"More importantly, how are you?" Jacob said, focusing his attention on Casey.
Evan was half-listening in to them as he made the order to room service.
"I'm alright," she replied casually.
"She's lying." Evan blurted out, thoroughly confusing the girl on the other end of the phone who was taking his order.
"I haven't seen him in so long. Am I supposed to just get over him at some point?" she asked.
"Well, how do you feel about seeing him?" Jacob asked.
"Like, talking to him?"
"Yeah?"
Casey balked, "Fucking terrified."
Jacob nodded in understanding, "Well, he definitely wants to see you."
Casey cringed. So long as she didn't see Seb, she could still fool herself into believing there was hope. If he wanted closure, that was one traumatic conversation she could do without on this particular weekend. Was it worth the risk of underperforming at her debut Grand Prix with her new team?
---
The next day brought with it Free Practice 1 & 2. Everything seemed to be business as usual in the Ferrari garage until the last 10 minutes of FP2.
Casey sat between Monte and Ric as they watched the overhead monitors.
They noticed a sudden flurry of movement on the pit wall as Kimi's engineer called out, motioning for some of the crew back in the garage to prepare. Something had happened.
Casey looked back up at the monitors with the rest of the pit team and waited to see if the footage would reveal what was going on.
"If it's an engine failure I'm going to kill someone." Lanzo huffed.
Sure enough, the footage flicked over to Kimi who was in the middle of a fast flying lap. He was approaching Vergne, who looked as if he was about to yield before his back left tyre suddenly burst and the car jerked unexpectedly, swerving straight into Kimi's tail and causing them both to spin out into the tyre barrier.
The pit crew collectively gasped as the nose and front wing crumpled into the barrier and the back wing hung in a gnarled twist off the rear of the car.
Some of the guys around Casey stood up to voice their frustrations as they watched their car go from a pristine machine to a sad, dented mess.
Casey was just glad to see Kimi clambering out of the car, seemingly un-phased. A little further up the track, Vergne was also climbing out of his now well and truly damaged car.
And just like that, the crew's finish time that day was pushed well back into the early hours of the morning.
---
Later that evening after Seb had changed out of his race suit and finished de-briefing from the earlier sessions, he wandered back in to the garage and made a beeline for Evan.
Seb shot him an expectant expression as Evan looked up and sighed, pulling out his phone and passing it over.
Seb took it quickly and walked a few paces away, navigating to Casey's name and copying the number across to his own phone.
"Thank you." Seb said pointedly as he threw the phone back.
"I don't think you'll get through today though, Ferrari will probably be working till the early hours of the morning." Evan said, tucking a cloth in his belt casually.
"Was the damage that bad?" Seb asked curiously.
Evan shrugged, "New tail and nose, front wing, who knows what else took a hit underneath."
Seb raised his brow, he was yet to see Kimi and Vergne's run in. He'd see it when he watched the footage back at the hotel that night.
He walked out the front of the garage, deciding to take the long way around to the parking lot. He jumped up the steps on the other side of the pit wall and walked left along the platform.
Seb could see the full garage lights still on at Ferrari, and further down at Torro Rosso too.
He walked slowly, hidden from sight by the increasing darkness of the evening. As he strolled in parallel with the Ferrari garage, he chanced a look inside. He immediately spotted Casey, the smallest figure in a huddle of crew who were sprawled on the ground around the nose of Kimi's car.
They were all pouring over a large diagram in the middle, taking it in turns to speak and gesture towards various sections of the drawing. One of the men said something, causing the rest of them to laugh. Seb watched as Casey smiled and laughed with them, looking completely at ease in her new red uniform. What he wouldn't give to have her smile at him like that again. He shook his head and sighed to himself. He had to fix this as soon as possible.
---
After what felt like one of the longest days in Casey's life, the Ferrari team finally called it in at 3am. The car was almost completely back to normal, after most of the outer shell and several internal components had to be replaced. Casey pulled out her phone but it was well and truly dead.
The team had to be up again at 6am to make it back to the track and begin preparations for Free Practice 3. Since there was so little time, most of the team decided to sleep at the circuit, rather than waste any of their precious rest hours travelling back to the hotel.
Casey, Dominic, Lanzo, Monte and Ric joined the procession out of the garage as the pit team headed to the hallway around the back. There were already people finding themselves spots along the wall to sit down and close their eyes.
As they walked further, Casey started to notice members from other teams who'd stayed back late too, including the majority of Vergne's pit crew. They'd had just as much work to do to clean up their car after the collision with Kimi.
Casey found a spot a little further down from anyone else and sat down, laying back on the hard ground and using a rolled up jacket as a pillow. She felt completely exhausted.
She tried to ignore the discomfort and shut her eyes. This was going to hurt by 6am.
Her eyes flickered open again as she felt someone lay down right next to her. She frowned and looked over before her expression changed to surprise.
"What are you still doing here?" she whispered.
"Stayed back to give the crew a hand moving parts in and out after the collision." Heikki replied, shrugging tiredly, "Though I think your car got the worst of it."
"You think?" Casey teased, "There wasn't much of it that we didn't have to replace."
Heikki shot her a quick smile before lifting his arm up and encouraging her to move in closer.
"I promise not to try to kiss you." he said, laughing under his breath.
Casey hesitated for a moment before accepting his invitation and moving in against his side. She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. He was a lot more comfortable as a pillow than her jacket was.
She could feel his fingers tracing lines up and down her arm. Too exhausted to care much anymore, and with not many other places to put it, she let her hand slip up his torso and rest on his chest.
"Thought sleeping on the floor was unacceptable to you?" Casey mumbled against his collarbone.
"Someone told me it's good for the back." he whispered, smiling in the dark.
She chuckled. At least he was willing to joke about that morning back in her apartment in England. She felt him kiss her forehead as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Heikki lay awake, listening to the other people in the hallway settling down and trying to get comfortable. Some of them were tossing and turning, or re-adjusting their make-shift pillows irritably. In contrast, he couldn't have been much more comfortable himself, with Casey's warm body pressed against his side and her arm draped across his chest. There was something about the way she did everything that always made it feel intimate. Like he was the only one in her world at that moment.
It seemed to him like a glimpse into how Seb would have felt every night when she slept next to him. How could he throw this away? She was perfect.
---
Casey groaned as she was awoken just under 3 hours later. She was confused for a moment about where she was and whose arms were squeezing her.
"Wake up, Case." Heikki's voice called softly.
Casey would have killed to be able to stay right there and go back to sleep. Whether she wanted to admit it to herself or not, being held in someones arms again felt so nice.
She buried her head against his neck and sighed, "No."
She felt Heikki laugh quietly, "You have to."
"Why?" she whined, biding for time. She could feel the morning coldness biting at the parts of her body not pressed against Heikki.
"Because everyone else is starting to wake up and you may not want to be seen at work uhh, ...with me, in this way." he whispered against her cheek.
That woke her up.
Her senses came flooding back to her and she sat up quickly, hissing as she realised her shoulder was well and truly bruised from the hard floor below them.
She sucked in a deep breath, feeling the cold air hit her just as she'd anticipated. She looked back over her shoulder as Heikki sat up next to her, giving her a shy grin.
"What are you so pleased about?" she teased.
He shook his head and looked down at his hands before leaning his head on her shoulder.
She didn't know if she felt guilty or not about spending this time with Heikki. She hadn't seen Seb in almost 2 months, though not for lack of wanting to. Maybe it would be good for her to finally start trying to move past him.
Heikki's attention was flattering, but more importantly, familiar. His presence was a relaxing reminder of her life before it all went to shit. Heikki knew she still loved Seb, but he was still there, sitting beside her. That was his decision.
"Okay, I can do this," she breathed, bracing herself to stand up.
She pulled herself up to her feet, looking around at all of the other sleepy faces down the hallway trying to will themselves awake. She turned around and offered her hand down to Heikki who took it and pulled himself up, pulling her back into his chest in the process.
She laughed quietly as she enjoyed his warmth again, wrapping her arms around him.
"Good luck today." he murmured against her hair.
"Keep your driver away from Kimi this time, would you?" she replied, pulling back to grin up at him.
She looked away quickly as she saw his eyes flicker down to her lips. She couldn't even begin to work out how she'd feel about that. Not at 6am in the morning on less than 3 hours of sleep, that was for sure.
Heikki smiled gently, leaning forward to whisper against her forehead, "I told you I wouldn't try to kiss you."
"I know." she murmured before releasing her hold around his waist.
"See you later?" she said, smiling at him.
He nodded and watched her turn away and walk down the hall towards the Ferrari garage.
"I hope so." he mumbled to himself.
---
Casey yawned as she stepped into the garage and held up her arm to shield her eyes from the sunlight pouring in through the garage door.
"God, who opened that already?" she muttered.
"I did!" Dominic called enthusiastically as he side-stepped past her.
"Ugh, morning people." Lanzo said, catching Casey's eye and making a face.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and tried to check it, forgetting it had been completely dead since sometime the evening before. She sighed and threw it on the bench in front of her before pulling her gloves on and getting straight to work.
Half an hour later, Dominic was marching around the garage passing out breakfast savouries and coffee, making Casey realise just how starving she was. If she was honest, she couldn't wait for qualifying to be over that day. A long, warm shower and her comfortable bed back at base were calling her name.