#younger drivers having Charles as their role model is something so personal to me

[scuderia-hamilton]

THE WAY OLLIE SAID THAT HIS DREAM WOULD BE TO DRIVE NEXT TO CHARLES AND NOW HE GOT TO DO THAT AND HE WAS LOOKING AT CHARLES WITH THE SAME ADMIRATION AND AWE THAT CHARLES USED TO LOOK AT SEB!!! LITERALLY NO ONE TOUCH ME I AM ILL!! I AM UNWELL!!

[lindonorris]

Details, a shortfic with Charles Leclerc!

(1/?)

Plot: Where the love between Elena Sainz and Charles Leclerc grows into little details.

Warnings: none except mentions of alcohol, probably two or three bad words and a lot of fluff.

(English is not my first language so sorry if anything is spelled wrong).

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Elena walked through the Paddock with her head down and sunglasses preventing the sunlight from making her head pound even more. She followed the footsteps of Soraia, her assistant, recognizing her only by the red sneakers she wore, without bothering to look up to see where she was going.

If there was something the brunette regretted in her entire life, it was drinking too much on a Friday night knowing she had plans the next day. Her bad mood was palpable everywhere she walked.

Considering the fact that she got kicked in the ass by her -now- ex-fiancé, just two weeks before the wedding, all the chaos her personal life had become since then and last night's drunkenness trying to lessen how much of a failure she felt in every aspect of her life, she was in perfect conditions. That's what she had said to Soraia, who obviously didn't believe her words one percent, she just let out a sigh and waved for Elena to follow her to the car that would take them to their weekend plans.

"Lena are you even trying to hear what I’m saying?" Soraia seems to be about to lose her infinite patience at that moment.

"Sorry, I'm not feeling very well. Do you have any headache medicine with you?" The eldest just laughs, leaving aside the fact that the girl is totally oblivious to anything happening around her. Handing her the small pill and reaching for a bottle of water, Soraia waved at the pilot who was heading towards her, without Elena seeing.

“Mi amor, I'm so glad you came!" Lena recognizes her brother's voice, soon being swallowed in a tight hug from him, who whispers a sorry, he's an asshole in her ear.

Carlos Sainz Jr was one of - if not the biggest - passion in Elena Sainz's life. Since they were kids the girl took him as a role model and surprisingly nothing changed even when the life of a very known Formula 1 driver took him away from home. The distance and less frequent physical contact changed even more when the girl launched her career as a model and moved to another continent.

"It's all right!" Elena tries to smile. She didn't know if she was trying to convince her brother or herself.

"I know you better than anyone here in this place, and I also know that pale face and the bad mood that's hanging around here. And you smell like alcohol! What a decadence, Elena Sainz!" The brunette laughed, while looking sideways at Soraia, who shrugged.

"I tried to warn her, but she didn't even hear two words of everything I said." Elena snorts, looking around and pretending to be interested in anything other the hard she was taking from Carlos and Soraia.

"So, you can leave it to me, I can handle the monster. You can enjoy and walk around, I'll call you if we need anything!" And then he left, dragging Elena towards the eating area that was over there. Carlos was free until early afternoon, when he would switch places with his teammate, heading to free practice.

Nothing in the snack display looked appetizing at that moment to the model but the girl knew that her brother would force her to put something in her stomach anyways.

"So, how things are going at the agency?" Carlos asked, setting the tray with a plain sandwich and orange juice in front of his younger sister.

"Always the same, completely stressful!" Carlos laughed, starting to eat his own lunch. "But I don't think I would change a thing." The woman smiles. "Except that I always wanted you with me, of course. But I’m already feeling at home there." He nodded, Carlos felt the same way.

The Sainz family have always been very close, when they still lived together, every night they gathered at the dinner table to talk about the frustrations of their routines, on Saturdays it was usual to find them piled up in the living room playing some card game or watching movies. Seeing Carlos leave home at a young age had broken Elena and her mother's hearts in many ways, Carlos Sainz (the father) understood, he had lived that way too, from continent to continent the eldest spent his weekends, showing the world his talent in racing.

Despite everything, they continued to be extremely present in each other's lives, chatting by text every day and whenever possible they went to the fashion shows that Elena participated and to Carlos's races.

"You know Junior, I don't want to comment on that asshat. Entertain me as best you can." She braced her left hand over her brother's, who gave her a mischievous smile. The same one he'd thrown at her when they were kids and they were close to do something wrong. “Okay, let's not go that deep, nothing involving alcohol, please!" And then the two stood up laughing and walked out of the cafeteria.

"Have you seen Lando around?" Elena shook her head, she hadn't seen the boy in a long time. They exchanged messages and comments on posts on their social media from time to time, but they hadn't seen each other in person since Sainz's last race for his former team, McLaren.

Nor had she met his new partner at Ferrari. Somehow she had never bumped into the Monegasque pilot around the Paddock, she only knew him from photos and unfortunately couldn't deny it, Charles Leclerc was the definition of the word "perfection”.

"Lele!" Elena smiled as she recognized Lando Norris's voice. "Finally you’re available, should I start my attempts to win your heart now or should I leave it for later?" The group laugh.

"In your dreams Norris, in your dreams!" Carlos ruffles the youngest's hair, the three of them walking towards their respective teams.

“Lando, we're going to introduce some colleagues to Elena and tomorrow after the race we'll go out to celebrate. Let the funniest driver on the grid know that we'll need his services!" Lando nodded, saying goodbye and heading towards Daniel.

Elena stopped suddenly, placing her hands on her stomach.

"Why did you turn blue all of a sudden? Is everything okay?" She just nodded, bowing slightly and feeling another pang in her stomach. At that moment she was absolutely sure that sandwich had been her worst choice of the day.

"No, I'm not okay." She smiled nervously, running in the opposite direction, desperately looking for a bathroom before she put all the lunch she had just eaten out.

"Por el amor de Dios, where is the toilet?" She asked hurriedly, not even looking at the person she had bumped into.

"On your left!" The Monegasque responded, recognizing his teammate's younger sister. Elena quickly pushes open the door, finding the nearest garbage can and then emptying everything she still had in her stomach.

"Fuck, are you okay?" Charles asked, also stepping into the bathroom, not caring if it was the ladies' room and the few people who saw him enter stared at him weirdly.

"I..." The woman didn't even had time to finish, instantly going back to dumping everything she had ingested for probably the entire prior week.

"Dios mío, Elena!" Carlos entered the bathroom, breathing heavily from having to run after his sister.

"I’m gonna die!" Elena manages to get through her clipped speech, gasping for air.

“You’re not going to die, relax!" The Spaniard replied, laughing. "I don't know whether to feel pity or disgusted.” Charles laughs along with his friend.

"Okay, I feel better now." She speaks, moving away from the sink where she had just washed her face and taking a deep breath, just before losing strength in her legs and practically falling into Charles's lap.

"Okay, what's going on in here? Is it some kind of secret club? What the hell Elena, even you couldn’t resist him?" Lando appeared in the doorway, laughing at his friend's face, which was now turned into a pepper while the three men present laughed.

Elena rolled her eyes, letting go of the pilot's arms and trying to walk steadily towards the door, which was not possible as she soon felt another wave of dizziness hit her.

"Okay, enough messing, I'll call Soraia and you'll go back to the hotel." Carlos spoke up, taking her by the shoulders and helping his sister to go to the Ferrari facilities.

Elena found herself sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, waiting for Carlos to come back from wherever he'd been.

"Sorry for making you wait, your brother had to go to training and asked me to keep you company until Soraia arrives." She nodded, accepting the bottle of water Charles handed her. He watched the woman open the bottle and drain most of the contents in one gulp.

"Do you feel better now?" She nooded.

"Three more of these and I can consider myself a living person again." She had a small smile on her face, pointing towards the water bottle she still had in her hands.

"Good, I was worried you were going to throw up all over my new sneakers." He shrugged, taking a middle finger in response from Elena, who laughed.

"I’ll never drink like this again!" The Spaniard stated, throwing her head back and settling herself in a better position in the chair.

"Maybe not for the same reason!" Charles shot a wink towards the brunette, who he shrugged, turning to see the door opening, revealing her assistant.

"Can I kill you now?" The eldest said, stepping into the room.

"My head is already doing you the favor!" She joked, running a hand through her hair, being watched by the Monegasque.

"Let's go to the hotel, your brother wants you to spend the night in his room. You've got the man worried!”

"If he keeps making jokes about what happened today I'll throw myself out the window." Elena retorted, feeling the bitter taste in her mouth again, making Charles stand up automatically when he saw the girl bring her hand to her mouth.

"You need to take some medicine and rest for a bit. A good and cold shower will help!” Charles said, stroking the brunette's arm. She took a deep breath, nodding again, she wouldn't be able to say something without spilling it all over again.

Soraia helped her out of her chair, the two of them walking to the door. After waving to Charles and thanking him for the company, the two left towards the hotel where the pilots were staying for the weekend.

"Take a shower, I'll ask room service to bring you some tea and arrange to go to a pharmacy to buy medicine." The oldest of the girls pushed her lightly towards the bathroom.

The two worked together for about two years now and thanks to the little difference in age, the two understood each other very well and adored each other. Soraia took care of Elena, just like Elena took care of Soraia.

Elena walked into the bathroom wearing a white hotel robe. She untied her hair and then went under the running water, trying to wash away how unease she felt.

"Is everything okay over there?" Soraia asked after knocking twice on the door, receiving a request from Elena to come in.

"Could you stay here for a while? I don’t want to be alone." Soraia smiled tenderly, she knew that moment was being rather difficult. As much as she had fought with Elena for the way she was dealing with the situation, Soraia knew that her friend was feeling lost.

The glass of the shower contained a black and frosted film, preventing whoever was outside not to see more than the silhouette of whoever was inside. Soraia sat on the sink, thinking.

"You know, Charles is really cute!" She could hear a faint laugh echoing from Elena.

"I can't deny that, he was really kind to me." She replied, finishing rinsing the shampoo out of her hair.

"I answered the door before, there's a delivery for you outside!" Soraia said after a moment of silence. Elena turned off the shower, putting her hand out of the shower for Soraia to hand her the robe, seconds later, leaving the small space wrapped in it.

"From who?" She asked, wrapping a towel in her hair and pulling her toothbrush out of her necessaire next to her friend.

"I don't know, they just asked to deliver it to you." She shrugged, typing something into her phone. A short amount of time later, Elena came out of the bathroom, accompanied by Soraia, who was looking at her with some excitement in her eyes, waiting for the woman's reaction.

Elena was startled to find the bouquet of colorful flowers on the coffee table, along with a bag of chocolates and some medicine. But no letter or anything that revealed who had sent it.

"Seriously, who sent this?" Elena pointed to the flowers, picking up one of the medicine boxes and reading what it was for.

"I told you, they sent it with room service, they didn't want to tell me too, something about privacy, or whatever she said, I was too enchanted by the flowers to hear it." Soraia shrugged, it was obvious that she knew who had sent the flowers and medicine, but she wouldn't be the one to reveal that to Elena.

[pjstafford]

Precious Time

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”  A tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens

 I have been posting blogs every Thursday as a way to mark the passage of time of each week  since I started working remotely and going out only for essential needs.  I think many of us our redefining our relationship with time.   So I have been thinking of the quote from Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities

The passing of time is a scientific, incontrovertible fact.  The sun rises and it sets and there is a day. The moon rises and it sets and there is a night.  Winter turns to Spring and then to Summer and then to Fall.  When it repeats a year has slipped away.  Time is, also, a social construct.  We say 9-5 Monday through Friday is a typical work day and there might be some logic to that, but there might be logic to 7-5 four days a week as well. We have Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, but some cultures add a tea or late supper. A midnight shift worker still gets lunch –even though his lunch is at 3 a.m. we don’t call it breakfast in the middle of the work shift.  The lunch hour is a social construct of a work life.  We mark our seasons and plan our celebrations based on Holidays that cross countries like Easter or Passover and that don’t Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July.  Those are societal or cultural norms that we put in place to structure our time.  

In this, the Spring of 2020, time has simultaneously sped up and slowed day and our social construct of time means next to nothing at all – even as we are in the midst of what is commonly called “Holy Week.”  

I mark the time on Thursdays –

             Thursday March 5th was my birthday.  A friend and I went to a restaurant for dinner.  There were ten deaths in the country from the disease.  I worried if my trio to DC in two weeks would be canceled.  

             Thursday March 12 with the first confirmed case in New Mexico and the governor taking swift action I conversed with my boss about what swift action our agency would take to follow the governor’s lead and then I proceeded out of town to a work related trip that would last the week-end.

             Thursday March 19 I woke up with my first day to work remotely and socially distance except for essentials.  I wrote my first quarantine blog.

             Every Thursday since…

             And now its Thursday April 9 and 14, 000 across the country have died.  

 It’s happened all so fast! And time is so precious.  There are steps we can take to reduce the deaths but we started so late.  We must today do whatever we can to get more beds, more ventilators, more health care professionals and more tests.  Time is scarce and  there is an urgent need to get something done!  

But that is not my role in this crisis.  I am a non-essential employee.  My role is to socially distance.  And suddenly the social constructs of time looks different. Not just for me but for millions.  I hear people talk about the days running together and is it ok to have a beer at 3 in the afternoon when they woke up at 4 a.m. and plan on sleeping soon.  For me, I have actual work.  I am amazed by how many phone conferencing, time specific duties I have during this time of social distancing.  It sets some structure to my days.  As I blog last week, I have discovered I have to work at maintaining some structure of a week-end, but I have more time during the week.    I do not get up and get dress and commute to work and then commute back.  I mean I do get up and dress, but it looks far different. There are hours “saved” there and I eat when I want at home because I am in front of a computer, or listening to a webinar or a press conference and that social construct of lunch time might become a shower, or a walk, or a X-Files break. Do you know how many X-files episodes are about the threat of global contagion?  I digress.  I digress a lot these days.  My first blog was about everything I was going to do with this time, but if King Lear was written during a quarantine, my next novel is likely not to be.

It is, well, the worst of times for sure!  It can, also, be the best of times for some of us if we let it.  Last Friday was a great day!  Well, the New Mexico order for stay at home was extended and the governor announced the numbers the models show might die which were shocking and we found out specifically how many ventilators we were likely to come up short on.  And our President!  But a nurse friend from New Jersey who had been exposed without proper equipment tested negative and it was a joyous day.  I had a social media concert watch party about 5 on a Friday and it was like an actual Thank God its Friday party and that was so special.  It was the worst of and the not so bad of a day.  

The Dickens quote from a Tale of Two Cities!  We are all on the global planet going through the exact same pandemic, but in many ways we are going through it very differently, aren’t we?

There are the tales of the medical professionals, god bless them. My guess is time never feels slowed down for them.  

There are the tales of the unexpected heroes of grocery store employees, truck drivers, trash collectors, postal men, all who are not in fact staying at home because they are essential and the work they are doing cannot be done remotely.  

There are the tales I know the best of those who are staying at home, but that looks different for different people.  I live alone. I like solitude.  I enjoy working from home.   There are parents trying to continue education for their younger children while working full time jobs.  There are twenty somethings who social lives mean more to them.  There are persons who routine was to see their elderly parent in the nursing home every Thursday.  I guess in some ways they are just different chapters of the same novel.

There are economic inequities.  If you are having symptoms simply isolate into the basement or a single floor in your three story house.  Or, if you have a single story three bedroom house, the kids may have to share a room when daddy has symptoms.  Well, that looks a little different.  If you live with your spouse and your two toddlers in a one bedroom or studio apartments, social distancing is not possible.    Or if you are homeless and living in a shelter.  Or if, or if or if.  Decontaminate by immediately washing your clothes- because we all own washer and dryers don’t we?  

And if you live in an abusive relationship and you are now alone with the person the entire time.  The stressors are worse and….There are moments of hell happening across the global planet in the pandemic.  Some has to do with the loss of lives.  Some has to do  specifically with social distancing.  

But I also think that this is actually the reality of everyday life. The pandemic only exasperates existing problems.  .  While I sympathize and empathize with every single person going through hell, I cannot live it for them anymore than I can for all the homeless I regularly see on the street during normal times.  Life and death, also, happen every day.  The probabilities are high we will be effected in this time and I am not downplaying it and I don’t want to normalize it, but I do want to say there are some daily life lessons we could remember for when this is over – to love the ones we love, to know that everything can change in a second. The fact of life and death is not created in this time, but we are experiencing it differently now.  As we experience the intensity of this time, we should use it to reestablish a relationship with time that is focused on the preciousness of that time.  

I am struggling with sleep, worry and fear even if I enjoy the solitude.  I cannot put on music and dance.  It is a joyous activity and I feel little joy.  But is my not dancing causing fewer people to die?   Call  me Pollyanna but I still am hoping that, for some of us, we can find the best of times in this time.  

Most of our life we do not have enough of time .  I want to get to a place for myself and I hope others can too where they can experience the time in a peaceful and precious way.    I’m not there.  I want to be.

I think of a woman I know who bakes everyday with her kids as part of their lessons- great for math and science.   She bakes in the afternoon and the bake goods of the day are ready to eat around the 3:30 – 4:00 framework which is the time the kids were used to coming home and having a snack.  20 years from now those kids might think of this time as the time their mother spent teaching them to bake.  That doesn’t mean all the other people experiencing hell are not still experiencing hell  but not baking with her kids isn’t going to solve the world’s problems right now either.  It’s ok to have a project to finish.  It’s, also, ok not to and to spend more time enjoying your spouse or your kids or your parents or siblings if you live with them.  Watch t.v., play a game, converse.  

I feel very much alone in my isolation.  I want to believe that those people who have this time with their families are embracing it and embracing them.  And so why don’t I write that psychological thriller I’ve been saying I want to work on now for two years?  I don’t know.  I’m not learning a new language as I started with downtime in January and February. As much as I said in that first blog I had plans, boy, and looking forward to the time….I throw up my hands in the air exasperated at myself.  Maybe I needed to process a little what the world was going through and how I felt about my non-essential role.  Maybe I needed to give myself permission to feel the pain.  Maybe now, I write this blog as a way of giving myself permission to look again at this time as precious- because I do not know when I will have this much of it again, because all time is precious, because tomorrow I might die.  

 It is the worst of times, ok!  It is still precious time.  This Saturday night I am participating in a virtual rock concert video watch with some friends.  Can’t remember the last time I went out dancing on a Saturday night!  Maybe it is ok to put on music and dance. I give myself permission to be joyous. I have the time.