Formula 1 | One Shots (1)

The Lost Soul Part 1 | Lando Norris

Author's Note: Me being an emotional mess means my writing is gonna be emotional AF 😅🥰 

Part 1 of 2
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Lando walked along the water, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets. The ocean breeze carried faint sounds of laughter...carefree, joyful sounds that contrasted with the storm raging in his chest.

He looked up and saw the source of the laughter, a young couple walking hand in hand with their daughter, her tiny feet hopping and splashing in the water. The little girl's yelps of delight as her parents swung her between them pierced through him like shards of glass. Lando clenched his jaw, his gaze dropping to the sand beneath his shoes, but the image had already embedded itself in his mind.

Memories began to creep in uninvited.

It had been on a beach much like this one, under a blazing summer sun, when he and Gemma had shared one of their happiest days. He could still feel the warmth of her body against his as they lounged on the towel together. He'd picked strawberries from a container and fed them to her, one by one, smirking as she playfully bit at his fingers.

"You're terrible at this," she'd teased.

"Maybe you're terrible at eating strawberries," he'd shot back, laughing.

Lando's chest tightened as the memory blurred into darker recollections. The arguments that followed, raw and bitter. The nights spent staring at the ceiling, words unsaid swirling in his mind like a storm.

The moment Gemma had told him she wanted children sooner than later, hit him like a wave. He wasn't ready, he'd said as much. His career demanded his everything and deep down, he doubted whether he could give a child the kind of father they deserved while his life revolved around the track.

"I can't wait forever, Lando," Gemma had said one night, her voice shaking, her tears slipping silently down her cheeks.

"I'm not asking you to wait forever," he'd replied, his own voice cracking under the weight of his guilt. "Just...not now. Please understand, baby."

But 'not now' had turned into an unspoken wall between them, one they couldn't climb over no matter how much they loved each other. And eventually, that wall had crushed them both, leaving nothing but ruble behind.

For three years, Gemma stayed by his side, holding on to the hope that one day, he'd see things her way, that the life they were building together would be enough for him to finally take the next step. She supported him through the highs and low, his grueling travel schedule and every sacrifice racing demanded of him. She was his anchor when the world weighed him down, his quiet reassurance when he questioned himself.

But while Lando leaned on her strength, Gemma slowly began to wither away.

It wasn't any one thing that broke her, it was the add up of a thousand little things. The times she tried to approach the subject of their future, only to be met with his apologetic smile and yet another reason why it wasn't the right time. "The championship's too close this year," he'd say, or, "I need to focus, there's too much on the line."

Each excuse chipped away at her, piece by piece, until the happy girl she once was began to feel like a hollow shell. She wanted to be more than his support system, more than the girl waiting in the shadows while he chased his dreams.

One night, as they sat in their Monaco apartment, with the sun setting off in the distance, Gemma finally voiced what had been eating away at her for months.

"Lando, do you even see a future with me?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He froze, the weight of her question hanging heavy in the air. "Of course I do, I love you," he said after a long pause. But even as the words left his mouth, they sounded empty.