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The rain came down in sheets over Silverstone, a metallic roar against the motorhomes that lined the paddock. The qualifying session had ended hours ago, but Nico Rosberg was still awake — hair tied back, laptop open, posture perfect even as exhaustion hummed behind her eyes.
She’d lost pole by a tenth. A tenth.
To Sebastian.
It shouldn’t have mattered. A front-row start was still good. Safe. Calculated.
But it wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t what she wanted — not when it was Seb smirking from the top slot, her messy blond hair plastered to her forehead, grinning through the downpour like she’d just discovered joy itself.
Nico shut her laptop with a sharp click. The silence pressed close around her.
She could still hear the echo of Seb’s laugh from the post-qualy press conference — the easy way she’d deflected a question about dominance with, “Maybe I’m just lucky. Or maybe the car likes me better.”
A sideways glance. A glint in her blue eyes that Nico had spent far too long pretending didn’t affect her.
A knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts.
Nico frowned. It was past midnight. Journalists were gone, engineers asleep.
She opened the door a crack — and there was Seb, soaked to the bone, holding two bottles of cheap champagne and grinning like she’d broken into heaven.
“Don’t slam the door. I come bearing gifts.”
“Vettel.” Nico crossed her arms. “You’re dripping on my floor.”
Seb looked down, shrugged. “Can’t help it. Rain doesn’t like me much. But champagne does.” She held up the bottles like proof. “And you could use some.”
“I don’t drink the night before a race.”
“Then call it hydration,” Seb said, pushing past her before Nico could stop her. She kicked off her soaked sneakers, shook her hair out, and immediately made herself at home — in the exact infuriating, disarming way she always did.
Nico watched, half-appalled, half-fascinated. “You’re insane.”
“Mm,” Seb hummed, popping one bottle open. “Probably. But you looked like you were about to combust during the press conference, and that’s never good for your blood pressure.” She poured two glasses, handed one over.
Nico hesitated — long enough for Seb to roll her eyes. “Come on. It’s not poisoned. I’m not that competitive.”
Nico took it, if only to stop Seb from teasing her further. “You’re ridiculous.”
Seb flopped onto the small couch, tucking her legs under her. “And you’re uptight. It’s balanced. Yin and yang. Prost and Senna.”
“Senna would have killed Prost,” Nico muttered, sitting stiffly on the other end of the couch.
Seb smirked. “Exactly my point.”
They drank in silence for a while — the sound of rain and distant thunder filling the space. Nico hated how comfortable it started to feel, how Seb’s presence softened the edges of her exhaustion.
“You hate me right now, don’t you?” Seb said suddenly.
Nico blinked. “What?”
“For qualifying,” Seb continued, turning the glass in her hands. “You get this look when I beat you. Like you’re trying to do math and set me on fire at the same time.”
“I don’t hate you.”
Seb’s mouth quirked. “No? Pity.”
Nico shot her a sharp look, but Seb only grinned wider, eyes glinting in the low light. “Relax, Rosberg. I’m teasing.”
“Don’t.” Nico’s voice came out quieter than she meant. “Not tonight.”
Seb’s smile faltered. She studied Nico for a moment — really looked at her, the tension in her shoulders, the quiet ache behind her calm. Then, softly: “Alright. No teasing.”
The quiet stretched again, but it felt different now — heavy with something unspoken.
“I just…” Nico started, then stopped. She’d never been good at this — at admitting that sometimes she wasn’t alright, that sometimes the weight of perfection hurt. “I just wanted it,” she said finally. “Pole. Just once without—” She gestured vaguely toward the door, the world, everything. “Without it meaning something else.”
Seb leaned back, her expression gentler than Nico had ever seen. “You know, it’s okay to just want something because you want it.”
Nico looked at her. “You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not,” Seb admitted. “But it’s worth trying.”
Something in her voice — the raw sincerity — cracked through Nico’s guard. For a heartbeat, she wanted to tell her everything: about the pressure, the image, the loneliness under all that steel. Instead, she took another sip of champagne and said, “You’re bad for my discipline.”
Seb grinned again, small and warm. “Yeah, but good for your blood pressure.”
Nico huffed a laugh before she could stop herself.
Seb’s smile grew, soft around the edges. “There it is. The real one.”
“The real what?”
“Your smile. The one that doesn’t look like it’s for a camera.”
Nico felt heat rise to her cheeks. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” Seb said, leaning in just a fraction, eyes flicking down to Nico’s lips before darting back up. “Here I am.”
Outside, thunder rumbled again — low, distant, and alive.
For a long, fragile second, Nico thought about what it would feel like to close that last bit of space between them. To stop thinking, stop controlling, just want.
Instead, she stood. “You should dry off. You’ll catch a cold.”
Seb laughed softly, but didn’t push. “Only if you promise to stop pretending you don’t care as much as you do.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“Sure, Rosberg.” Seb’s smile turned teasing again — but the kindness in it lingered. “You’re just very passionate about your data sheets.”
Nico rolled her eyes, but her pulse hadn’t calmed since Seb walked in.
As she turned away, Seb said quietly, “For what it’s worth… I want this too. More than you think.”
When Nico looked back, Seb was watching her with that same easy warmth — the kind that made her chest ache and her carefully built walls feel suddenly, dangerously thin.
Outside, lightning split the sky.
Inside, Nico wasn’t sure if the thunder she heard next came from the storm — or from somewhere in her ribcage.