The Limit (Sebastian Vettel)

44. The Dark Days of Winter

A/N:  ok, so I need to apologise for this chapter.  It's crap! Haha.  It's just a filler to link the end of 2019 to testing in 2020.   I couldn't think what to write so decided not to worry too much about it and just get it done.   Hopefully it'll get better again now. 

The following weeks dragged. Christmas came and went, as did New Year.

Lily and Seb exchanged texts, and had spoken on FaceTime a couple of times, but that was all. It seemed as if their closeness from the Christmas party had vanished for reasons they kept to themselves.

Seb had spent all Christmas and New Year at his parents house in Heppenheim, before going on a skiing trip with his brother, Fabian, and Antii.  His feelings for Lily were playing heavily on his mind.  He was 90% sure that he was in love with her, but he was petrified that she didn't feel the same.  He'd also begun to worry about what it would mean for their respective careers if they did become an official couple.   He'd not really thought about it before, but Ferrari and Haas would not be happy.   He would gladly take any bullshit that got thrown at him by the Scuderia if it meant Lily would be his.  He was a four time world champion, and although there was still so much more that he wanted to achieve, he knew that he had to think of his future beyond racing, and Lily was his future, he was almost certain of it.   However, he accepted that Lily was in a completely different situation to him.   She was at the beginning of her Formula 1 career.  He didn't want anything to ruin it for her.  Would she be in danger of losing her seat because of any relationship with him?  He knew he had a lot of thinking to do.  As much as he wanted a relationship, could it actually work?  He was so confused.

Lily had spent Christmas at home with Joel as usual. However this year they'd been joined by Poppy, who had insisted on a traditional roast turkey dinner rather than the curry that Joel usually rustled up.  Lily had enjoyed it more than any Christmas she could remember since her father had passed, but there had still been something missing.   She knew what it was.  Seb.  Her feelings were so strong now that she knew she couldn't resist being his for much longer.   She was so scared of being hurt though. 

Seb's past was always in her mind, he'd been the Casanova of the paddock.  He'd cheated on Sofia by kissing her at the Christmas party.  She wasn't arrogant enough to believe that she was the woman that had changed him.   Could leopards really change their spots?  She didn't know.  She just knew that she couldn't envision a life without him, and that was what gave him the power to destroy her. 

For New Year the three siblings had flown out to Australia to celebrate the arrival of 2020 with their other siblings, minus Damon.   Lily had been reluctant to go at first, but Poppy had persuaded her, and she'd flown home ten days later closer than she'd ever been to them all.  She'd even managed a civil adult conversation with Angela for the first time ever.

Arriving home, there was one topic that was dominating the news.  The World Health Organisation had announced a mysterious coronavirus was spreading throughout the city of Wuhan in China, and within a couple of weeks cases were being diagnosed in various countries across the globe.  People were dying, and experts seemed clueless over how to stop it.

Lily didn't really worry herself over it.  She remembered the warnings  about swine flu from several years before, which had soon died out.   She figured it was pointless worrying about it until she had something to worry about. 

Training had begun again in the middle of January, as had visits to the factory for seat fits and simulator work. Lily had great hopes for the coming season.   Hopefully she and Kevin could build on the work they had done the previous year and move the team up into top five.

Meanwhile, Seb had arrived back in his Swiss home.  He too had seen the news reports about the virus, and he too was not overly concerned about it.   He was too busy thinking about what do regarding Lily.   Did he go all in and tell her he loved her?  Did he carry on as he was now, being satisfied with the scraps she threw his way?