Under the helmet | Charles Leclerc

~Chapter 30~

I smile knowingly at Isabella, dismissing her politely without saying a word. It takes her a second to realise, then her face perks up and she nods and points over to the podium and puts her thumbs up and mouths: 'you got this' and winks before turning away to find Cara and George. I turn to face the Dutchman, who stands a distance away from me.

"Max." I speak firmly with him, he looks at me, with distance and coldness in his eyes.

"You wanted to talk?" He questions, sounding clueless, but I know he knows better.

"Well I asked you a goddamn question and you didn't fucking answer it so I'll ask you again, a bit louder this time. What. The fuck. Happened?!" I question him, raising my voice on the last four words. He looks at me, with the same monotone coldness in his eyes.

"I crashed into you, is what happened, but I served a penalty which costed me the podium." He tries to argue back.

"No, no. You're not the victim here. You crashed into me, and costed me points. And a podium, and possibly a win. Do you know how that feels?" I ask him, trying to hold back my anger, in case there are any fans filming.

"Yes, surprisingly, I do know how that feels, and I apologise you feel like that." He tries to apologise but apologises for the wrong reason.

"I don't want you to apologise for how I feel, I want you to apologise for what you fucking did!" I shout at him, getting closer to him and pointing at him, practically touching his chest.

"I apologised for that by not getting a podium and for the 5 second penalty." He points out.

"Well that didn't do shit for me, Verstappen. An apology might help me forgive you and not do the same back to you." I snap at him, speaking sternly.

"Well, I paid for what I did, and if that's not enough then we are done here." He tries to walk away again, this time I grab his arm and pull him back in front of me.

"No, you are not walking away again. Is it so hard to apologise for something you did, can you not own up to your own mistakes?" I take a different approach and try to provoke him to get an apology out of him.

"I admitted to my mistake by taking that penalty." He points out, being annoyingly calm.

"You haven't apologised to me." I emphasise the last word, trying to get him to apologise. The grip on his arm tightening, making sure he wouldn't go anywhere.

"I apologise for crashing into you, Maeve. Is that what you wanted?" He asks, adding some attitude, like he's getting annoyed now.

"Drop the fucking attitude, Verstappen." I storm away from him, back to the podium, getting the last word.

I walk over and notice Charles on the top of the podium, he looks worriedly at me, like he's just seen what happened. I look down from his gaze and he comes down from the podium, as the celebrations are over. He immediately makes eye-contact with me when he finds me in the paddock.

"What happened with Max? Are you alright?" He asks, holding my hand, stopping me from walking away.

"Yes, I'm fine." I say looking down, not looking at him.

"Say that again, and look at me this time." His other hand holds my chin up to look at him.

"Congratulations on your win." I try to sound as happy as I can, but that apparently doesn't cut it.

"Why did you join the battle with Verstappen? Albert must've told you not to." Charles asks me, one of his hands in mine and the other still holding my face up.

"He did tell me not to, I wanted to prove him otherwise, but hey, at least you got the win." I say the last bit genuinely happy for him, glad he picked up from my mistakes.

"Maeve, talk to me." He asks, a hint of desperation in his voice, his hands hold my shoulders at arms distance from him.

I can't hold my emotions in any longer, I am upset and angry and overwhelmed, it is my first race I haven't performed well for the team, and I don't like this feeling. The feeling looms over you and it makes you feel incredible self-doubt in your talent, but accepting it's not always your fault just makes me feel angry. The overthinking side of things, makes me think I could've done something differently to avoid Max hitting the back of my car, like listening to Albert. Which in turn makes me upset that I directly disobeyed him.

"I'm overwhelmed." I try to say in a calm-ish voice, but he wraps his arms around me, I melt into his touch, wrapping my arms around him too. "You won, I shouldn't be like this." I mumble into his chest, my head leaning on his shoulder.

"Nonsense." He whispers into my ear. "Listen, you've got Spain coming up next week, that's your focus, this weekend, sure, wasn't great for you but focus on whats coming up." Charles releases me from the hug and looks at me in the eye and holds me at arms distance again.

"Pancakes?" I ask him before he turns to leave.

"Sure, come around my apartment whenever, we don't leave until tomorrow night." He points out and he leaves. I decide to head to the mercedes garage to find Isabella again.

I get to the outside of the mercedes garage as I'm not allowed in, being a driver for ferrari, and I can hear celebrations within the building, so I call Isabella. She responds and says she'll see me outside, and bring George along.

"Hey, I just wanted to apologise for earlier when Max made an appearance." I apologised to her, as it felt slightly rude of me to just leave her to go to the podium herself.

"Don't worry about it I understand-" Isabella is quickly interrupted by George.

"What did Max want now? He already screwed up your car." George says quickly, Isabella jabbing his side with force, but still gently.

"Oh, I wanted to talk to him, he just noticed me first." I point out, which causes George's face to scrunch in confusion.

"You sorted things out I'm guessing?" His brows furrowed slightly with confusion, Isabella clinging to his side.

"No, I just wanted an apology. Which I got... Eventually." I add emphasis to the last word, making him scoff.

"Good thing you got an apology then. Well mind you, I wouldn't want to have been in Max's position earlier with your death stare you gave him." George chuckles up, making Isabella smile warmly at me.

"Well, I'd best get going, I'm promised pancakes when I get back, and you two have fun with the celebrations, you and Lewis deserve it." I nod my head at the two before turning around and leaving for my car.

The drive back to the hotel is nice, some quiet, which is definitely what I need after race like this, the weekend started off good, but ended in shambles. Like Charles said, I need to look forward to Spain, and do well in the race, for Carlos. As much as I think he'd wish he could race in his home country and would rather do it himself, he asked me to win it for him, which is a lot of pressure considering what happened today at the race.

I arrive at the hotel and I got to my apartment first to get into something more casual, so I just chuck on a hoodie and leave my pair of denim shorts on, as it's only Charles and pancakes. I quickly grab my room key and my phone which I put on the table as I walked in the apartment and I go to Charles' apartment which is just next door. I knock on his door and he opens the door really quickly, too quickly like he'd been waiting there for me.

"Wow, were you bored and waiting for me?" I ask, chuckling a little at his quick response.

"As an f1 driver I have a quick reaction time." He remarks, making me laugh more. "Didn't you have pancakes before the race too? I notice you got a fun interview and taught the interviewer to make 'special pancakes'" He uses holds his hands up and air quotes the last two words.

"Well, if I told her they were actually peace pancakes I think she'd ask a few more questions than the ones she already asked me." I point out, laughing at his reaction. Making him laugh too.