Alone In A Crowded Room (A Lestappen Story)

Prologue - Foolish Love

It had been a long day for Charles . He put his helmet on the table in his driver's room and sighed, looking at his reflection in the visor. He was sweaty and disgruntled and his eyebags were dark masses under his eyes. It had been a terrible free practice. He'd placed P5 and - if that didn't hurt enough - he was lapped. Lapped. In a Ferrari. And, if that still wasn't a kick in the gut enough it was by his rival, the person he'd hated most since they were little - Max Verstappen.

His personal trainer arrived soon and he couldn't meet his eyes as they went through the cooldown and then the ice bath. When Charles finally got done he returned to his hotel in the contract mandated Ferrari. It was no longer exciting or scary to drive such an expensive car around the city. Bahrain was no longer a shining jewel of a city. He just looked at it all with a dull eye.

Dinner was as inedible as his lunch but he ate it and when he finally got the relief of sleep, it ended too early.

The next day Charles had until three before he was supposed to show up at the track. His race weekend workout took about three hours - maybe half an hour more or less - but he liked to be in and out of the gym without anyone noticing him.

After his warm up he started the treadmill machine and in the quiet of the 4:00 AM morning he started to mark the exercise off his list. He was halfway done when others started pouring in. He smiled at most of them in acknowledgement and they smiled back but mainly he kept to himself.

When he was finally done he cooled down and then went up to his hotel room to take a shower. The lift door opened to reveal the one person he didn't want to see. Verstappen. He was about to say something mean, Charles could just sense it, but he didn't want to hear it. He swept past Verstappen, into the elevator, pressed his floor number and the close button. He honestly did not care for what a person of as lowly character as Verstappen had to say. Instead he just waited for his floor anxiously, just wanting to flop into a cool bed, uncaring of the fact that he had to take a bath first.

He arrived at the track with Alexandra Saint Mluex. She was nothing short of the word amazing but she was not Charles' girlfriend. Technically they were fake dating - well, not technically. See, the problem Ferrari had (one of the many) was that neither Charles nor Carlos had (or wanted) girlfriends. After hours of talking about their sacred image and making it seem like a choice, Ferrari offered to terminate their contract if they didn't get a fake girlfriend.

The thing about most drivers not having or wanting girlfriends was that F1 was a scary sport. It was dangerous and could get you killed. They'd trained their whole lives to flirt with death but - and this Charles knew from personal experience - you can never train yourself against grief. When Albon fell in love with Lily he made sure she knew what they were getting into. Only the strongest of love stays through it all - or the most foolish.