Love Always Wins

96

Sunday November 15th. Istanbul, Turkey.

Seb's phone rang almost at the exact moment that he'd expected it to. At first he hesitated in accepting Chloe's FaceTime call, this would be the first time they'd seen each other on screen since he'd been here but he knew that she'd be calling to wish him luck for the race and that she'd have Luis on camera too. Sitting down on a chair, he accepted her call but while he'd been prepared for her to be calling him before the race, he wasn't prepared for her tired, pale and fragile appearance. He hadn't seen her look this rough since December last year and he could tell from her pained expression that he'd failed to hide how shocked he'd been by her appearance. She looked as though she hadn't washed or brushed her hair since he'd left and he was sure that she'd been wearing those pyjamas when he'd left too. It was as if she'd shut down and stopped caring about herself.

"Hi." She even sounded tired and she tilted the phone so that he could see their sixteen week old son. As glad as he was to see Luis, he knew that, really, she was taking his attention away from herself.

"Chloe, what's going on?" He asked, keeping his voice even. "Don't take this the wrong way but you look ill. Have you even got changed since Wednesday? Have you eaten?" For a moment she let the phone fall onto the sofa and all he could see was the ceiling of his lounge. "Come on, you FaceTime me, of course I'm going to notice." He pointed out as she picked up her phone again, this time there were tears in her eyes. He sighed, he knew all too well that she'd have spent a lot of the past few days crying even though they hadn't spoken very much.

She could barely speak as she put on a forced smile. "We just....uhm....we wanted to wish you luck....Luis misses you."

To see her in such a state was ripping him apart inside, he had to try and calm her from where he was, well over a thousand miles away. The door to his changing room opened and Britta walked in, he knew that her appearance meant that it was almost time to head to the garage. He gave her a brief look of acknowledgment before turning his attention back to his wife. "Chloe, you've got to stop doing this to yourself. Focus your energies on the things that really matter, our son and trusting me."

Britta leant back against the closed door with a sad sigh. She could hear Chloe's pitiful sniffs and quiet sobs from where she stood and her heart out went to her. She'd spent the last couple of days feeling guilty about her last words to Chloe before she'd left on Wednesday, the poor woman was obviously suffering. At least Seb had calmed down considerably since they'd been here and was now talking calmly with his wife, leaving her behind and putting some distance between them seemed to be helping.

"I'm sorry." Chloe croaked miserably. "I'm trying, I wish I could get rid of this niggling doubt...." She stopped and took a breath before carrying on and tilting the phone back towards Luis who was laying on the sofa next to her with his hand to his mouth. "Good luck daddy." She said, trying to sound more cheerful.

Seb couldn't help but smile every time he saw his son and he blew kisses to the screen while Luis tried to reach for Chloe's phone. "Papa vermisst dich so sehr! Ich werde heute Abend zu Hause sein! Ich liebe dich sehr Luis!"

Tilting the phone back to herself, his tearful wife looked at the screen for a moment before saying, "Good luck for race." Then she was gone.

He sat back in surprise, she'd ended the call just like that with no I love you, not even a goodbye.

Britta could see the surprise and then the disappointment on his face at how quickly she'd ended the call. "She's emotional, don't read too much into it." She said as she stepped away from the door. "You'll see her tonight and then tomorrow you two can spend some time talking."

"I don't see what good more talking will do, she doesn't trust me, how will talking help?" He said dejectedly as he got up.

She wasn't really sure what to say back to that so she just opened the door to let him out.