Etho leans back in the chair again, looking at the screen when he realizes he’s been staring at Joel for a few minutes. “Back in F1, that’d be a whole race,” he says. “Two whole hours. Huh.”

Joel leans forward, catching Etho’s attention again. His hair is damp, but he runs a hand through it to push it out of his face. “A little over two hours. But we’re still running P15. Not bad for the innovative design entry, huh?”

Etho presses his lips together, not sure what to say. “I guess ConCorp won’t be coming back next year,” he says.

Joel looks at him. “Not unless they enter under one of the official categories. Why? You want to come back already?”

“N— no. I don’t know,” Etho stutters. “I haven’t even gone yet.”

But a part of him wants to say yes. Right now, this is the only chance to race in his life. The clock ticking down the hours and minutes to his stint is the extent of his future plans. After this… what will he have? His house back in Canada, the physical therapy he’s been neglecting, Beef, and Pause. And Joel, maybe.

Joel shrugs. “Lizzie and I have been talking about who we’re signing with for next year. There’s a space for a third person. It could be you.”

There’s something heavy and twisting and burning in Etho’s chest. He almost wishes he could blame it on the scars that like to tug uncomfortably on his skin every single day. But it has more to do with the phone calls.

The bad ones.

“McLaren appreciates the partnership we’ve had with you for these years, but—”

“Can you get in a car right now? Be honest with me here. Are you in the right physical condition, not to mention your mental state—”

“It’s unfortunate, but we had to make a decision. We’re all wishing you a speedy recovery. You’re welcome to visit with the team at the factory or at a race anytime we’re in Canada. Good luck—”

“Sorry, Etho. But— just between you and me— Lotus is really struggling with budget. I wish I could do you this favor, but the people above me have already decided we’re going with a rookie—”

“It’s good to hear that you’re recovering and you’d be interested, but our drivers have contracts through next year—”

“Hope you feel better soon—”

“Sorry—”

“Maybe getting away from it all is best for you—”

“Take time to focus on yourself—”

Etho realizes he’s just been twisting the bottle cap of his drink back and forth for a while. He looks to the side. Joel has the towel over his eyes and he’s slumped comfortably in his own chair.

Etho breathes in. Breathes out. He puts the drink aside and looks back up at the screen just as Lizzie easily passes one of the backmarkers.

“Maybe,” Etho says. “I wouldn’t mind if you put my name out there.”

“Of course I will,” Joel says immediately. “We’re a team now.”

The sun is just sinking past the horizon as Etho starts to get himself ready to switch with Lizzie. The tire changers and the fueling team are up and standing near the box, when suddenly Lizzie’s voice rings out in the radio plugged into Etho’s ear.

“There’s a problem— check the power unit—”

“Power unit is fine,” Pearl responds quickly. Across the pit lane in the pit wall, Etho can see her conferring with Ren, who is gesturing at several of the screens in front of him. “What do you feel?”

There’s a pause. Etho steps back into the garage, trying to read over each screen to see what Lizzie could be experiencing. He looks at her onboard, where Lizzie seems to be driving just fine.

“Battery doesn’t feel right,” Lizzie finally reports. “Is the hybrid system charging like it should? It feels different on the straight.”

“We’re checking it out,” Pearl says. “From what we can see, the car is fine, but we’ll box this lap and take a look at it.”

Etho’s heart sinks. He quickly finds his way over to where Joel is sitting up on the other end of the garage, watching the screens. “Are we gonna lose time?”

Joel shakes his head. “Probably not much,” he says. “But they’re going to hold you stationary for a bit longer while they check all the data coming in. Don’t worry about it; lots of people end up retiring during the night because they get too greedy through the turns and they end up spinning into the barriers. We’ll make up the time.”

Etho stares at the timing screen, dread building in his chest.

“Hey,” Joel says, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s not a disaster, okay? This is Le Mans. We’ve still got nineteen hours to get back whatever time we lose.”

Etho nods, but that doesn’t alleviate the stress. The teams ahead of them are all doing very well, and ConCorp still hasn’t risen above P15, despite Joel and Lizzie’s excellent racing.

He gets ready with the mechanics again, just as Pearl informs him that Lizzie is closing in on the pit entry. As soon as the car is in place, Lizzie climbs out of and Etho gets in.

And the car sits.

Unmoving, apart from the way it’s lifted up on the jacks.

The team finishes changing the tires, lowering the car back down and the car continues to sit.

Horribly, terrifyingly still.

The last time Etho had a pit stop this long, he went from running P2 to finishing P13 in the race.

“Stand by, Etho,” Pearl instructs him.

Etho knows the team is doing everything they can. He stares at the pit lane ahead of him, clear and open. Every second feels like an eternity, and Etho knows this isn’t Formula One, but he still hates it.

“Okay,” Pearl says. “You’re clear!”

Etho tears out of the box. He concentrates maybe a little too much on maintaining the pit speed limit, but that’s not enough to shake the worries. The fear is clawing through his chest, sticking to every bone and muscle and filling him with tension.

“What was the problem?” he chokes out.

“Hybrid system issue,” Pearl reports back. “A minor problem with the syncing of the data, simple fix on our end. Let me know if you notice anything off.”

“Well, now I’m going to be looking for problems,” Etho says. He’s way too tense and his body pays the price as he takes Dunlop far from the ideal racing line. No. No. He was so ready for this and now it feels like he’s about to make a horrible mistake. And to make things worse, night is falling and he needs to keep the car going for two hours and make up the lost time—

“The car is fine on our end,” Pearl promises him. “We’re doing really well so far. Remember, we’re only five hours in now.”

Etho oversteers into Tertre Rouge. He grits his teeth and corrects the car, and forces his mind to concentrate on the Mulsanne Straight. Where is the first chicane again? He can’t miss it— he can’t ruin this for everyone else—

“Etho.”

Etho twitches. He wasn’t expecting to hear Joel’s voice in his ear. “Where did you come from?”

“Etho, relax,” Joel says. Then, “It’s different driving at night, huh?”

This is bizarre, having this kind of conversation as he’s racing. None of his race engineers in Formula One were particularly chatty. There would of course be a commotion as he crossed the line, but that was pretty much it.

However, Etho doesn’t want Joel’s voice to go away.

“It’s not Bahrain,” he admits. “Or Singapore.”

“Right? It’s better!” Joel says. “It takes a lap or two to adjust. If there’s anything gone wrong, you’ll notice it better then. The one you’re on isn’t half bad, apart from that oversteer. See a moose on the road or something?”

Etho laughs, navigating the chicane smoothly. The braking point is tricky, but he remembers what he worked out during the free practice sessions and replicates that as well as he can. “You should have seen it,” he jokes back. "It was this big! I would have run straight into it."

“Yeah, sure.” Joel laughs. “Well, I’m back here watching the car with everyone else. It looks great going down the straight with the lights coming on, by the way. The advertising team should get a photo at night for that special edition calendar that everyone’s been preordering.”

Etho breathes out, feeling his body relax. “Yeah. Thanks, Joel.”

“Unfortunately False told me that none of us are going to be shirtless in any of the photos for that.”

“What?” Etho says. “W— why is that—?”

“I know, it’s a wasted opportunity,” Joel sighs. “It’s what’s hot these days. Maybe when we win we can pose shirtless next to the trophy.”

“Can I be excluded from that?” Etho says, slowing down a little more than he intended on the second chicane. “I don’t—”

“You? No way, your handsome and mysterious face on the cover is what’s going to sell the calendars out in minutes,” Joel says. “Of course, they’ll be more impressed with seeing me, but you’re essential.”

Etho makes a face. “False is listening, right? Please tell me that you’re not actually going to do that.”

False’s voice cuts in next. “Save this for later. I’m sure the CEOs would love to hear about it.”

Joel gasps at the same time that Etho groans.

“Alright, that’s enough. Joel’s leaving now,” Pearl says firmly. “Etho, you’ve had your time to adjust. Now show us what a two time world champion is made of.”

They dropped to P16 during the longer stop.

Despite Etho’s best efforts and skillful handling of the car, he’s unable to make up any places during his first stint in the car. It takes all of his concentration to keep the tires in a decent temperature window as night continues to fall and both air and surface temperatures drop. He doesn’t make any more errors, though, and he passes backmarkers consistently without any issues. He doesn’t even come across any crashes or spins, although Pearl does keep him up to date on small incidents on other parts of the track as the night goes on.

The most challenging thing, really, is perfecting the art of racing flat out with the headlights on. Etho had some practice in Washington, but there’s far more pressure here to get every single apex right. With the temperature changes, the times of each lap also change and Etho has to concentrate hard to make sure that every lap is perfect.

And he thinks he does a pretty good job of it. Pearl gives him encouragement every so often and the car doesn’t have any problems during Etho’s stint. A pretty good drive for his first time back in proper racing conditions since the accident, he thinks.

Still, it feels kind of uneventful, and it reminds him of the one and only time he raced in Valencia. But at least he can appreciate the speed and power of the car, and he takes advantage of his unbothered stint by testing the car’s capabilities in certain places on the track. Figuring out alternate racing lines, and where he might be able to push a bit more when he has to. Pearl lets him know whenever he’s saved a few tenths on a lap, steadily boosting Etho’s confidence. By the end of his stint, he’s learned a lot about the car, and he tells himself that he’s done a good job of maintaining their position in the race.

Joel’s second stint follows. Etho doesn’t even have his own helmet off when Joel is leaving the pit box, engine roaring into the night.

He remains at the edge of the garage watching the cars race down the straight until the ConCorp car comes through at the end of Joel’s lap.

A hand waves in front of his face and he jumps. He glances to his side to see Lizzie looking at him with a sleep mask pulled up onto her forehead. She holds up her phone to show him the screen.

“Your friend is texting me,” she says.

Etho squints at the bright screen. It’s Beef. Of course it’s Beef.

sorry to bother you if you’re asleep or busy but Etho never looks at his phone so can you tell him that if he doesn’t at least TRY to rest I will force him to wear an apple watch

“Oh no,” Etho says.

Lizzie laughs. “Quite a threat.” She puts her phone in her pocket and starts walking away. “Maybe text him back with your own phone.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Etho says. With one final look at all the screens, he goes to follow Lizzie out of the garage and back towards the hospitality. He really doesn’t want to leave the constant feed of information telling him the car’s progress, but the exhaustion is weighing on him. Beef is right, as he often is.

Once at the hospitality, he finds his phone, which is still plugged into a charger and turned to Do Not Disturb. He goes to his timers and stares at the ones that Beef must have preset into his phone before leaving. One is for twenty minutes and the other is for ninety minutes.

Yeah, he got a lecture about this before he left. The idea of being away from the race for a whole ninety minutes makes him sick, even if he knows that physiologically, it’s the better option. He knows his body is always going to be at least a little messed up from the crash, and he can’t afford to make things worse. Sleep is important. Rest is important.

Etho sighs. He finds a set of noise canceling headphones and a sleep mask and lies down on a cot with the lights off.

And then he sets the twenty minute timer.

He wakes up after the timer alarm has been beeping for three minutes, blinking at it before sitting up and stretching.

Hey, he tried. And at least he takes an extra ten minutes to do (some of) the stretches that Beef wants him to do. And then he feels bad that he didn’t rest for the ninety minutes like Beef wanted, so he sits down and finds one of the meal packages in the hospitality refrigerator and sits down to eat it cold.

Again, he tried.

When he returns to the rest of the team, they’re watching the screen showing one of the live broadcasts, where cars are passing through Indianapolis with yellows waving from the sides of the track.

Etho looks from the broadcast to the onboards from the car. Then his heart jumps to his throat when he notices the number next to their current time.

11.

“When did that happen?” he exclaims. Half the garage looks back at him in confusion.

“Just a minute ago,” one of the mechanics says. “There’s a lot of debris, but the marshals are being careful about it, so it shouldn’t affect Joel when he gets there. He’s uh… I think he was at Ford when it happened—”

“No,” Etho says, hurrying over to the screen displaying the timings. “This!” He points frantically at the number. It’s so close to being a single digit and the part of his mind that is still stuck in Formula One sings with excitement at the possibilities that are opening up.

It’s a long race, he reminds himself. They’ve got time to keep fighting. They’ve got time.

“Oh!” the mechanic says. “Yeah, there were a few retirements and Vanwall has been having some kind of mechanical problem— looks like a lengthy fix— so we’ve passed them.” He beams with pride, looking back at the screen. “He’s doing awesome out there.”

Etho watches the screens for a few moments. His breathing is faster than before, although his body is still heavy from his failed attempt at properly resting. He feels off-balanced, and the cramped conditions in the garage aren’t helping. He glances at the broadcast again and frowns when it starts to show a replay of the incident.

Rather than continue to watch the screen, Etho walks out of the garage, heading carefully across the pit lane to the wall. There are large enough gaps in between the teams’ pit wall setups that he can stand there, unbothered.

Cars race past, their engines roaring or screaming in different tonations. It’s easy to tell just by the sound how electric the cars are. Etho closes his eyes and allows it all to embrace him fully: the pure sound of the cars, the track, the distant murmur of the ever-present crowds and the busy behaviors of the teams in the garages.

It’s an odd kind of peace. The energy of the race hasn’t left, it hasn’t decreased, but it’s… sustained. Hope still hangs in the air, and it reverberates with each car that races past Etho’s position on the wall.

He hears the ConCorp car race past— its engine noise unmistakable. Etho opens his eyes just in time to see Joel disappear down the short straight. He smiles and closes his eyes again.

Etho is not sure how long he stays out there, but he’s pulled out of his trance when someone puts their hand lightly on his shoulder.

He turns to see Joel, who removes his hand and moves forward to lean against the wall alongside Etho. He’s still sweaty and the beautiful gleam also hasn’t left his eyes. There’s a relaxed smile pulling across his face. He’s silent for a while, standing next to Etho as cars pass by and the people in the crowds fill in every space with talking or shouting.

Etho closes his eyes again. His thoughts have been getting louder and harder to ignore as the time stretches into hours with nothing to do but watch the team’s progress and wait for his turn to take the wheel. He does love having a real team that actually properly works together to achieve a shared victory, but he’s not sure how he likes the waiting in between stints.

“You love it,” Joel says, but the assured confidence that Etho has grown to expect from him isn’t quite there.

It’s more like a question.

Etho sighs and leans his head against the plate glass. “I missed it,” he says. Another car screams past their spot, their tiny oasis between two pit walls. Etho presses his lips together. “I didn’t like my life without it,” he adds.

It’s honest.

It’s not the thing he wants to get out of his head though. All of his deep twisting uncertainties and fears have never been stronger, despite being here, racing. Etho doesn’t know how it’s gotten so bad. Racing was supposed to fix it. It was supposed to fix him.

It was impossible to ignore the doubts that grew during the long months after waking up. Weeks of being unable to even walk… it made him wonder if he would ever have a place here again. He loved racing— he loved going flat out in a car, full of adrenaline, passing people with less confidence and proving why he was the best. But those feelings got so distant during those days that Etho lost sight of it all. He couldn’t even bear to show up at a race, terrified of how people would judge him when he inevitably stumbled while walking or stuttered when someone came to talk to him.

So he isolated himself, despite Pause’s efforts to get him out and do something. The only company he had that entire time were Beef, Pause, and the ugly thoughts in his head.

“I…” Etho looks at the gray-black surface of Circuit de la Sarthe just past the glass. He’s exactly where he’s wanted to be, where he believed he was supposed to be, so how could he still feel so lost?

“I don’t remember Monza,” he says, wincing at saying it aloud. “Not even arriving in Italy and getting ready for the weekend— none of it. I don’t know if it would make it easier, remembering it. I saw the videos later. My old engineer even let me see the onboard… before the camera was smashed from the… from the impact.”

“Fuck,” Joel says, his voice half drowned out by the oncoming roar of a car.

It was like it happened to someone else. Etho has seen thousands of safety briefings, and he thinks he’s seen just as many clips of accidents that happened to someone else. Someone else who isn’t him, who was never supposed to be him. Etho had his fair share of lockups and miscalculations that earned him a quick meeting with a wall or a barrier, but he never got hurt. Not like that day at Monza.

He had sat down next to Pause in his living room on a sunny morning about four months after waking up. Etho could sit and stand by that point, and he could manage to stumble through short conversations, although his tongue and lips still often forgot how to form certain sounds.

He wouldn’t have even known which Ferrari he was chasing into Ascari if it weren’t for the number across the livery. There was no recollection, no memory snapping into place. And for some reason, watching the accident from the footage only distanced himself even more. From his own accident… and maybe from Formula One as well.

Etho had watched as the front left tire of the Ferrari suddenly suffered a critical failure, puncturing and sending it spinning to the left. Directly in the path of Etho’s McLaren. He hit the debris first, and then the spinning Ferrari. The McLaren was launched into the air, did a horrifying backflip and then slid upside down across the short grass patch. Too fast, across the track again and into the gravel, still upside down, bouncing roughly, still carrying far too much speed before crashing heavily into the barrier. All of the momentum stopped in an instant, the worst way for a collision to end.

It took only a few seconds for the crash to happen. But it’s stolen almost three years of Etho’s life from him. He’s here now, and people are here to see him— happy to see him— but in too many ways, the world has moved on without him.

There’s a messy scar across the top of his head now, covered by the hair that he’s been letting grow longer than before. There are more scars that are easier to cover with clothes, especially with a heavy fire suit, but the one on his skull terrifies him the most.

“I just can’t remember any of it,” Etho says. “It changed everything, and I had to live through everything that happened afterwards and… and try to fix myself. I thought this would…” he trails off, unwilling to expose that last doubt.

Etho looks over at Joel. He doesn’t know what he’s hoping to find. Whenever he talks about the accident with Beef, he’s met with patience and a promise that he’s doing amazing. 'Your life isn't over just because of the crash,' Beef tells him all the time. Pause gives him a variety of responses that keeps Etho refreshed and down to earth: sometimes he ribs Etho about how he’s always been a whiny little idiot who needs attention and sometimes he spends hours talking shit about McLaren and everyone else who abandoned Etho.

Etho is starved for something but he doesn’t know what it is he wants. What he needs. Clearly it isn’t just being in a car at a track.

Joel is watching him. He’s quieter than Etho has ever seen him, and Etho wants to reach out and hold him, to ground himself in something that’s real. Right now, the only real things in the world are Etho and Joel, and Etho feels so lost within himself.

Finally, Joel speaks. “There were a lot of people in McLaren shirts at the fan meetings,” he says. “They all remember the Etho from before. But that’s… that’s not now. That’s not you now. It doesn’t mean you’re worse, or you’re… you’re not talented anymore. But you’ve changed. You’ve been training with a new car and you’re good at it.” His grin reappears. “They’re going to see something completely new. A new Etho. You probably haven’t noticed because it’s taken so long, but you’ve improved a lot. Don’t write yourself off. You’re not the same Etho as before, and that’s a good thing. Because when people are writing biographies and making documentaries about you in ten years’ time, they’re going to cite this race— Le Mans— as the big turning point in your life. Not the crash, but this. Because you’re showing them that you’ve still got it. They haven’t seen anything yet.”

Etho takes in a shuddery breath.

“Yeah.”

Etho’s heart is in his throat again when Lizzie boxes. There’s some damage to the car from debris that Lizzie couldn’t avoid during her stint— minor damage, thankfully. It should only affect the aerodynamics, but it still stresses Etho out to see it. He waits through the tension as the mechanics work rapidly to get the car ready to keep going. Simple patches over the worst spots.

They’re running P8 now, somehow. Etho is still waiting for someone to announce that there’s been some hilarious mistake and actually they’re back in P19, but it hasn’t come yet. The garage was alight with the good mood when he and Joel returned to watch Lizzie’s progress, although it stalled for a bit when she had to navigate through the scattered debris on the track from a car that oversteered straight into the barrier. (Part of his relief came from watching the broadcast show the car limping its way back to the pits afterwards, the driver inside just fine.)

Etho focuses on the car, on the track, and on assessing how the patches to the body are affecting the performance. It takes a few laps, but he gradually comes up with what works best, and reports it to Pearl. Thankfully, the aero isn’t unbalanced, and it’s only in the more gradual turns that Etho has to remember to be a touch more careful.

“The 17 Ferrari is slowing,” Pearl announces some time later, as Etho is racing down Mulsanne again. “We’re watching it on the broadcast— yeah, that sounds like a gearbox issue.”

“Where are they?” Etho says.

“At your pace… you’ll run into them at Arnage. Oh, they’re so slow— that’s painful to watch. They’re still going, but it’ll take them a while to get to the pits at that pace.”

Etho swallows and prepares the next question. “How much of a lead do they have?”

“Just one lap on us,” she reports back. “They lost a lot of time with their last stop and we were able to minimize the gap.”

Etho grips the wheel a little more tightly for a moment. If he wasn’t pressed firmly into his seat from the seat restraints and the sheer force of going nearly 300 kilometers per hour, he’d be bouncing from excitement.

“They’re on the left,” Pearl reports as he approaches Indianapolis.

It’s very satisfying to pass the Ferrari as it continues to struggle back to the pits. Etho wishes that he could pass them again right now, so that it would be a complete overtake on track. Overtaking their position in the overall race will still be great on the next lap, but it would be even better to do it while fighting for position on track.

“That’s been a long time coming,” he jokes to Pearl, hoping that Joel is listening back in the garage. “Only took me about three years.”

Pearl laughs. “Just had to change to a different car.”

…Yeah. She’s right. Joel was right too, earlier.

Etho wants to push even harder on this next lap. He’s eager to complete it already and finally bring the team one position higher.

P7…

Etho wants to chase the leaders. He’s back on a track and he wants to race.

Like Joel said, he wants to show everyone, especially himself, that they haven’t seen anything yet.

“Box this lap Joel,” Pearl says on the team radio.

“This lap?” Joel repeats. “What’s going on?”

Etho blinks back to awareness. He’s been sitting in the back of the garage, resting his eyes while listening to the team radio. Across the garage, Lizzie seems surprised as well as she quickly starts preparing herself to get into the car.

It’s nearly nine o’clock in the morning, and earlier, after his second stint was complete, Etho once again took the time to eat. There are snacks stashed away in baskets and boxes all across the garage. Unlike what was available at most of the race weekends with McLaren, all of the snacks are actually tasty. He knows Beef is going to get on him about his bad grazing habit if he finds out about it, but at least he did sort of eat a real meal earlier.

There’s also the fridge supplied by one of ConCorp’s countless brands that was stocked to perfection at the beginning of the race with mineral waters, sports drinks, and power smoothies that are normally ridiculously expensive in stores. Etho’s been carefully avoiding the brightly colored smoothies, but the sports drinks are fine. They keep him feeling pretty good.

He sets his current bottle down to watch the car come into the box. Joel climbs out of the car and Lizzie takes his place. Now that Etho has seen plenty of pit stops at Le Mans, he knows that they just had a very good stop just then.

Joel doesn’t come into the garage right away, though. He’s pulling his helmet off and walking over to the pit wall, so Etho gets up to see what’s going on.

“—change in the strategy, you could have told me,” he catches as he gets close enough to hear Joel over the ever-present noise of the race and the people. Joel is complaining to Scott and Ren as Pearl and False steadily ignore him to focus on the rest of the data on their screens. “We had all those meetings to figure these things out. I could have gone longer.”

“Yes, you could have,” Scott says, sounding tired. “But I’ve been watching how Porsche, Toyota, Peugeot, and the other Ferrari have been playing their strategies. I think one of the Peugeots is playing a lot of risks, and I don’t think it’s going to work for them. Our car is doing better than we were expecting— we’re still within the same lap as the Porsche thanks to you— so if we get Lizzie to push, we can pressure not only them but also the Peugeot into making a mistake.”

“I could have done that,” Joel says. “A few more laps and I would have done it.”

Scott glances at the other side of the pit wall. “Not my call,” he says, looking directly at False.

Joel looks like he wants to continue arguing, so Etho takes his arm. To his surprise, Joel lets him pull him back to the garage.

Joel sighs and slumps into a chair. “I guess Lizzie is—”

He’s cut off by a commotion on the broadcast screen. Both he and Etho jolt up to watch—

Two of the GTE cars have spun off the track and into the gravel at the Esses. It looks like there was some significant contact between the two of them, because there’s pieces of debris everywhere. The drivers inside the cars are moving just fine, thankfully. The camera changes to another angle, which shows two more cars with heavy damage attempting to move away from the mess. One of them is a Toyota.

Etho gasps.

“Where’s Lizzie?” Joel says quickly, dashing over to the screens.

They look at the onboard. Lizzie is turning onto the straight. Etho puts his headset back on in time to hear her reporting a few drops of rain.

“She must have just missed it,” Etho says.

It’s lucky.

And with the Toyota retiring from the race, the Peugeot suffering a critical engine failure six laps later, and one of the Porsches losing their grip and spinning into the barrier at the first chicane, they’re brought to P4.

The rain is light, but steady. Etho keeps looking at the forecast as the time draws nearer to his final stint, hoping it will clear up more so that the track can properly dry. He did plenty of wet running at the ConCorp track, so it’s not like he’s completely forgotten how to do it, but he’d still rather have a dry track. Wet races might be exciting to the spectators, but they’re a lot of pressure to handle from inside the car. Especially when he’s running on next to no sleep.

It’s just too exciting and tense to sleep. Sorry, Beef.

“I’ve seen your wet races,” Joel says. “The one in Malaysia was impressive. And Silverstone.”

“Which one in Silverstone?” Etho asks, bouncing slightly on his toes.

“The second one,” Joel says. “The one that they shouldn’t have red flagged right away. It only got worse. What, were there eight retirements in that race?”

“Something like that,” Etho says. He can mostly remember the race. He only managed to finish in third, despite pushing like hell to catch the Williams. Standing on the podium, he distinctly recalls wishing he finished in fourth so he could get out of his rain soaked clothes already.

He supplies that little tidbit of information to Joel, who throws his head back and laughs.

“When we’re on the podium in a few hours, you’d better not be thinking that,” Joel says when he finishes laughing. “I’ll give you my coat if it’s still raining by then.”

Etho eyes Joel. “Is it going to fit me?”

Joel smacks him. “Shut up, my shoulders are broader than yours. You’ll look like you’re drowning in it.”

“No, I’ll be drowning in the rain,” Etho says. “But I’ll take it, thanks!”

Joel squints at him. Then he smiles. “You’ve calmed down,” he notes.

Etho nods. He continues to bounce in place, focused on the screens. Lizzie is doing amazing. They’re still P4, but they’ve almost caught up to the other Porsche. He’s not too worried about missing her eventual overtake— the mechanics will alert him with their cheering when she’s close. He just needs to stay in the garage instead of the hospitality.

“Easier to do that when it’s daylight,” Etho says, as positively as he can. He’s not losing his mind in the dark thoughts anymore, but they do still linger. They always linger. He pauses. “I… I can’t—” he shakes his head and starts again. “I haven’t tried reaching out to McLaren again since… since last year. And they haven’t—”

“They don’t deserve you,” Joel says flatly. He leans against Etho’s side. “They’re probably watching, but they need to know that they blew their chances with you. All of them, really. You’re too good for those assholes in Formula One.”

“I—”

Etho stops himself. Does he want to go back to Formula One? He doesn’t know. All he wanted to do was race again, and ConCorp contacted him with this offer two days after that last disastrous phone call with McLaren. He accepted because he thought it was his only option.

Now… it seems like… fate? A miracle? He’s sitting at Le Mans and his team is five hours away from finishing in P4 or even higher. Joel is right, McLaren, the other F1 teams, and the whole world is watching what he’s doing with this team.

And the pressure is different. He doesn’t just want to do well for his own result; he wants to see Joel celebrate a win. Joel and Lizzie have put so much of their lives training and working towards this kind of racing, and Etho wants them to win. The whole team— False and everyone from the ConCorp team— have been behind him since that phone call, and Etho truly feels like a part of this.

He’s a part of this team. A fire suit has never fit as well as the light blue he’s wearing now.

The mechanics start to get louder. Etho blinks himself back into focusing.

“Come on!” the mechanic from earlier is yelling, raising his fist as the broadcast shows the ConCorp car chasing the other Porsche. “Let’s go!”

“Come on, Lizzie!”

“Lizzie!”

“Go, go, go!”

Etho keeps his eyes wide as Lizzie chases the Porsche through the Esses and straight towards the Ford Chicane. She’s absolutely fearless, spray flying from the tires, hunting like a predator. The Porsche won’t give up easily, although it looks like its tires are graining worse than Lizzie’s. Etho wouldn’t be surprised if the Porsche pits for fresher tires, but it breezes right past the pit lane entrance and continues on towards Dunlop. Lizzie is hot on its rear, unrelenting even as she has a quick look along the wetter part of the track to threaten an overtake.

“How does she do that?” Etho wonders aloud, amazed at how she keeps control.

Joel cackles. “You should go rallying with her sometime. She’s like a madwoman. She probably told you she went to ROC, but I don’t know if you know this: she was runner up. Twice in a row. It’s like she gets crazier when the conditions get riskier.”

“Maybe I’ll go rallying with you instead,” Etho says, trying to banish the mental image of a feral Lizzie speeding down snow covered roads from his mind. Then he realizes what he said.

“What, do you think I’m the safer option? You’ll be regretting that once I get you out in the mud,” Joel says, bumping against his side again. Etho doesn’t protest; he rather likes the feeling of Joel against his side. It feels comfortable.

Etho smiles. “Sure. But only if I get to drive you around the Nordschleife.”

“You think I haven’t driven the Nordschleife?”

Etho smirks at Joel. “You haven’t driven it with me,” he says. Once again, he says it before he realizes what he’s saying. But this time, he doesn’t want to take it back.

Joel bites his lip, smirking back at him. “Fine. Let’s do it.”

They return their attention to the screen, just in time to watch Lizzie overtake the Porsche.

“Okay, Etho,” Pearl says. “One Ferrari and one Peugeot. You’ve got this.”

“Make it happen!” Joel chimes in on the radio a few seconds later.

Etho tries to relax as much as he can. He’s only a few minutes into his final stint, which is going to last nearly four hours and is going to take them to the end of the race. Unless something bad happens. Which it won’t. It won’t, because they’ve all brought the car to this point, to P3. They have everything in them to take it to the end.

And even if this is the best they can do, Etho is still proud. He’s proud of his team, of Joel and Lizzie, and he’s… he’s proud of himself. His phone is still hidden away and silent because he doesn’t want the distraction, but he’s sure that Beef is proud of him. Pause is proud of him. That’s enough to put a steady warmth in Etho’s chest.

Etho carries as much speed as he can through the Esses. The rain is more of a mist now, and it’s allowed the track to dry a little bit, but it’s still risky.

“The gap to the Ferrari is three minutes, twelve seconds,” Pearl informs him. “Your lap was three seconds faster.”

“I can do better,” Etho says. He pushes a little harder on the next lap, earning him eight seconds. But the car feels unsteady through the curves, and he notices that he’s anticipating the braking zones a little too early. Not by much, but even a tenth is too much.

He doesn’t want to lose the car now. Not when they’re so close. Not when the track is still damp and a mistake can happen so easily.

It only takes a split second to lose everything, after all.

“Two seconds gained,” Pearl says. “They’ve put in a faster lap as well, Etho, keep pushing.”

“How’s the car?” Etho asks.

Pearl makes a noise that sounds like she’s sputtering. “You should— Well, how does it feel to you?”

Etho is silent for a moment as he takes in the noise of the engine and the feeling of the gearshifts. The aero is not as good as before, but the rest of it… “It’s… fine.”

“Then go for it! Four hours is going to pass by faster than you think! The car can handle it!”

Etho grits his teeth and pushes. Slowly, lap after lap, he starts to close the distance. Two minutes fifty five. Two minutes fifty one. Two minutes fifty. Two minutes forty seven. Two minutes forty two.

“Don’t you dare hold back!” Joel yells into the radio suddenly, as Etho turns onto the Mulsanne straight. Etho jumps, unprepared.

“Joel—”

“Come on, Etho, you’ve got like three hours left! We said we were going to win! Not take P3! Where’s that two time Formula One world champion?”

Etho pushes harder. “I don’t know about Formula One champion Etho,” he says, deciding to be cheeky. “This is Le Mans Etho.”

“It better not be Le Mans loser Etho,” Joel says.

“I’m not a loser,” Etho says immediately.

“No, I didn’t think you were,” Joel says. “Because you’re going to push until the car is on the brink of falling apart. Quit treating it like a baby, that’s the machine that’s going to put us on the top step of the podium! Come on, Etho!”

It’s a relative silence that follows. Joel must have been chased away from the pit wall, but the engine is roaring through Etho’s mind and body, like a wild animal. He pushes it, pushes it, picturing the back of a Ferrari. He’s already passed one and it felt good, but he wants to do it again.

He wants to do it.

He wants to win.

“And that’s two minutes twenty nine,” Pearl says. “Looking better. Let’s hunt them down.”

Etho closes the gap, lap after lap, barely even noticing the time passing as he flies past cars that he’s passed already, cars that aren’t in his fight anymore. He wants to see the gleaming red of Ferrari, and as the time gradually drops to a sub one minute gap, he imagines that he can just glimpse it when he pulls into the straight.

“Box this lap,” Pearl says.

“No,” Etho breathes. “No, I can—”

“They’re going to have to box soon too,” Pearl says. “There’s still time, Etho. You need fresh tires.” After a pause, she adds, “The team is all on their feet for you. I don’t think they’ve sat down once since Joel shouted at you.”

“Remind me to thank him for that,” Etho says.

She laughs. “He can probably hear you. I think he’s got his headset on. But save that conversation for later. Focus.”

Etho makes his stop, blood pounding in his veins the whole time, and returns to the track. He doesn’t want to hear the gaps, but he asks for them anyway. It’s hard to not be disappointed when the gap he worked so hard for is back to two minutes.

A short time later, Ferrari makes their stop as well.

“It’s… okay, yeah, they had a quick stop,” Pearl informs him. “Gap is… pending. Okay, one minute nine seconds. That doesn’t… Scott thinks they might be running light fuel. Or they had some kind of miracle. Just— don’t let them get away from you.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Because Joel is right here next to me again and I won’t hesitate to let him on the radio again.”

Etho smiles. “I might want to hear him.”

“ETHOOO!” Joel yells. Once again, Etho jumps, even though he was slightly more prepared for it this time. “Come on! I want to win!!”

Etho pushes harder. He pushes like he did in Formula One, when he dared to give it everything he had. His first home race in Canada was in similar conditions to this, misty but steadily warming up, and while the crowd wasn’t fully sold on him at the beginning of the race, they were all screaming for him by the end. That day, he was on top of the world. He pushes like he did then, desperate to win, to prove to himself that he’s something.

It’s still racing.

It still makes his heart beat and his breath catch at the rush of speed and power.

But it’s not the same.

Joel is right.

It’s better.

The gap closes, but not quickly enough for Etho’s liking. One minute three seconds. One minute. Fifty eight seconds.

“Peugeot is pitting,” Pearl says. “They—” she gasps. “That’s— they must have a mechanical problem! Etho! Keep pushing! You might only have to catch the Ferrari!”

Etho’s eyes go wide. Then he narrows them again, focusing on passing a blue-flagged backmarker. He didn’t think he could push the car any harder, but the track is drying lap by lap and he’s more confident than ever. He wants this more than ever. He wants this, he wants this, he wants to win, he wants to be on a podium again, he wants his hair to get gross and sticky with the mixture of sweat and champagne, he wants to look down and see his team cheering for him and hear the applause of a hundred thousand people.

He wants it.

And he’ll push this car until it can’t go any faster to get it.

There’s no room for the doubts in his mind anymore. There’s no room for the fear of crashing.

There’s only the desire to win and the concentration to put all of his hard-earned skills into achieving it. All of the time and work it’s taken to build his body back into what he is now.

Fifty seconds. Forty three seconds. Forty one seconds. Thirty eight seconds. Thirty seven seconds. Etho thinks he can taste the Ferrari’s exhaust and he wants to catch them, he wants to catch them and flip the tables.

“Peugeot is still in the pits,” Pearl says. “They’re definitely out of contention for the win, even if they rejoin now. Keep pushing, Etho, I think Ferrari are worried about making it to the end. The pressure is working.”

“How much time do we still have?”

“Just about an hour left,” Pearl says. “You’ve got enough time to chase them down. With your pace, you’ve got this.” A few seconds later, she laughs and adds, “I don’t… I don’t even know if we can technically win. We’re not in the official categories. But that doesn’t matter. We’d still win.”

Etho shakes his head. “It’s just about who crosses the line first,” he says. “We’re not going to come in second.”

Joel is right. Everything he’s said this week, everything he’s said since Etho met him: it’s all crazy and it’s all so, so right.

Etho closes the gap. It feels like it takes forever, but he puts everything he has into closing it. Finally, finally, he spots the flash of red in the distance.

“Get them, Etho!” Joel says. “This is all you! Show them what kind of a winner you are!”

Etho chases them down, feeling both crazy and determined. They dip out of sight at the turns and then they reemerge on the longer straights. Cars move out of the way as Etho continues on his charge, blue-flags keeping them out of the way for the final showdown in the last hour of the race.

“Come on, come on,” he mutters. “What’s the gap now?”

“Eight seconds,” Pearl says. “There’s so many networks and photographers at our garage right now. Lizzie and Joel are all over it. The broadcast has even shown False a few times.”

Etho winces. “Glad I’m not there.”

“We’re all glad that you are where you are,” Pearl says warmly. “Your pace is still great. Ren is happy with the data, although he keeps making these faces when the cameras aren’t on him. I’m sure you’ll see it later.”

“I’m sure I told you I don’t look at social media,” Etho says. He goes silent as he pushes the car through Karting, willing the Ferrari to go a little slower or have some kind of struggle. But the driver is putting in a solid race as well, not giving in easily.

“I don’t want to add to the pressure you’re feeling,” Pearl says. “But we’ve got twenty minutes. At your pace, that’s about five laps left.”

Etho breathes in and out. “Okay.”

He doesn’t know what else he could possibly still be holding back now, but Etho lets whatever it is out. He pushes, he takes every turn at the absolute limit, he seizes every spare tenth of a second he can out of the car and the circuit. The car is unsteady, but Etho knows it now, and he anticipates when he needs to understeer or oversteer.

And the red Ferrari looms ever closer.

After one lap, he’s four seconds behind them. After the next, he’s two and a half.

Etho tears into his third to last lap, briefly oversteering too much but quickly regaining control and continuing his chase.

The Ferrari is so close. So close. He’s been pressuring them this whole time, and he’s sure that they’re on the verge of making a mistake. At this close distance, Etho will take anything. He’ll take anything and snatch the lead from them and refuse to give it back.

He refuses to lose.

Joel refuses to lose.

Etho stays on the back of the Ferrari until they’re almost matching their pace. The gap is under a second, and while Etho is sure that he’s faster, the Ferrari driver isn’t about to give up so easily. They only have to hold him off for another lap and a half now, and not give him enough space to overtake.

“Come on,” Etho mutters to himself. He’s focused, but he also feels so crazy right now— crazy enough to think of an idea.

He chases the Ferrari through the lap, staying right behind him the whole time.

Then, as they come onto the start-finish straight, Etho makes his move. He feigns to the left, waits for the Ferrari to move slightly to block him. Then, Etho zips around the right, completing the pass.

And Etho can’t hear them very well over the noise of the car, but he can see— and feel— the crowds in the grandstand screaming at the overtake.

“Yes!” Pearl says. “Yes! Come on! Let’s bring this home, Etho! Let’s do this!”

“Etho!” Joel yells a moment later. For the first time in the whole race, Etho doesn’t jump at hearing him. “That was bloody insane! What the fuck! Don’t lose it now! Don’t you dare fucking lose it!”

“I won’t,” Etho promises, carrying as much speed as he dares into Dunlop. He’s vulnerable now and he knows it. The ConCorp car has suffered more from minor damages than the Ferrari, and both of them are struggling on old tires. The Ferrari’s driver is very good, and it will only take a small mistake from Etho to lose what he just fought so hard to earn.

He continues into Tertre Rouge, breathing hard. He turns tightly onto Mulsanne.

The Ferrari’s straight line speed is impressive, but so is ConCorp’s. Etho didn’t attempt to overtake them on Mulsanne on the previous laps but he’s not sure the Ferrari will have the same thinking as him.

He sees red at the corner of his eye. Etho grits his teeth and continues pushing, noting his speed climb higher and higher. The chicane is just ahead.

The Ferrari brakes first, disappearing from sight and Etho brakes right after, clipping more of the curb than on previous laps. But it pays off and it keeps him ahead.

For now.

The Ferrari appears at the edge of his vision again, but Etho keeps his head as calm as he can. He carries his speed to the chicane.

This time, he brakes early and the Ferrari overshoots the braking zone by a fine margin. The Ferrari charges ahead, but it’s on the wrong line and Etho easily continues on through the chicane and shoots ahead. This time, he doesn’t see the Ferrari peeking around his car at all.

“Nice job,” Pearl says. She laughs. “Playing mind games I see.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Etho says. “This is how I race.”

“They’ve fallen back a bit,” Pearl reports. “Keep your pace, they might not be able to catch you again.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Etho says.

It’s clear nearly all the way towards Indianapolis. Etho worries when he has to pass a cluster of backmarkers, but Pearl reminds him that the Ferrari will have the same problem.

Through Indianapolis. Towards Arnage. Etho focuses so hard, determined not to make a single mistake. There’s so much controlled oversteer and understeer he needs now to handle the damaged aero, but his body anticipates what he needs before his mind realizes what he’s doing.

He’s in his element. This is where he belongs.

“They’re closing in,” Pearl says. “But I don’t think they’ll have enough to make another overtake attempt.”

Through the Porsche curves.

“It’s not over yet,” Etho says.

Karting.

“Still looks amazing,” Pearl says.

“Feels better than ever,” Etho says.

The Ford Chicane. Etho can see the finish line. There’s a speck of black and white in the distance— the checkered flag.

Etho races down the straight, with not even a hint of Ferrari red at the corners of his eyes.

“Etho!” Pearl shouts. “We’ve won! You did it!”

“Etho!” Joel screams a moment later. “You absolute mad man— you did it! We did it!”

“We’ve won,” Etho says, panting. “Oh my god, we’ve won. We— this is all because of you guys, you know. You—”

“Shut up!” Joel says. “Shut up! We’re a team, yeah, yeah. But you did that! That last lap! Holy— you’re amazing! That was some of the best racing I’ve seen!”

Etho smiles. The cooldown lap is going to take much longer than a regular lap at racing speed. He can feel the graining on the tires, and he wonders how much longer they would have lasted before they hit the performance cliff. Probably not much longer. Scott and Ren’s strategy really worked.

“Nice work out there, Etho,” False says. “Scar and Cub have sent their congratulations.”

Etho chuckles, full of so many emotions that he can’t begin to name. “Is there gonna be another dinner thing we’ll have to go to?”

False hums, amused. “At least one more. I’ll give you a fair warning— we’re going to take a lot of photos of you when you get out of the car for marketing. One of them will end up in the calendar.”

“Oh.” Etho says. “Yeah. The calendar.”

Pearl returns a second later, laughing. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll look fine. Maybe just keep your visor down if you’re nervous about how you’ll look.”

“Yeah, okay,” Etho says.

“Don’t worry,” Pearl continues. “As soon as you see everyone waiting for you, you’re going to forget about whatever it is you’re thinking. Do you want me to call Joel back over here?”

Etho smiles. “No. I want to see him.”

Marshals are lined up and down the track as the cars finish their cooldown, waving flags or waving their hands. Etho would love to be able to stick his arm up to wave back at all of them, but he settles on just looking at as many as he can. He wonders if the marshals from the party are out there somewhere. He hopes they’re as happy as he is now.

He can hear loud cheering when he passes large groups of spectators, especially as he approaches the last parts of the circuit.

The checkered line finally appears before him once more, and waiting there for him are Joel and Lizzie, holding the checkered flag. Etho stops and his doors are opened so that his teammates can sit alongside the car.

“You did it!” Joel screams as Etho starts driving the car slowly down the start-finish straight. He’s waving at the crowds, but he’s focused on Etho. “You did it! We won, Etho! We fucking won!” He screams, rocking slightly and nearly falling off the car. He grabs onto Etho’s arm to keep himself steady and doesn’t let go.

Etho turns the car and drives it down the pit straight. There are hundreds, thousands of people waving and cheering, but the only one that feels like they matter is Joel.

Finally, there’s no more driving for Etho to do. He stops the car and Lizzie and Joel get off. Etho is shaky and his body feels like rubber. It feels like every person in the entire world is surrounding the barriers around the car.

He nearly falls as he climbs out, but someone catches him and hauls him upright.

Joel.

“We’ve won!” Joel is screaming. “Etho, we’ve done it, we’ve won Le Mans!!!” He’s holding Etho up by his upper arms as Etho struggles to get his feet steady under him. The helmet feels like far too much of a barrier between himself and Joel, who has his own face pressed against the visor of the helmet.

Etho reaches out to Joel, holding him close. What the heck, he pulls him into a tight hug.

“I couldn’t have done any of this without you,” he says. Joel is still yelling, so Etho doesn’t know if he even heard him. “Thank you,” he adds quietly. “I needed this. I needed this so much. I don’t feel so lost anymore. Thank you so much.”

Then he clams up, because he can see the cameras getting closer. The three of them throw themselves into a group hug this time. Lizzie starts jumping in excitement, and Etho and Joel follow along.

Cameras. Pictures. Etho pays attention, but he can’t focus on any of it, still so caught up in emotions and in Joel and Lizzie. Joel, Joel, Joel, holding him up, helping him take his helmet off and messing with his hair. Joel, grabbing the checkered flag again and waving it high above the three of them as they continue posing for pictures. Joel, guiding him back to where the team is crowded against the barricade.

Etho starts to feel the exhaustion pressing on him as they’re guided through the post-race circus up onto the podium. The Ferrari team is here as well, along with the top finishers of the other categories. Etho vaguely recalls that Pearl told him that they might not technically win because they’re the special entry.

It doesn’t feel like it matters.

The French presenters call them onto the podium and the crowd below erupts into the loudest cheers of the whole weekend. Etho is sandwiched between Joel and Lizzie, on the top step, with False right beside them.

It’s just like Joel said. Just like Joel believed, this whole time.

Whatever confusion is happening behind the scenes over the technicalities, nobody is stopping them from accepting the trophies and the heavy garlands. Nobody is stopping the cheers, or the music, or the champagne.

Nobody stops Etho as he pulls Joel closer in the midst of it all and presses his lips against his. Joel tastes like sweat and mint chapstick and those awful artificial flavored sports drinks and Etho can't get enough of it. Joel holds him close as well, responding as quickly as he does on the track. They kiss, and the moment is theirs, and nobody can take this victory away.

This right here, is going to be the moment that starts Etho’s life again.

EPILOGUE

Etho doesn’t understand how he’s already so covered in mud when all he did was step out of the car. Joel literally fell straight into the mud-filled ditch when he got out and somehow Etho still looks worse.

Then again, Etho’s wearing the blue and white ConCorp fire suit from Le Mans while Joel is wearing something black and brown and green from about five or six years ago. Joel is probably dirtier than he looks; it just looks worse on Etho.

They both stand on the muddy road, looking down at the car in the ditch.

“Joel…” Etho starts. “You know, I had high expectations for your performance. But—”

“Oh shut up!” Joel says, shoving Etho hard. “You were supposed to be the co-driver!”

Etho stumbles, slips, and falls straight into the ditch again. “What—” For the second time in the span of a few minutes, he tries to extract himself from the mud. And of course, it feels like it’s starting to rain again. Just… great.

“You said it’d be so easy!” Joel continues. “‘Oh, it’s just reading stuff off a paper.’ For goodness sake. You bloody fool. This is your fault.”

“My fault?” Etho says. He drags himself out of the ditch and lunges for Joel, who jumps out of the way at the last moment. Etho nearly faceplants on the muddy road. “Oh, okay, who was the one who said rallying is more exciting when it’s raining or snowing or— look at us!”

Joel breaks into laughter, dancing away from Etho. “You look ridiculous.”

“Quit running away; you’ll look the exact same as me in a minute,” Etho threatens. He grabs at Joel again and manages to catch him by the arm, yanking back. Unfortunately, the muddy road is not a great place for such shenanigans, and they both end up losing their footing and falling down again. There’s mud on Joel’s face now, and Etho thinks he can feel it in his hair.

Joel is still laughing.

Etho can’t help but laugh too. He sits up and attempts to scrape some of the clumps of mud off him. It really doesn’t help that both of his hands are covered in mud as he does it, and the result isn’t much of an improvement. He might have been a fool to take off his gloves when he left the car a moment ago.

“Oh, Joel,” he says, looking back at the car in the ditch. It’s fine, but there’s no way they’re going to be able to push it out of the mud on their own. “What are we going to do? We’re like fifteen kilometers out—”

“It’s fine,” Joel says. “Lizzie’s back there. We just need to call her to come get us.”

Etho groans. “We’re going to end up owing her another favor,” he says.

Joel sobers up. “That’s true.” Then he shrugs. “Well, with the amount of favors I owe her already, one more won’t hurt. Probably.”

“She’s hoarding them,” Etho says. The rain is falling more heavily, so he steps back towards the ditch where the tree branches reach overhead. “One day she’s gonna cash them in all at once. You’re probably going to have to hand over all your trophies.”

“More likely all my money,” Joel says. “The radio’s in the car.”

Etho figures he can’t possibly get any muddier, so he leans against the side of the car as Joel negotiates a rescue from Lizzie. She laughs at them for a minute, but eventually she agrees to come out with a winch. Following that, Joel makes his way slowly around the car to lean alongside Etho.

The rain continues to fall.

“I can’t believe you crashed into the ditch the first time you took me rallying,” Etho says.

“It’s not a crash!” Joel says. “The car is fine. It’s just stuck.”

Etho gives him a look. “Well, it’s not going anywhere. You said—”

Joel pushes him into the mud once again to stop him from talking. But he does crouch down a moment later to help him out.

“I’m just made of mud now,” Etho laments. “And it’s cold and it’s raining. I’m going to freeze to death like this.”

“No you won’t,” Joel says.

No, he won’t. They’re both wearing enough layers that they’re still warm and dry underneath their external layer of mud. And even if they have to be out here waiting for a while, Etho is from Canada and he can deal with the cold.

“Because I’m going to cuddle you for warmth,” Joel says.

“Huh?” Etho says.

But Joel already has his arms around him. It doesn’t do much physically except get them both equally covered in the mud. But Etho’s heart picks up at the contact, and his cheeks burn.

“Better?” Joel says.

Etho smiles and leans into his hold. Yeah, it’s better like this.

“I’m going with Lizzie next time,” he says.

Joel laughs. “Good luck with that,” he says. “I told you, she’s crazier than I am when she’s rallying.”

Etho doesn’t doubt that. “As long as she keeps the car on the road.”

Joel shoves him down into the mud again. But this time, Etho drags him down with him. They’re both filthy, and it can’t possibly get any worse than this.

No. No, that’s not quite right.

Etho tugs Joel closer to him and finds his lips. There’s somehow mud even there, either on Joel or Etho, but it hardly matters right now. Joel relaxes in Etho’s grip, the two of them sliding further into the mud. Joel is kissing him back, and his hands have come up to gently hold Etho’s jaw. Etho winds an arm around Joel’s back to pull him closer.

It can’t possibly get any better than this.