One of the things that had always been difficult for y/n was falling asleep. At some point in her life, when she was a child, she had had to face nightmares alone, since her mother had passed away. From then on, falling asleep, unless she was really tired, was almost an impossible task for her. Yet, whenever she stayed at Carlos's house for the night, she managed to fall asleep easily. Except once. That time when Carlos wouldn't stop snoring and Y/n only managed to sleep for a handful of minutes before waking up with a start. She tossed and turned on the bed when she realised that her hand was entwined with Carlos'. This took her by surprise because this hadn't happened since London and it seemed very strange to her. That didn't mean she didn't like it, in fact, she smiled and thought back to those good times that were long gone. She missed London very much, that happy time of smiles, sweet kisses and lots of attention. She wondered if Carlos missed them too, but she was convinced that he did not miss them at all, that he was more than happy in that "situationship". Yet, she missed London, but would never admit it out loud, not even to herself.
She turned around on the other side of the bed and moved her hand away from the big one of Carlos, who was sleeping. Suddenly Y/n felt Carlos squeezing her hand. He was unconsciously asking her not to leave, to stay together at least at night, when even they could not see what was going on. It was a secret within a secret, which could only take place at night, when both of them were sleeping and only their souls could see it, and no one else. Y/n's heart beat fast, she did not move an inch and left her hand wrapped in Carlos's, almost twice the size of her own. She smiled, wondering if Carlos had squeezed her hand during the night other times. She fell asleep thinking about how strange they were together.
"Paramedics are on their way" a voice interrupted Y/n's thoughts. It was Mattia talking agitatedly to Ricky, Caco, Rupert and Carlos' father on the phone from Spain. Immediately Y/n realised where she was and what was going on. Her gaze was still fixed on those monitors framing Carlos' car from any angle, yet he didn't move, Carlos was always inside his car.
"Please don't leave me, Carlos. I love you..." murmured Y/n, not realising that all radio links were open in case anyone managed to talk to Carlos. Everyone, then, heard Y/n's voice saying that sentence. It was heard, loud and clear on TV and all the Sky commentators, surprized, wondered whose voice it was.
"who spoke?" "this voice sounds familiar" "it sounds like Y/n Horner's voice" "it was Charles' engineer, Horner's daughter". For a few seconds, that team radio was at the centre of the conversations of everyone watching the race.
"What the fuck... was that Y/n?" Christian turned to Max and Checo who were also watching the images of the accident from the Red Bull pits. Checo pretended not to have heard that audio while Max completely ignored Christian's question, which made him even more nervous.
Medics and firemen arrived near Carlos' car and worked together to extinguish the flames and extract Carlos' body as quickly as possible. "He's unconscious, but he's breathing," said Mattia, who was in liaison with the doctors on the track. Immediately the news spread throughout the paddock and on television. Charles, who had stood beside Y/n in silence and with bated breath, looked at her and smiled.
"He's alive, y/n". She was still motionless, too shaken to understand what the people around her were saying. All she heard was a ringing in her ears, everything seemed muffled to her.
"Y/n!!!" Charles was shaking her out of his arms, and finally y/n became present again. She was pale as a rags, in fact a mechanic immediately brought her a glass of mineral salts and in no time she regained her colour and the buzzing disappeared. As soon as she came to her senses, she got off the stool and, ignoring everyone around her, ran towards the Red Bull pits with blood pumping in her head from anger. She made her way towards the garages, looked around and saw Checo and Carola who ran towards her as soon as they saw her.
"That was your voice from the team radio, wasn't it? How are you now?" Checo spoke to her worriedly like a father.
"What team radio?" Y/n was confused again, but she had something else to do, so she paid little attention to Checo's words.
"It's all over, sweetheart" Carola hugged Y/n tightly and although she loved them both and their affection was sincere, she slipped out of Carola's arms and, without saying anything, continued towards the inside of the pits, looking for Max who she found sitting on the cot in his restroom. He was staring into space, looking shattered.
"What the fuck were you thinking? You wanted to kill him?" yelled y/n violently entering Max's restroom. He immediately looked up and stood up, bringing his arms forward, as if to calm y/n who had now gone on a rampage.
"It's not what it looks like, I was terrified as well" his eyes were red, as if he had cried or was about to.
"Oh, cry me a river"
"It's true! I didn't want to crash on him! I was just trying to overtake him and..."
"...I swear to god, if you try to foil some excuses to Fia for what you did, I'll come looking everywhere for you to make you pay for it" she couldn't understand what she was saying anymore, the words were coming out of her mouth with an anger even she didn't know she had.
"I didn't do it on purpose, I swear" Max's voice was broken with tears and his head was spinning. He had never felt so bad in his life. He had to sit back down on the cot because he felt he was about to lose consciousness. Y/n took a step back huffing and turning his head to the other side.
"You're just a spoiled little boy, Max. And I'm a fool because despite everything you and my father did to me, I thought you wanted to build a friendship. Instead, you would do anything to win, in competitions as in life."
"Who's yelling?" Christian entered Max's restroom alarmed by the screaming. Father and daughter looked at each other for a second.
"What are you doing here?" he asked annoyed. Watching his daughter wearing the colours of the rival team made him furious.
"Nothing, I was just leaving." she looked at Max, then at the walls of the restroom "this place makes me sick."
"The team radio was really yours? F1 has become a soap opera" he rolled his eyes, as y/n still didn't understand why everyone was asking her about this team radio.
"Max, I spoke to the race directors, yours was a race incident, no need to worry about the championship" Max's eyes widened, shocked by those words in such a sensitive circumstance as that. He felt dirty and felt like throwing up.
"I don't think it's a good moment, Christian" said Max mortified. Y/n looked at the scene, looked at Max then looked at her father and walked away shaking her head.
While leaving the Red Bull pit, she met Charles who was looking for her. As soon as he saw her with swollen, red eyes, he ran up to her and hugged her tightly. He held her close without saying a word, stroking her hair. Some people stopped to watch the scene but Checo approached the crowd and gently invited them to leave. He looked at Charles and once he was sure that y/n was in good hands, he walked away, joining Carola who was waiting for him further on. Y/n and Charles remained silent for a few minutes, then he gently pulled her away so he could look her in the eyes. She was all red, the vein in her left temple was exposed, like all the times she was agitated.
"Let's go home now, okay?" said Charles in the nicest way ever. Immediately Y/n felt protected, safe and just nodded. They moved quickly towards the car park until she sat in the passenger seat of Charles' car. On the way, they were silent and Y/n managed to fall asleep, waking up shortly afterwards.
*CHARLES' POV*
As soon as the news that Carlos was alive spread around the paddock, Charles ran to his restroom and threw up. He had suffered so many losses in his life, Jules, his father, and could not bear to lose someone as precious to him as Carlos. He looked at his reflection in the small mirror above the sink and rinsed his face, then ran back to Caco and the others from Carlos's team who were about to leave for the hospital.
"Are you coming with us, Charles?" asked Rupert, slipping on his coat.
"I have to find Y/n first. I'll talk to you on the way. If there's any news, call me right away" the group walked away and from a distance Mattia approached Charles. He hugged him tightly
"He'll be fine, Charlie" it was as if there was much more behind that hug and Charles knew it well.
He took a sip of his mineral salts and began to search the paddock crowd for Y/n, to no avail.
"Did you hear what Y/n said on that team radio?" Mattia asked, Charles merely nodded "Did you know about the two of them, then?" Charles nodded again, continuing to search the crowd for her. "It seems as if Horner has something to do with this whole thing" it was like Mattia thought this and said it out loud, as to be heard by Charles.
"Horner? He'll do anything for Red Bull but trust me, there's no plan behind Carlos and Y/n" after saying this, almost absentmindedly, Charles turned away from Mattia and walked over to the Red Bull pits where he saw Y/n coming out crying. He felt a pain in his stomach as soon as he saw her like that. He became very angry with Horner, with Max and with himself, thinking that he had not been able to stop or protect her. Both had suffered so much in life, too much, and too soon they had realised that they had to fend for themselves in this world. But together it would have been easier and less painful. He looked into her eyes and felt within him the duty to stand by her side, no matter what happened, he would never leave her alone again.
Charles pulled up in front of the hotel entrance where the Ferrari team was staying, including himself and Carlos. He opened the door for Y/n, who had just woken up, and held out his hand to help her out of the car. She let him help her, then Charles handed his car keys to the concierge and they both entered the hotel. Charles took the keys to both rooms and together they went upstairs. Charles, Carlos and Y/n's rooms were on the same floor, almost next to each other. In silence, Charles opened the door of Y/n's room and waited for her to enter.
"Goodnight, Y/n. If you need something, call me, please" his blue eyes were looking straight at her. She smiled and hugged him, thanking God for sending her the kindest person ever.
Y/n entered her room and threw herself on the bed, closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep. She dreamt of the images of the accident that swept through her head, encircling her completely. She saw the impact, the flames, Carlos' helmet being enveloped in flames. The images of the accident turned into a nightmare, with flames devouring all around. Carlos was unconscious, pulled from the car, one arm dangling from the stretcher and his head hidden by the helmet.
"he is not breathing" "he has too many burns on him" "he breathed in too much smoke"
Imaginary voices buzzed in her head and the fear of losing him forever made her sweat, she couldn't breathe and thrashed around on the bed, squeezing her eyes shut but unable to wake up from the nightmare. She felt paralysed, overwhelmed by those images, those words, until she fell out of bed. The fall made her jolt awake with a throbbing headache. Her ears started ringing again and the whole room spun around her. With the last of her energy left, she reached for her mobile phone to call Charles but found a message from Max:
"I need to tell you how things really went. Please. I'll be waiting for you anytime at my hotel. Max"
Y/n read that message and felt like throwing up, in fact she barely managed to get up in time to run to the bathroom. After a few minutes, she got up from the floor and called Charles who in less than a minute knocked on her door. The two hugged each other even tighter than they had done in the paddock and they both burst into tears. It was a liberating cry after all that had happened that Sunday.
"He's alive, isn't he?" asked Y/n as if to ascertain that the dream had only been a nightmare.
"Yes, he is alive, Y/n. Carlos is alive," Charles repeated to himself over and over again, he needed to hear it too.