FIVE
TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF LOSS AND MISCARRIAGE
"Josie, baby, I would like to introduce you to my best friend."
Jules Bianchi spoke to his girlfriend, as the woman was about to meet his best friend for the very first time.
She had already met his godson, and the teenage boy had immediately took a liking to the woman, considering her his godmother even after only meeting her twice.
He knew that he still needed to meet her parents, however they were always travelling the world so he knew that it was going to be very difficult for him to do so.
Her brother was a soldier stationed in Afghanistan so he also knew that he faced little possibility of actually meeting him either.
So he decided to introduce her to his close circle, and his family so that she didn't feel bad about the fact that she could not be able to bring her family to meet him.
"This is Daniel."
A curly brown haired man smiled at the woman that was dating his best friend, and he could see just what the French man had always said to him.
She was absolutely beautiful.
The pair had spent so long talking about the French man's new girlfriend, since the Bianchi man couldn't find a single fault with the woman, because he just couldn't help but find her completely perfect.
"Hi Daniel, I'm Josephine but you can call me Josie." Josephine Rankin smiled at the best friend of her boyfriend, but she couldn't help but feel like she had seen him before.
Maybe she had seen him when she was dating that of Sebastian Vettel, she wasn't sure.
"You can call me anything you want, but just don't call me later for dinner." Daniel grinned playfully as he heard the two of them bursting in to laughter at his joke.
"I see why you like him. He's hilarious." Josephine released a small giggle, as the Ricciardo man noticed the look of adoration that his best friend was giving her as the sound left her lips.
He could see just how much his best friend loved her, and he knew that she was the thing that he loved most in the world.
He knew that his best friend loved the Rankin woman more than racing.
"And you are hypnotising my man Jules." Daniel laughed along with his fellow Australian as Jules seemed to be lost in thought as he was staring at the woman.
Jules knew that their little family now had a cool uncle to add to their dynamic, even though they had not yet announced the pregnancy.
And he knew that the Rankin woman would be the best mother.
All he had to do now was to put a ring on it and propose.
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Daniel Ricciardo gently placed a fluffy blanket over the sleeping figure of the Rankin woman as she had fallen asleep on the sofa in his home in Perth.
He had finished P6 at the Australian Grand Prix, and since the Australian model was on her way back to her home in Perth, he had returned to his home there too.
It was how she had ended up at his home, since she had driven to his house in the middle of the night due to her recurring dreams and nightmares of their best friend.
The pair had spoken with each other for a while, before he had stood up to get her a glass of water and returned to see her fast asleep.
He watched her fondly as the woman slept, curled in to a small ball as if she was a cat, trying to make herself small even in the state of sleep that she was in.
Her breathing was slow and even and for once she actually looked peaceful.
Daniel carefully sat on the armchair that was beside the sofa that she was on, and placed a blanket over his own body so that she would not be alone, and that if she woke up from a nightmare that he was there to help her.
He carefully took a hold of the woman's hand as it had been resting on the arm of the sofa, and began to rub small circles on her hand since he knew that Jules used to do the same to her.
As his eyes fluttered closed as sleep began to overcome him, and he found himself smiling in his sleep as he dreamt of the good old days with the Rankin woman and their best friend.
And as he woke up, he found that the model had unknowingly interwined their fingers whilst they were both asleep.
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"How are you feeling?"
Daniel Ricciardo spoke to the Australian model that was Josephine Rankin as she stepped out of his bathroom, since she had showered and changed in to some loose clothing belonging to the Formula One driver.
"Better, I think." Josephine gave the man a small smile, since it was all that she could muster up.
"I've made some lasagne, if you would like some." Daniel gave the woman a caring smile, seeing her face filling with thought as she debated on what she would do.
"Um, maybe just the smallest of it because I don't want to try loads and make myself ill. But do you mind if I get a glass of water, please?"
The Rankin woman questioned timidly as the man immediately widened his eyes, before rushing to make her a glass of water so that she didn't need to do it herself.
"Here."
Their hands touched slightly as he handed her the glass filled with the clear liquid, with a feeling of electricity shooting through the pair of them.
"Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?" Daniel asked the brunette, seeing her starting to chew on the bottom of her lip.
"Uh, Charles sent me a message the other day. He wants to meet me." Josephine admitted sheepishly, as she brought one of her hands up so that she could bite at the skin around her nails.
"Leclerc?" Daniel furrowed his eyebrows together as the woman slowly nodded her head up and down a couple of times.
"Yeah, he said that he wants to meet his godmother." Josephine gulped thickly as the words left his lips, since he was very aware that she had not seen the boy since he was sixteen, the year before they had lost Jules.
"Are you okay with doing that? Do you want me to be with you?" Daniel placed both of his hands on to the woman's arms as he rubbed up and down to comfort her.
"Yes please." Her voice cracked as she spoke, since she did not want to be alone when the Leclerc boy inevitably confronted her.
"Forget the lasagne, come on, let's go and meet him." Daniel gave the woman a reassuring smile as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his chest, whilst grabbing his car keys.
"God, I hope he doesn't hate me."
A short drive later, they found the Monégasque Formula One driver waiting for them at a café, as he was wringing his hands together in nerves.
Charles Leclerc had heard all about the fiancée of Jules being at the Australian Grand Prix, and so before he went back to Monaco, he wanted to see her and talk things through with her.
He had last seen her when he was just sixteen years of age, and he had immediately bonded with her to the point where he had wanted to spend time with his godparents all of the time.
Which didn't happen.
"Hi." He spoke as his body was filling with nerves by the second, as he noticed that the woman was almost hiding behind that of the Renault Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo.
"Hey man." Daniel greeted the young Ferrari driver, as the woman was walking behind him slowly, since she didn't want the boy to scream at her in hate.
She knew that she should have at least spoken to him after they had lost Jules, but she just couldn't.
Because she hadn't just lost Jules, she had lost their baby too.
"Is she okay?" Charles muttered as he noticed that the woman was shaking slightly, trying to avoid his gaze.
"She's worried about what you want to say." Daniel whispered to the boy, since he knew that the Leclerc boy would understand.
"Aunt Josie?"
Josephine could feel tears pricking at her eyes as the words left the lips of the Monégasque, with his voice sounding exactly like it did when she had last seen him.
She ever so slowly stepped out from behind the Australian driver so that the boy could see her whilst chewing on her bottom lip in nerves. Her eyes twitched as she noticed the look that he was giving her, before she was forced to briefly close her eyes due to trying to hold back tears.
"Uh, hi kid." Josephine spoke quietly, as she braced for him to explode in anger at her for abandoning her.
Charles discovered that his bottom lip was trembling as he stared at her timid figure, causing him to barrell in to the woman, wrapping his arms around her waist as he rested his head against her shoulder.
Josephine widened her eyes as the boy hugged her tightly, with her ears picking up the very quiet sobs that were leaving him as he inhaled the scent of her, which was the exact same as his godfather, since she had been using the same cologne that he had worn when he was alive.
It made her feel like he was still there, when she did.
Daniel watched the two of them with a sad smile on his face, before he noticed how the clouds that were in the sky disappeared as the sun began to appear, shining brightly down on them.
He knew that it was Jules.
The Rankin woman slowly lifted both of her arms to wrap around his body to hug the Monégasque back, which ended up providing the both of them with the comfort that they needed.
Charles had missed her, and whilst he knew why she had never spoken to him since Jules' death, it had hurt that she had abandoned him, because he felt like she had forgotten that he had existed.
Because she wasn't the only one that had lost Jules.
"Can we talk?" Charles muttered quietly as he pulled back from the hug that he had needed, to see her staring at him in surprise.
"I'll go for a walk and leave you both to it." Daniel smiled at the two of them, walking away so that the pair could talk through things that they wouldn't want him there for.
"Before you scream at me, I just want to say that I'm sorry." Josephine released a sigh as she spoke to the Leclerc boy, seeing him furrow his eyebrows together in confusion.
"What for?"
"I abandoned you. When you called me, I just let it go to voicemail and never bothered to speak to you and I'm sorry." Josephine admitted as she stared at the ground in shame.
"You were grieving, I get that, but couldn't you have at least spoken to me once? Like when I made it in to Formula One, or when I was signed with Ferrari? I miss him but I've accepted his death, surely you have done the same." Charles released his thoughts as he spoke.
"That's where you're wrong, kid." Josephine lifted her hands to rub at her face as she was finally prepared to admit the truth.
"I have never got over losing him, or accepted it. Every time that I wake up screaming in the middle of the night, I expect him to be there, next to me but then I realise that he's not and I realise that I'm living my nightmare every single day." Josephine's voice cracked and faltered as she admitted the truth to her feelings and thoughts, trying to get rid of the feeling of nausea that was forming in her stomach as she was speaking.
"If I even thought about racing, I would end up being ill, or sick. I couldn't watch a race because I would cry if there was a crash because I would think that they were dead even if it was the smallest of accidents. I couldn't speak to anybody who had an affiliation with racing because it made my heart hurt to the point that I just wanted to rip it out of my chest just to get rid of the pain."
"I still see him sometimes, and I keep thinking that I'm going mad and have started to hallucinate him, or that he's actually there and not dead, but when I try to reach out for him, my hands just go through him and it's like I've lost him all over again."
"I hear his voice, I smell him, I feel his touch, and I just want him to be with me every second of every day but I'll never be able to speak to him, or hug him or kiss him again and it hurts so bad."
Charles felt his tears free falling out of his eyes as he listened carefully to her, seeing that her entire body had begun to shake violently the more that she spoke, which made him finally see just how slim she was.
She was slim when he had met her, but it was never like it was right now.
It was like she was just wasting away, to the point where she was only skin and bone.
The Leclerc boy released a deep sigh as the realisation hit him just how bad the grief had enloped her, as he now understood exactly why she hadn't spoken to him since the death of Jules.
And he felt awful for being angry at her.
"How's the baby doing? Is he at school?" Charles questioned, since he remembered just how excited his godfather had been when he had informed him that was going to be a dad.
Josephine's face immediately drained of color, becoming gray as the words hit her ears, before her body ran in to the café behind them, running in to the toilets so that she could empty the contents of her stomach.
Charles immediately followed after her, standing outside the toilets as guilt filled him as he was able to hear the violent sound of her being sick.
"Did I say something wrong?" Charles' voice became timid and quiet, as if he was a little boy being told off by his parents.
"I lost the baby when he died."
Josephine sobbed as the Leclerc boy pulled her against his chest, gently rocking her back and forth as he found himself crying at the realisation that he did not have the baby cousin that he thought that he had.
"Oh no, no no no no no."
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A/N
This hurts
I'm so sorry
What do you think?
Please do check out all of my other books specifically my f1-f4 ones because I think that they deserve some love and some comments
Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and I'll see you all soon for the next one
I'm so proud of all of you, my loves
Love you all,
-RUBY