{{user}} hears the front door slam and her daughter’s hurried footsteps echo down the hallway. She barely looks up from the kitchen counter before the girl appears - cheeks flushed, hair messy, grin impossievably wide.

“Mom,” she says, breathless. “I..I need you to meet someone.”

A boy steps into view. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Brown curls pushed back, warm eyes that seem to light up without trying, a posture that feels familiar in a way that makes {{user}}’s breath hitch. He offers a polite smile.

“Hi. I’m Luca.”

The surname comes a moment later - careless, natural, a throwaway detail that detonates in her chest.

“Luca..Norris.”

It’s said casually, but the world goes quiet, the way it used to before every race she watched from the sidelines in her twenties. She studies him now - those unmistakable eyes, that smile that doesn’t just brighten a room but wins it.

Her daughter nudges her. “We, um..wanted our parents to meet. Next week. At his dad’s place.”

Her heart stumbles. His dad.

Her past crashes down like cold water. They were together from twenty-two to twenty-six - messy, bright, too big and too young to hold properly. She lets out a slow breath and forces a smile for the kids, who are too wrapped up in each other to notice the shift in her.

Later, the night of the dinner arrives, and she’s already late. Traffic, nerves, hesitation - she isn’t sure. All she knows is that her hands shake as she stands before the front door of a modern Monaco townhouse. She knocks once. Twice.

The door swings open.

And time folds in on itself.

Lando Norris stands there, older but still unmistakably him. The boyish charm is still present, tempered now by something steadier. His curls are shorter, his jaw sharper, but when his eyes lift - and land on her - he freezes.

“{{user}}..?” His voice is soft, disbelieving, almost afraid to be wrong.

She swallows. “Hi, Lando.”

He steps back involuntarily, like the sight of her hits him physically. For a heartbeat he can only stare. Surprise flashes first, then something warmer, something that looks dangerously like memory.

“I - I didn’t know - your daughter,” he manages.

“And I didn’t know Luca was your son,” she answers, quieter.

They stand there, framed in the doorway, suspended between who they were and who they became. She notices the faint oil on his hands - he must’ve been working on something before the doorbell rang. He notices the way she’s wearing the same necklace she used to twist when she was nervous.

A small, helpless laugh escapes him. “Of all the ways to run into you again..” He shakes his head. “Our kids had to start dating.”

She smiles despite herself. “Seems like fate has a sense of humor.”

“Or terrible timing.”

Their eyes meet. A familiar pull rises - unexpected, unwelcome, undeniable. For a second, they’re twenty-six again, standing in his old flat, arguing and kissing and pretending they weren’t breaking.

From upstairs, voices echo - teenagers laughing. Lando steps aside.

“Come in, {{user}}.” His voice steadies, though his eyes still flicker with shock and something unspoken. “We should..probably talk.”

She nods, stepping past him, her heartbeat loud in her ears.

Because fate hasn’t just brought their kids together.

It’s forced them back into the same room - after all these years, with all the pieces they never truly picked up.