This Ain't A Fairytale- Lando Norris

16. How long could we be a sad song?

Monaco had ended up being a disaster for Lando and the team, and Canada hadn't been much better. As a result, Hannah hadn't been at all surprised when Lando had disappeared back to MTC in the run up to the triple header, desperate to find the answer that might turn around their performance for the next few races.

What had surprised her though, was how quickly he seemed to have forgotten everything they'd spoken about. The promises that he'd do better, that he would be more present, they all seemed to have gone out the window.

She shouldn't have been surprised really, he'd shown time and time again that when push came to shove, racing came first.

She should've seen it coming, and yet the disappointment was crushing.

She'd buried herself in to working on the tour, spending the majority of her evenings after Isla was asleep on the phone to Alice discussing the plans. She'd picked a set list to perform at Silverstone, which was rapidly approaching, and then she'd actually taken herself by surprise and started writing a new song with the time she had left.

It was what she'd been doing when Lando had eventually called her. She'd barely heard from him, except for a few texts here and there saying he was really busy and would call when he could. She'd given up asking in the end, so it was a surprise when he did call.

She answered the face time call, resting the phone on top of the piano.

"Hey." He smiled, stifling a yawn.

"Hi." She looked around at the hotel room behind him, assuming he must've just arrived in Barcelona. That scrapped any remaining hope that he might at least stop in and visit before he headed off to the race.

"You guys okay?" He asked. "I'm sorry I've been awol this week. It's been insane. We've been flat out all week."

"Isla's in bed already." She told him. "It's late."

"I know." He groaned. "We were supposed to get in earlier but Andrea wanted to go over some more things and they pushed our flight back. We only got in half an hour ago."

"Well, maybe you can call in the morning and speak to her? She misses you." Hannah suggested. She left out the fact Isla had been in tears about going to bed before she'd had a chance to speak to him, not wanting to make him feel any worse than she was sure he already did.

"I'll try." He nodded, although she could tell from the way he said it that it wasn't going to happen. "It's going to be a busy weekend. It'll settle down next week I hope."

"You said that last week." Hannah sighed. "What happened to coming home before Spain?"

"I'm sorry." He sighed. "I tried, I really did. Things have just been mad around here. They've pretty much had us chained to the sim trying to work out what's gone wrong. I'm exhausted."

He wasn't lying, it was written all over his face just how tired he was. As much as she knew he hadn't had a choice in the matter, and that he was doing everything he could just to keep his head above water, it didn't make it any less painful for her being the one that was left behind.

"You're coming home after this weekend though, right?" She asked.

The face he pulled at the question gave her the answer before he actually spoke. "We'll see how this weekend goes. If we've made some progress we might not have quite so much to do."