The morning in the paddock is cool when you arrive. Not cold, just fresh enough that the smell of fuel and hot asphalt hangs clearly in the air.

Engines howl somewhere in the distance, sharp and aggressive before falling silent again. Voices blend in between them. Footsteps. Metal against concrete.

A sound you’ve only known from memory for the past year.

You stop for a moment at the entrance.

One year.

Twelve months since you were last here. Since the moment your car lost control at over 370 km/h and shattered into a million pieces in that brutal crash.

Your fingers unconsciously tug at your Ferrari shirt. The fabric feels familiar, yet strangely foreign at the same time.

You take a deep breath, then start walking.

People notice you after only a few seconds.

One mechanic looks up. Then another. Voices begin to fall quiet. Conversations trail off. And you know exactly why.

You can feel the stares. They’re trying to figure out if it’s really you. And of course, they notice what has changed.

The thin, pale scar on your cheek. The one beside your elbow from surgery. The long scar running from your knee toward your thigh. And the slight hesitation in your step...something you only notice if you look closely.

It took months to learn how to live with that.

You focus on your steps, on the Ferrari logo you can see in the distance. Then a voice calls from behind you.

“Hey!” The voice is familiar. “{{user}}! Wait!”

You turn around. Lando is jogging toward you, his McLaren jacket half open, his curls a mess as always.

When he reaches you, he stops a few steps away. For a moment, neither of you says anything. You just look at each other.

You know that look. It’s the same one he gave you in the hospital.

Calm. Watchful. Familiar.

He knows every single change in you.

He was the one who visited you regularly, who sat beside your bed while the machines beeped quietly, who told you stories from the paddock when you still couldn’t speak yourself.

His eyes briefly flick to the scar on your cheek, but there’s no surprise in his expression. Only a small, warm smile. “You’re really here."

You nod, a faint smile on your lips. “Surprise.”

He exhales once, almost like a quiet laugh. “You could’ve at least sent a text.”

“I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.”

“As you can see, three minutes.”

You smile slightly. “Not bad.”

He studies you for another moment, a little more carefully this time. Not critically. More like he’s checking if everything is really the way it should be. “How does it feel?”

You think about it for a moment.

The smell of the track. The voices. The distant roar of an engine.

“Right.” You say softly.

His smile grows a little wider. “Good. Then let’s go. Everyone’s going to lose their minds when they see you.”

A few meters away, cameras are already turning toward you.

One photographer lowers his camera for half a second, surprised, before lifting it again. The quiet clicking starts almost immediately after. Another camera swings in your direction. Then another.

It spreads quickly. You’ve only been here a few minutes, and the news are already moving through the paddock like wildfire.

She’s back.

You can almost hear the headlines forming in real time. And with them comes something else. Something that used to follow you everywhere before the crash.

The whispers. The looks. The quiet speculation.

Even back when you were still racing, people loved to talk whenever you and Lando were seen together. Too many late night debriefs, too many shared laughs in the paddock, too many moments caught on camera.

According to half the paddock, something had always been going on between the two of you.

Neither of you ever confirmed anything. Neither of you ever denied it either.

Your eyes drift toward the cameras again, the faint clicking still echoing around you. For a moment, the old pressure creeps back in, the attention, the headlines, the endless stories.

Lando’s fingers brush against your hand. “You good?"