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Charles comes back to consciousness with the taste of carbon and gravel in his mouth and a white-hot spear of pain down his side. His vision is blurred, smudged red at the edges, like someone dipped the whole world in shame.

The first thing he hears is that Lewis has won.

The second is silence.

Max isn't Champion. Not today. Not ever, maybe.

Because of Charles.

Because of that corner.

Because he didn’t lift.

He doesn’t remember the impact. Just the blur. The smoke. The scream. He remembers pressing the brake too late, the car twitching beneath him like a frightened animal. And Max was there. Max was right there. Max was always there.

And now everything is over.

He’s wheeled into the medical bay with one arm strapped to his chest and the sharp ache of a cracked rib every time he breathes too hard. The bandage across his temple itches. His mouth is dry. His fingers are shaking. He’s nauseous with adrenaline, horror, and the metallic taste of guilt he’s swallowed since he was five years old and first learned what it meant to want something you weren’t allowed to touch.

He doesn't ask for the championship standings.

He doesn’t need to.

Max DNF.

Lewis wins his eighth.

And Charles is the reason.

The FIA room is cold. Tiled like a morgue. Smells like antiseptic and judgment. No one speaks to him when they bring him in. They sit him in the corner, like a bad child. His fireproofs are still streaked with blood and smoke. His helmet is gone. He keeps looking at his hands. He doesn’t recognise them.

Charles doesn’t lift his head. Not until he feels him.

The fury.

It walks in before Max does.

It lives in the air. It vibrates in the walls. It hums inside Charles’ lungs, stealing the breath from his chest. The rage is so alive it feels like a third person in the room. And still — Max is silent.

No screaming.

No shouting.

No finger in his face. No snarled accusations.

Max walks into the room limping, jaw locked, and then—he sits down beside him.

Not across. Not far away. Right beside him.

Like this is personal.

Like this was always personal.

Charles keeps staring at the floor, because if he looks at Max’s face, he’ll break open. And he doesn't deserve to break. Not after this. Not after everything he just destroyed.

He took Max’s title.

He took Max’s year.

He took Max’s first World Championship and drove them both into smoke.

And it doesn't matter if he didn’t mean to. It doesn’t matter that he braked late thinking he could hold it. That he thought Max would leave him space. That he thought—

It doesn’t matter.

Intentions don’t count for anything when you steal the thing someone’s spent their whole life chasing.

Max’s hand is clenched into a fist on his knee.

It’s shaking.

Charles whispers, “I’m sorry.”

It’s all he has.

Max doesn’t reply. But the air goes colder.

“I didn’t—I didn’t want that to happen.”

His throat burns. His chest twists like wire.

“I locked up.”

His voice hitches.

“I wasn’t trying to—”

He shakes his head. It’s pointless. Words are pointless. Nothing he says will change it. The moment happened. The damage is done. History has been rewritten in the time it took for two cars to kiss carbon.

“I was trying to keep it clean.”

He swallows. It tastes like bile.

“I thought I left enough space.”

Max still doesn’t say anything.

Charles doesn't know what hurts more — the silence, or the fact that Max is still sitting there.

He keeps going, because if he stops, he’ll start crying, and he doesn’t deserve to cry.

“I should’ve backed out. I know that. I should’ve just let it go.”

Max’s fingers twitch. A flinch in his jaw.

Charles doesn't look at him. He can’t.

“I didn’t want it to end like that.”

It was supposed to be Max’s year.

Charles was supposed to stand in parc fermé, watching the fireworks go off above Max’s head. He was supposed to watch him cry — but the good kind, the kind that tasted like gold and champagne and glory.

He was supposed to wait in the shadows, and maybe, later, when things had calmed down, find him. Pull him aside. Say something like, “You did it. I’m proud of you.” Not “I love you.” Never “I love you.” But something. Anything.

Not this.

Never this.

Max’s shoulder is brushing his.

He’s so still, but Charles can feel it — the thunder in him. The fury just beneath the surface, held back with the kind of restraint that hurts to witness.

“Max,” he says, quietly. “Say something.”

Max’s voice, when it comes, is low and taut, like piano wire pulled too tight.

“What do you want me to say?”

Charles flinches.

Max turns to look at him.

His eyes aren’t red. He isn’t crying. But they’re wrecked. Devastated in a way that can’t be put back together.

“I lost everything,” Max says. “Everything I’ve worked for. Everything I’ve—” He cuts himself off.

His jaw is shaking.

Charles wants to disappear.

“I know,” he whispers.

“No, you don’t.” Max laughs, short and sharp. “You’ll never understand. You’ve always been the favourite. The golden boy. You never had to fight like I did. You never had to claw for it. You had people handing you crowns before you could walk.”

“That’s not true—”

Max stands suddenly, like he can’t take it anymore.

But he doesn’t walk away.

He looks down at Charles. And for one awful second, Charles thinks he might hit him. That Max might finally let it all out.

But he doesn’t.

He just stands there, fists shaking, mouth trembling, the whole sky of him collapsing inward.

And then, quietly, he says, “You should’ve just let me have it.”

Charles nods.

He knows.

Max stares at him, like he’s trying to see something human behind Charles’ eyes and can’t find it.

Then he says, “I don’t hate you.”

It’s worse than if he did.

“But don’t come near me again.”

Charles nods again.

And then Max walks out of the room.

He doesn’t look back.

Charles stays where he is, staring down at his own bloody hands, shaking in silence.

He thinks of the corner. Of the blur. Of the second he thought he had it. The second he thought they’d make it out the other side.

He thinks of every year that brought them here.

Every lap.

Every time he held his tongue and said nothing.

Every time he watched Max walk away.

He thinks of the prayer he whispered into his gloves before the formation lap.

Let the best man win.

And now the best man is gone.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t cry.

He just sits in the wreckage of something holy, and breathes like it’s a punishment.

And wishes the crash had taken him instead.

Charles Leclerc has never stopped hurting.

Not when the pain first bloomed in his chest in 2021 as the wreckage smoked beside him and the world screamed with a chaos he’d created. Not when Max walked out of that steward’s room without looking back. Not when his ribs healed crooked from the way the car folded around him. And not now, four years later, in the fluorescent sterility of the 2025 paddock, where the air is electric and cruel and Max Verstappen has three World Championships and still refuses to look at him.

Charles stands beneath the awning of the Ferrari hospitality unit, hands clenched so tightly into fists they’ve gone white, like snow pressed into glass. The Monaco sun glints off his visor, and for a moment he thinks of that day in Abu Dhabi — the blur of sand, the sound of carbon screaming, Max’s car turning in, trusting him, and how he broke that trust with a single misjudged movement that haunts his every breath.

Max is here. Somewhere. He’s always here, always in Charles’ bloodstream like a fever that never broke. Even when they’re not in the same room, Charles feels the weight of him — like an unfinished sentence on the tip of his tongue.

They haven’t spoken in four years.

Not once. Not even a nod. Not even a glance.

Max’s name sits unspoken in Charles’ throat like a splinter. Sometimes, when he's alone, Charles whispers it aloud, just to feel what it would sound like in the air again. He imagines what might’ve been if he hadn’t taken that corner a hair too late, if he had held back just once in a career built on desperation and perfection.

Max might have been champion that day. Charles might have told him everything.

But the moment shattered. And Charles stayed shattered with it.

Now, they’re title rivals. Max is still Max — impossibly fast, merciless, angelic in how he bends tracks to his will. But Charles... Charles is all ache and apology, sharp edges dulled by guilt. The world calls him hungry. He knows he’s just starving for something he already lost.

His bruises from Abu Dhabi never faded. Some are still etched into his skin — bone-deep reminders that he was the one who ruined everything. But the worst ones are the ones no one can see.

The ones that pulse every time Max walks by without looking.

The ones that burn every time someone says his name with reverence and not rage.

The ones that whisper, You broke him, and now he’s winning without you.

And still, Charles loves him. Quietly. Always.

Charles is leading the championship.

Somehow.

Against all odds, against the will of the paddock, against the blistering hatred that clings to his name like oil to water, he is ahead of Max Verstappen in the 2025 standings. By fourteen points. Fourteen lonely, blood-earned, hollow points.

And no one wants him to be.

Not Red Bull, not the media, not the sponsors who smile thinly during interviews and cut his screentime short in post-race montages. Not the mechanics who once patted his back in parc fermé but now offer curt nods. Not the fans who still bring cardboard signs with “MURDERER” scrawled in caps near Turn 1. Not even Ferrari, not really, not beyond the PR sheen that paints him as their beloved, their myth, their golden boy.

Golden boy. It tastes like ash now.

He walks the corridors in red, but it might as well be rust. He’s part of the machine, but never its heart. The engineers whisper louder when he enters the room. The strategists fumble his calls. There’s a stiffness in every meeting, a hesitation in every handshake. He’s tolerated because he’s winning — just barely — and that fact alone breeds more resentment than pride.

He deserves it. Every blade of it. Every sharpened look. Every cold shoulder. Every anonymous radio message that digs its teeth into his skin.

He ruined 2021. He ruined Max. He ruined everything.

Max hasn’t spoken to him. Still. Four years of silence, weaponized. Four years of pretending the crash was just an accident and not the great fracture of their lives. And yet, even in silence, Max is the loudest thing in Charles’ world. His car in the mirror. His name on the timing sheets. His presence, vast and burning, pressing against Charles' every breath.

And still Charles leads.

He doesn’t smile about it. He doesn’t gloat. He doesn’t celebrate. He wins and then disappears, a ghost in red, slipping from podiums like they burn his skin.

He drives like he has something to prove, but Charles knows the truth.

He drives like he has something to atone for.

Charles wakes up before sunrise every day. Not because he’s training. Not because it’s good for performance. He just… can’t sleep past four anymore. If he does, the nightmares get worse. The kind where the steering wheel locks in his hands, where the world tilts sideways and Max’s car disappears into smoke. Where Max stands beside him with something red streaked down his face and says, you ruined everything.

So he runs. Before the sky even knows it’s morning. He puts on trainers and runs until his knees ache and his lungs burn, until his mind is empty except for the sharp sound of his breath and the pavement slapping underfoot. He doesn’t listen to music anymore — not since The Sound of Silence came on shuffle once and left him sobbing on the curb like he’d been shot.

He doesn’t cry anymore, though. That was a phase. That was 2022. Now he just goes quiet.

Sometimes he forgets to eat. Not on purpose. Just… doesn’t notice. There’s always another meeting, another simulator session, another media duty, another time someone calls him ruthless with a smile that doesn’t reach their eyes. By the time he gets back to his hotel room it’s 1AM and he tells himself he’s too tired to order room service, that hunger’s good — it keeps you sharp.

Carlos noticed once. Left protein bars on his desk and didn’t say a word. Charles threw them out.

He keeps all the articles. Every nasty headline, every tweet that says he’s a fraud, a butcher, a snake in red. He saves them in a folder on his phone titled Fuel. He tells himself it motivates him. He doesn’t acknowledge the way he reads them late at night, each word sinking into his ribs like little barbs, like penance.

He doesn’t go to therapy. Fred suggested it. Charles said he was fine. He smiled when he said it. That’s how people know he’s lying — the smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, the one that stretches too wide. The one Max used to hate.

He bought a punching bag. Hung it in his flat in Monaco. Uses it every night after a bad session, when the numbers don’t go his way or when Max sets purple sectors and the entire paddock glows with pride. He wraps his hands wrong, on purpose, so his knuckles split open against the canvas. He tells himself the blood makes it real. That it helps.

It doesn’t.

He calls his mother less. Talks to Lorenzo only when it’s strictly necessary. He hasn’t been home in over a year. Monaco feels like a mausoleum now, every corner stuffed with memories he doesn’t deserve. He has Leo, at least. Sometimes he holds him too tightly and Leo whines, and Charles whispers sorry over and over until they’re both curled on the floor in a puddle of silence.

He watches Max’s races. Every single one. Pretends he doesn’t. But the laptop’s always open. The volume is always off. He doesn’t know why he tortures himself like this. Maybe it’s not torture. Maybe it’s worship.

He doesn’t write anymore. Not music, not poems, not even the little lines he used to scribble in the back pages of his notebooks. He tried once, a few months ago, when the loneliness was unbearable. But the first line he wrote was je suis désolé and he stared at it for two hours before ripping the page out and burning it on his balcony.

The ashes blew back into the living room.

He hasn't cleaned them up.

They sit there, still. Like ghosts.

He sits in team briefings and nods along, but the words blur. He drives beautifully, ferociously, like a man on fire. Everyone says he’s never been better. They call him clinical. Mature. Unflinching.

They don’t see the way his hands tremble after he takes off his gloves. The red marks on his wrist from where he snaps the band of his watch over and over when no one’s looking. The fingernails bitten down so far they bleed.

They don’t see how he flinches whenever he hears Max’s voice across the paddock. How his eyes track the sound like it’s a gunshot.

They don’t see how Charles smiles when he finishes P2 behind Max — not because he’s happy, but because it means Max is still ahead. Still winning. Still the king Charles destroyed once, but not again. Never again.

They don’t see the way he watches Max walk away.

The way he never looks back.

He doesn’t change his helmet design anymore. Used to do it for Monaco. For special races. For anniversaries. But now it’s the same every weekend — red and white, no frills, no flourishes, no tribute to home or history or heart. He says it’s about consistency. That fans can recognize him better this way.

But he keeps the broken 2021 visor in a box under his bed. Still cracked on the left from the impact. Still stained on the inside where his own blood dried and flaked. He opens the box sometimes. Just to look. Just to remember.

The pain sharpens him. Makes things clearer.

He starts buying books he doesn’t read. Heavy ones. Hardcovers with titles like Discipline in Elite Performance and Control Under Pressure . They line his shelves in neat little rows, spines uncracked. He brings one to every race weekend, keeps it on his bedside table, moves the bookmark two pages every night. He’s never read a word of any of them.

But he always carries The Little Prince in his backpack. The old French copy, spine softened with time, corners bent. Max gave it to him once, when they were teenagers. No inscription. Just a dog-eared page marked with a sticky note: On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

He never opens that page anymore. He knows it by heart.

He learns to speak Dutch. Quietly. Slowly. Downloaded an app. Practices under his breath during cooldowns and flights. He tells Carlos it’s for fun, for culture, for the challenge. But he’s never used it. Never spoken it aloud to the only person it was meant for.

He writes a sentence once in a notebook, just one: Ik wou dat het mij was en niet jij.

He crosses it out. Then tears the page out. Then throws the notebook away.

He stops keeping his trophies out. They used to crowd the living room — Monza, Austria, Silverstone, all gleaming reminders that he’d been good enough, even if it was never enough. But now they’re packed in boxes, shoved into the guest closet. He says he’s redecorating.

There’s only one trophy still out. Spa 2019. His first win. The one Max congratulated him for with a nod that felt too solemn, too soft. The one where Max stood third, and Charles stood above him, and for a second the world felt like it might make sense.

He polishes that one. Once a week. Never forgets.

He’s been journaling again. Not the kind that’s full of dreams or gratitude. Just fragments. Half-thoughts. Sometimes just names. He scribbles them down in the dark, barely legible. A page filled with “M”s, one after another, like he’s trying to scrub the letter out of his brain. Another where he writes “14 points” and nothing else.

He tears those pages out too. But they don’t burn anymore. He flushes them.

He’s perfected a smile for the cameras. It doesn’t show teeth. It doesn’t reach his eyes. But it’s polite. Clean. Empty. Everyone calls him composed. Charles likes that word. It sounds better than hollow.

Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night thinking he hears Max laughing.

He moves apartments in Monaco. The new place doesn’t face the harbour. It doesn’t face the track. It faces a concrete wall and a sad little patch of sky. Charles says it’s quieter this way. Less distractions. But when he opens the blinds, he still squints, like he expects to see a Red Bull livery streaking across the horizon. 

He starts wearing a bracelet on his right wrist. A thin, braided cord. The same colour as the Dutch flag. Nobody notices. Not even the cameras. It’s cheap. Fades after the first few showers. He replaces it. Every week. Same one.

The press asks him once, quarter way into the season, if he thinks this could be his year.

Charles smiles.

“Maybe,” he says. “If Max lets me.”

He still drives like the world ends in corners.

The engineers say it’s data-driven. Calculated. Elegant aggression, they call it, as if Charles Leclerc — boy wonder, Ferrari’s finest — could possibly be anything but graceful. But the telemetry doesn’t show the way he keeps his foot on the throttle for just half a heartbeat too long coming into Turn 8, or how his hands twitch on the wheel every time he gets within DRS of Max Verstappen. No one sees the way his eyes go blank in the braking zones, like he’s not there at all. Like he’s somewhere else. Or nowhere.

Fred sees it. Fred watches from the pit wall with that tight jaw and clenched clipboard grip and tells the garage it’s “confidence” and “attacking style,” but his headset’s already muted when he adds softly, “Or he’s trying to die again.”

It’s worse off track. No telemetry there. Just Charles and an engine and nothing between him and every red light. He started driving the roads like they were circuits — every roundabout a chicane, every Monaco tunnel a straight. He told Joris once, laughing, that sometimes he imagined yellow flags on the promenade. That traffic was just a formation lap if you were brave enough. Joris didn’t laugh back. Joris stopped getting in the car with him.

He bought the Ducati on a Tuesday. Walked into the dealership alone, picked the fastest model, the one with a reputation for biting back. Didn’t test ride it. Didn’t ask questions. Paid in full. Rode it home at midnight in the rain.

The next morning, Fred was at his apartment.

He didn’t knock.

“You’re not riding that thing again.”

Charles blinked at him. Still in his race suit from the night drive, hair wet, eyes bloodshot.

“It’s not illegal.”

“You’re not twenty anymore,” Fred snapped. “And you’re not invincible.”

Charles just shrugged. “I didn’t crash.”

“That’s not the point.”

He was quiet for a long time. Just stood there in the kitchen, dripping water from his sleeves onto the tiles. Eventually, he looked up.

“I didn’t crash,” he repeated, but softer. Like maybe he wanted to. Like maybe that was the only point.

Fred confiscated the Ducati that night. Told the mechanics to take it to storage and never tell Charles where they put it.

Charles never asked.

But sometimes he stares at the helmet on his shelf — not the F1 one, the black matte street helmet with the tinted visor and the scratch across the chin from the night he leaned too hard on a wet curve — and his hand twitches.

He says it’s about freedom. That the world moves too slow otherwise. That he needs speed to think.

But he doesn’t think when he drives. Not anymore.

Not about racing.

Not about titles.

Not about Max.

Especially not about Max.

Max, who still looks at him like he’s waiting for another crash.

Max, who still won’t talk to him unless the FIA makes them.

Max, who Charles hasn’t stopped loving.

He takes every apex like it’s an apology he can’t say out loud. Leaves black streaks of guilt on every track in Europe. The paddock calls it a comeback. The media calls it focus. Fred calls it terrifying.

But Charles never says a word.

He just keeps driving.

Fast.

Too fast.

Like he’s chasing something he already lost.

It was raining in Suzuka the night Charles climbed over the balcony railing.

Not the cinematic kind of rain either — not dramatic, not violent, not some poetic storm he could pretend was washing him clean. Just a drizzle. Weak and grey and constant, like the world was crying quietly in the background and hoping no one would notice. Charles hadn’t planned it. There wasn’t a note, no grand gesture, no symbolism. Just a feeling. Just tired legs and a pounding in his skull and a heartbeat that wouldn’t settle down.

He’d been out late. Simulator sessions. Media. The usual. He got back to the hotel around midnight. The elevators were slow. That was all. The elevators were slow, and he was tired, and the stairs felt too long, and the balcony was right there.

So he climbed it.

Third floor.

Barefoot, in his race hoodie, the sleeves too long, the fabric soaked from the rain. He didn’t even take a running start. Just swung one leg over, like he was stepping off a curb. Like the concrete below wasn’t three floors down. Like he didn’t care.

He hit the grass beside the loading dock. Sprained his wrist. Scraped the inside of his elbow. Didn’t break anything. Which felt unfair. A sprain and a few scrapes for something that might’ve been everything. The medics said he was lucky. Charles didn’t feel lucky. He didn’t feel anything, really. Just cold.

Fred had seen it from the lobby window.

He was standing at the vending machine, trying to decide between lemon tea or water, when he looked up and saw a shadow fall from the third-floor balcony like a discarded towel.

Fred ran faster than he had in twenty years.

By the time he got to Charles, Charles was already sitting up, brushing dirt off his hands with that same infuriating, empty calm he always used when he was hurting. The kind that made you think he was fine if you didn’t know better.

Fred knew better.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he snapped, voice hoarse, heart hammering, knees buckling with adrenaline.

Charles blinked at him. Rain clinging to his lashes. A tiny bead of blood trailing from his wrist to the cuff of his hoodie.

“I didn’t want to wait for the elevator.”

Fred stared.

“I’m not joking,” Charles added.

“You—” Fred closed his eyes, counted to three. “You jumped from the third floor because you didn’t want to wait for the elevator?”

Charles shrugged, as if it was obvious. As if Fred was the crazy one.

“You’re going to therapy.”

“No.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“I don’t care.”

But Charles didn’t go.

He nodded at the meetings. Said he’d book an appointment. Smiled through the paperwork. Promised Joris he’d try.

Then he didn’t.

The next week, he was back in the car. Wrist still wrapped in bandages. Driving harder than ever. Setting purple sectors like he had something to prove.

Fred watched from the pit wall, fists clenched behind his back. He wanted to scream. Wanted to shake him. But Charles wasn’t a boy anymore. And if he kept trying to save him, Charles would only run faster.

That night, Fred told security to seal off the balconies in every hotel for the rest of the season.

Charles didn’t say a word.

But sometimes, at night, he still leans against the window of whatever hotel they’re in. Still opens it just enough to let the wind in. Still stares down at the concrete below like it’s quieter down there.

Like maybe it’d hurt less.

He burned his hand in Zandvoort and didn’t tell anyone.

It was stupid. A coffee pot in the hospitality tent. He wasn’t even supposed to be there — the media day was long over, and most of the staff had gone home. But Charles lingered. He always lingered these days. Sat in empty rooms and listened to the hum of vending machines, the buzz of fluorescent lights, the soft static of television screens no one was watching. It made the silence feel less like loneliness and more like white noise.

He hadn’t slept. His eyes were hollowed out and glassy, ringed with the kind of grey that doesn’t wash off. He thought caffeine might help. He reached for the pot. It slipped. Reflexes kicked in — not fast enough. The metal carafe flipped and poured scalding liquid down his hand. He didn’t yelp. Didn’t flinch. Just watched the skin welt and pinken, watched the steam rise off his knuckles like incense.

He went to his room after that.

Wrapped the burn in gauze. Took one of the leftover painkillers from Silverstone. Didn’t tell the team. Drove practice the next day with his fingers stiff and blistered inside the glove. His engineer noticed the pace drop slightly in Sector 2. Asked about it over the radio.

Charles said the wind was picking up.

He broke a mirror in Monza. Not on purpose. Not really.

He was already on edge, shoulders tight with the weight of headlines and stares. Max had taken pole by two-tenths, and Charles had said all the right things afterward. “We’ll push tomorrow.” “We’ve got pace.” “I’m happy with the car.”

He wasn’t.

He got back to the driver room. The walls were too white, the lights too bright, the silence too loud. He saw himself in the mirror above the sink — pale, drawn, eyes like something starving — and something inside him cracked. Just a tremor. Just a flicker. And then his hand flew out.

It wasn’t a punch. More like a desperate slap. A plea to be let out of his own reflection. The glass shattered, spiderwebbing across his image. A shard caught the heel of his palm and split it open.

He wrapped it in toilet paper. Said he cut himself shaving when the medic asked.

He stopped using mirrors after that. At least the real ones. Started checking his hair in the black gloss of the Ferrari halo instead. He could handle looking at himself when he was wearing the helmet.

At least that version had purpose. At least that version was still fast.

There was the time in Qatar he locked himself out of his hotel room barefoot at 3 a.m., standing in the hallway in nothing but sweatpants and a Team Ferrari hoodie two sizes too big. Said he just needed air. Said he forgot his key. Security found him sitting on the floor, staring at the emergency exit sign like he was trying to read scripture.

He apologized. Smiled.

He always smiled.

And then there was Imola.

The worst one.

He’d gotten into the car alone after a long sim session. Late again. The paddock empty. Rain again. It always rained when things went wrong. He didn’t take the long route back to the hotel like he usually did. He took the hill road instead.

It wound through the forest, sharp turns and no guardrails. No one used it at night. No cameras. No lights.

He took it fast.

Too fast.

He felt the tires lift once — just once — and for half a second, his heart stilled. Not out of fear. Out of peace. Like he could just disappear into the treeline, become a name on a plaque in Maranello, immortal in the way ghosts are. But the tires came down. He corrected the skid. The car held.

He screamed then. Not from fear. Not from pain.

From grief.

He wanted to die and couldn’t even manage that right.

He parked three blocks from the hotel and walked in the rain.

Joris saw him in the morning, waterlogged and shaking, his keycard clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white.

“You okay?”

Charles blinked. Swallowed.

“Didn’t sleep.”

Joris didn’t believe him.

But he didn’t push.

No one pushed anymore. They just watched.

They watched a man hollow himself out one race weekend at a time. They watched him drive like death was a split-second decision. They watched him flinch at sudden noise, go quiet around mirrors, and stop flinching when he burned himself.

They watched the shell of Charles Leclerc go faster and faster and faster.

And they cheered.

Because the lap times were good.

Because Ferrari was leading the championship.

Because no one wanted to be the one to ask how many more purple sectors it would take before he finally, finally stopped getting back up.

The crash was brutal, but not spectacular. Not the kind that gets replayed for years, not the kind that leaves fire or chaos in its wake. It was quiet, almost — one moment Charles was in the car, threading the chicane at Zandvoort like he had done a thousand times, and the next, the world folded in on itself.

He didn't remember the impact. Just the after.

The stillness.

The smoke curling around the shattered front wing. The scent of scorched rubber, burnt brake pads. The faint ringing in his ears, a high-pitched whistle like something had been knocked loose inside his skull.

He blinked slowly behind the visor, staring at the dashboard — blinking zeros. His hand was still on the wheel, fingers curled like he’d never let go. His leg hurt. His ribs ached. But it wasn’t pain that registered first.

It was confusion.

For a second — a long, empty second — he didn’t know where he was.

Not in a poetic, existential way. In a real, terrifying way.

His brain groped for memory and came back with smoke. He knew his name — Charles, he was Charles — but the rest stuttered. Why he was here. What year it was. Who had won the championship last. What corner this was.

The moment passed. The safety marshals arrived. Someone lifted him up. A gloved hand touched his shoulder and asked if he could move. He nodded numbly, let them pull him out of the cockpit.

He limped, only slightly. Not enough for anyone to panic.

Arthur met him at the edge of the medical car, already pale and wide-eyed, wringing his hands, trying to pretend he wasn’t crying even though his cheeks were wet and his voice broke when he said Charles’ name.

“You’re okay,” Arthur whispered, like saying it would make it true. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

Charles looked at him for a moment. Tried to smile.

He wasn’t okay.

He couldn’t remember Lap 34. He couldn’t remember if he’d pitted once or twice. Couldn’t remember the message Bryan gave him before the hairpin. The race was gone — like someone had lifted it clean out of his brain.

But he didn’t say anything. Just let Arthur pull him into a sideways hug, even though his ribs throbbed, even though his ears still rang.

Max won the race.

The crowd cheered like thunder, orange smoke bombs clouding the air, chanting his name like he was an angel.

Charles watched from the back of the garage, eyes blank, wrapped in a Ferrari jacket he didn’t remember putting on. He heard his engineer say Max had driven a flawless race. He heard Carlos mention the yellow flag. He heard someone ask if Charles had hydro back in the first stint.

He didn’t answer.

Later that night, he sat on the floor of the hotel bathroom with the lights off, head resting against the cool tile wall, fingers twitching like they were still trying to steer.

He tried to replay the crash in his head — not out of masochism, but out of need.

He wanted to remember. Needed to.

All he saw was the smoke.

He bit the inside of his cheek until it bled, tasted metal, and let it sit on his tongue like communion.

He didn’t tell anyone.

Let Arthur think the tears had been for something else. Let Fred believe it was just a concussion test and bruised ribs. Let the doctors write cleared for Monza in the report.

But something in Charles was missing.

Something had been dislodged.

A memory, a moment, a piece of him.

And the worst part was — no one noticed.

Charles races like the calendar owes him something.

Each weekend, a new country. A new track. A new countdown. A new silence.

He forgets things now. Not always big things. Not the important things — not yet. But little things fall through the cracks like pebbles through open fingers.

He forgets what cities look like from hotel windows, what corner they landed in during FP3, what tire strategy they’d settled on. Sometimes, he blinks and a lap is gone. Sometimes he watches the replay and swears it’s the first time he's seeing it. Bryan says that’s just adrenaline. Charles nods. Says he’s fine. He always says he’s fine.

He wins in Singapore.

Takes pole in Suzuka.

Podiums in Austin.

He doesn’t celebrate much. Doesn’t look for Max. Doesn’t check if he’s watching. He just takes the trophy with a crooked smile, lifts it for the cameras, and disappears into the dark again.

He keeps notes now.

On his phone. In a notebook. Scrawled across hotel stationery with pens he steals from press rooms. Lap 32 — brake balance too far rear. Max closed the gap by 0.7. Tell Carlos thank you for defending. Ollie laughed when I said I forgot the briefing. Fred looked worried. Acted normal.

He sticks polaroids to the back of his closet door. Buys disposable cameras. Takes photos of pit lane lights and sky and curbs and Oscar's water bottle in the wrong place again. He doesn’t post them. Doesn’t share them. Just keeps them. Proof, he thinks. Evidence.

He begins writing the names of the turns on his gloves. Not always — just when he’s feeling… slippery. Like his mind might slide off the edge.

He doesn’t tell anyone.

He wins Monaco.

He can’t remember the start.

He holds the trophy anyway, face blank, camera flashes making him flinch. His cheeks are damp but he doesn’t know why. Max doesn’t look at him. Fred hugs him too tight. Arthur stares too long.

Charles still drives like a demon.

Late-brakes into corners like he's chasing death around the apex. Lets the car snap loose and doesn’t flinch. Bryan begs him to be careful. Charles tells him: “I am careful.”

Then he pushes harder.

He forgets dinner plans. Forgets birthdays. Forgets Carlos once told him that Singapore at night looked like a painting. Forgets the taste of champagne on a Sunday. Forgets that he used to care if Max smiled at him.

He still thinks about Abu Dhabi sometimes.

Only in fragments.

The sound of metal. The smoke. The hate in Max’s eyes. The silence between them.

He tries not to remember.

He tries not to forget.

So he races.

And races.

And races.

Until the calendar folds in on itself and all the circuits blur and all the years feel the same. Until memory becomes optional and grief becomes background noise and Charles doesn’t know who he is outside of the car.

But in the car?

He’s everything.

He is speed and rage and ache and want. He is silence, weaponised. He is Ferrari’s ghost. He is a man with nothing left to lose.

And he is still winning.

Sometimes Charles forgets why Max doesn’t look at him.
Why the silence hangs like barbed wire between them in the paddock, in the cool-down room, across the podium steps.
Why Max brushes past him like they were never boys in karting, never children with fire in their bellies and mirrors for eyes.

Sometimes, for the briefest flicker of a second, Charles wonders if maybe it hadn’t always been like this.
Maybe there was once laughter. Maybe there was once warmth. Maybe the way Max once gripped his hand on a championship stage—no, that’s not right. That didn’t happen. Did it?

So he checks.

He opens the notes.

"2021. Abu Dhabi. Final lap. I took him out. Not on purpose. Not enough."
"DNF. Both of us. Lewis won."
"Max didn’t yell. Didn’t speak. Just sat next to me. His hands were shaking."
"I said sorry."
"He didn’t look at me."
"He never did again."

The words feel like static now. Like reading someone else’s grief in someone else’s handwriting. But they’re his.
He knows because he always ends his race notes with a dot and nothing else. No flourish. No closure.

That’s how he remembers.

And every time he does, something hollow cracks open inside his ribs and Charles laces his shoes with the urgency of survival.
By 3:07AM he’s running.

Not jogging. Not pacing.
Running.
Like he’s being chased by the past.

Concrete under his soles.
Breath ragged.
Heartbeat a scream.
He never tells anyone. No one knows.

Sometimes Fred texts at 6AM asking why the hotel hallway security cameras caught him drenched and shaking in the elevator. Charles lies and says he couldn’t sleep.
Sometimes Arthur calls and Charles forgets he missed another birthday.
Sometimes Antonio leaves protein bars in his locker like a peace offering.

But none of them know that he doesn’t remember doing it last week.

Or the week before.

Or the week before that.

There are shoelaces still crusted with dried blood from when he fell in Baku.
A pair of trainers with torn soles that he won’t throw away because he’s not sure if the run in them meant something.

He doesn’t remember what.

But the hurt always returns.

So does the run.

He had to give Leo to Maman. Told her that he is busy with the championship.

One time, Charles forgets Oscar’s name.

They're in the Ferrari hospitality lounge, post-race, sun dripping golden across the table between them, and Oscar is laughing at something — soft, easy, the kind of sound that used to mean friend . Charles is nodding, smiling, even, like he’s there. Like he’s listening.

But he’s not.

His brain hiccups. Stalls.

And suddenly Charles is staring at Oscar's face and seeing only static.

He knows the shape of this person. The voice. The Australian accent softened by years in Europe. The posture. The way he leans on his elbows when he's comfortable. The fact that he races for McLaren. The vague sensation that they’ve shared long-haul flights and race briefings and silence on a balcony in Canada last year.

But the name. The name is gone.

It’s not just misplaced.
It’s vanished.

And Charles panics, but not externally. Never externally. His face stays polite, perfectly sculpted in calm — a skill he learned young, when the cameras started flashing. But inside, something cold slithers down his spine.

Oscar is still talking. Something about tire degradation. About Lando, maybe.

Charles hums. “Yes, true,” he says, safe and vague.

While he nods, he slowly unlocks his phone under the table.

Scrolls. Opens the F1 app with muscle memory precision.

Drivers. McLaren.
Eyes flitting past the list like a spy in his own life.

There.
Oscar Piastri.

He says, “You’re right, Oscar,” a little too fast, a little too sharp, and Oscar doesn’t notice, just nods and keeps talking.

Charles puts his phone down.

His palms are sweating.

His heart is beating a little too loud in his ears.

He doesn’t tell anyone.

Later, he will write in his notes:
"Forgot Oscar’s name today. Had to look it up."
"Still pretending everything is fine."

And then he will delete it.
Because he doesn't want it to be true.

Because he doesn’t want to know how much more he might forget.

Charles is standing on the top step of the podium, soaked in champagne and flashing cameras. The anthem is playing. He doesn’t know which one.

He blinks once, twice. The sky is grey but it's warm. Flags are flapping. The crowd roars.

He has no idea what country he’s in.

He turns slightly, glances down at the second step. There’s a man there. Blonde. Tall. Athletic.

The man’s smiling, barely. Tight around the eyes. He looks like a stranger. Charles doesn’t recognise him.

Not his face.
Not the team suit.
Not the number on his chest.

Nothing.

They spray the champagne. It’s automatic. Charles lifts the bottle, his mouth pulls into the right shape, his eyes crinkle just so. It looks real in the pictures. It isn’t.

Then it’s over. He steps down, heart thudding in his ears, fingers cold despite the heat.

The blonde man is right there. Not smiling anymore.

Charles looks for his phone. He needs his phone.

He feels like he’s drowning. Like he’s underwater and the world is speaking through glass.

Then the man speaks.
"Good race."

Charles nods.
"You too."

He says it like an echo. Like a reflex. Like survival.

The man laughs softly. There’s a lilt in it. Something teasing, maybe. Or exhausted. Or sad. Charles doesn’t know.

Then the man says, "Maybe we should talk about what happened in Abu Dhabi. It’s been too long a silence."

Abu Dhabi.

The word rings something in him. Not a memory. Not yet. Just a pulse. A flicker. A sound in the dark.

The man’s accent is Dutch.

Charles doesn’t know why that matters.

Someone hands him his phone.

He nods once to the man — a polite dip of the chin, nothing more — and walks away without answering.

He opens the F1 app.
Scrolls to the latest race. Podium.
Driver P2: Max Verstappen.

The name doesn’t mean anything.

He feels no recognition.

His wallpaper is plain white, with black text typed across it in all caps:
"CHECK THE NOTES APP."

He does.
Thumbs shaky.

He reads.

"Max Verstappen. 3x WDC. 2021: you crashed him out in Abu Dhabi. Not on purpose. You apologized. He never spoke to you again. You were in love with him. You never told him."

His vision tunnels.

He sets the phone down.

Goes to his room.
Puts on running shoes.
Leaves the paddock.

3:02PM. Heat on his neck. Blood in his throat.

He runs like he’s being hunted. Like grief has a face and it’s catching up to him.

He doesn’t remember if he’s done this before.
He doesn’t remember if it’s the first time, or the fiftieth.

All he knows is that something inside him is breaking.
And whatever it is, it used to be called Max.

The blonde man keeps talking to him.

Sometimes in the paddock, near the weighing station. Sometimes at drivers’ briefing, elbowing a seat beside him with the same tired scowl. Sometimes in the motorhome hallway, hand braced against the wall, eyes too sharp for a stranger. Sometimes it's a nod. Sometimes it’s words. Sometimes it’s a laugh that makes something in Charles' chest contract too tightly, like an organ shriveling in real time.

Every time, Charles doesn’t know who he is.

Not until later.

Sometimes, when the man leaves, Charles opens his phone immediately. Sometimes he waits. Sometimes it’s hours later, when he's sitting in the Ferrari debrief room with a headache curling into the base of his skull, or brushing his teeth and glancing into the mirror and not recognising the shape of his own mouth. Then the panic starts. The disconnect. The silence. The sense that something is missing, that something is wrong.

He checks the F1 app first. Looks up the name of the man who finished one position ahead or behind him, depending on the week. Scrolls through the face. The stats. Max Verstappen. Red Bull. Car 1. Dutch.

Then he checks his wallpaper.
"CHECK THE NOTES APP."

He opens it.
Reads the line again.

“Max Verstappen. 3x WDC. 2021: you crashed him out in Abu Dhabi. Not on purpose. You apologized. He never spoke to you again. You were in love with him. You never told him.”

Sometimes he reads it three times. Sometimes he copies it into a new note and adds the date, like he’s trying to remember harder, like repetition will beat it into permanence. Sometimes he adds lines like:

“He spoke to me today.”
“I didn’t know who he was.”
“I think I smiled.”
“His voice makes me want to cry.”

Sometimes he adds nothing.

Sometimes he just goes for a run.

Max — because Charles has to call him that, even though the name tastes foreign every single time — is always the same. Controlled, composed, edged with steel. He doesn’t smile much. He doesn't joke often. But he always speaks to Charles like they were supposed to keep speaking, like this silence was never meant to stretch across years. Like something got paused. Like something could still start again.

But Charles forgets. Every time.

Max will lean in close and ask, “You going for the win this weekend?”

And Charles will blink. Smile politely. Reply, “Always.”
Then he’ll retreat to his motorhome and scramble to check who that was.

And it never gets easier.

And it never hurts less.

And Max never stops talking to him.

One day, a boy in a Haas uniform approached him with the kind of reckless, unfiltered joy that made Charles flinch before he even understood why.

The boy—young, tall, with cheeks still too soft to belong to the grid’s cruelty—threw his arms around Charles like they were old friends. Or family. Or something in between. Charles didn’t hug back. He didn’t pull away either. He stood there, blinking over the boy’s shoulder, waiting for the shape of his name to surface from the murk of Charles’ memory.

“I can’t believe I’m actually gonna be your teammate next year,” the boy said, voice bursting, cracking slightly on the consonants like it was all too big to contain. “I mean—I know you know, but I’m just—Charles, I grew up watching you. I—fuck, I shouldn’t say that, sorry. You’re not old , it’s just—I looked up to you. I look up to you. Still do.”

Charles smiled, because it felt like the right response. Because his body knew how to play autopilot. He nodded and laughed faintly, hoping it covered for the hollow silence ringing inside his skull like the soft scrape of something forgotten.

The boy kept talking. Kept yapping, honestly. Something about simulators, about next year’s car setup, about Fred telling him Charles already vouched for him internally. His hands flailed like seaweed caught in a current, his eyes sparkled, like he was on the edge of something that hadn’t disappointed him yet.

Charles opened the F1 app on his phone with a flick so practiced it could’ve been muscle memory. He scrolled to the team section. Haas. 2025.

Oliver Bearman.
Age: 20.
Races: 17.
Points: 34.

He clicked on the picture. Blonde curls. Bright smile. British flag.

Still, nothing. No anchor. No tether.

Then he remembered the wallpaper.
“CHECK THE NOTES APP.”

He obeyed.

And there—buried under lines about Max, under desperate repetitions of race results and podium stats and his own blood type—there was a single note titled “OLLIE 🐻”

He opened it.

“Ollie is like your son. Or little brother. Or both. You mentor him. You protect him. He brings you coffee and tells you dumb jokes. You remember him when everything else slips. You love him.”

Something caught in Charles’ throat. Warmth bloomed, unexpected, confusing—some small thread in his chest pulling tight, like a kite string yanking back into the sky. The boy—Ollie, he reminded himself, Ollie—was still talking, still rambling, but Charles wasn’t listening to the words.

He was just…watching him.

Trying to trace the shape of a memory from the outside in.

Ollie noticed the silence eventually and blinked, tilting his head. “You okay?”

Charles nodded.

And—for the first time in weeks, maybe longer—he meant it. Sort of.

Because even if he didn’t remember Ollie, the warmth he felt was real. Familiar. Safe.

And that had to count for something.

Charles was in a meeting with Fred. His head hurt. Everything felt like it was happening from the wrong end of a tunnel—Fred’s voice sounded warped, like it was passing through water, thick and dull. His eyes kept drifting to the window behind Fred’s head, the glare of daylight pulling him in, and then—

A man walked past.

Charles blinked.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Blonde hair that caught in the sun like a halo, golden and sharp and shining. He was wearing Red Bull colours—deep navy and obnoxious neon—and walking like the entire world should move out of his way. Something about the way he carried himself made Charles’ chest lurch, like déjà vu or prophecy.

Fred said something. Charles didn’t register it.

The man turned slightly, speaking to someone beside him. Charles didn’t see the other person. He was too busy watching the way the man’s mouth moved, like maybe if he stared long enough, he’d remember the sound.

Fred cleared his throat. Loudly.

“Charles,” he said, not unkind, but laced with weary sharpness, “please stop glaring daggers at your title rival and focus.”

Charles blinked again.

“Rival?” he echoed, voice distant. The word felt slippery in his mouth. Like he didn’t know which part of it was supposed to hurt.

Fred sighed through his nose. “Max Verstappen. Your rival. The man you’re trying to beat for the championship this year? Ring any bells?”

Charles nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

He smiled, practiced and thin. Picked up his phone with the same easy sleight-of-hand he always used when he needed answers he couldn’t find inside his head. Opened the F1 app. Driver standings. Red Bull.
Max Verstappen.

The name didn’t ring any bells.

He opened the Notes app.

There was a whole section.

“MAX.”

He scrolled. Read the headers.

2021 Incident.
Do not forget: you loved him.
Abu Dhabi.
You ruined his first WDC.
You have not spoken in four years.
You were going to tell him. You never did.
You’re still in love with him.
You don’t tell him.

Charles swallowed. Hard. The words were like a cold wind pouring into his chest. He didn’t know who had written them. It was his account, it was his phone, it was his fingers—but the emotions stitched between the lines felt foreign. Distant. Ancient.

And yet—

He looked out the window again. The man—Max, he reminded himself—was laughing now, head thrown back, expression animated and beautiful in a way that made Charles’ ribs ache. Like something holy. Like something meant to be held gently.

Charles stared.

He didn’t remember the love. Not properly. But he could feel something blooming in the silence. Something just starting. Something fragile.

It was terrifying. Like falling. Like floating.

Fred was still talking. Something about tyre strategies and qualifying simulations.

Charles nodded when appropriate, said nothing else.

Later, when he sat alone in his room, he pulled out his phone again. Reread the note titled “MAX.”

And for a single, searing moment, it didn’t feel like grief.
It felt like a beginning.

And that hurt worse.

Charles is sitting under the bright, artificial glare of the press conference lights, hands folded neatly on the table, a bottle of water in front of him he doesn’t remember opening. The room smells like cameras—too-clean plastic and ozone—and the heat off the overhead bulbs is making his collar stick to the back of his neck.

He’s not sure what position he finished.

The others are speaking, fielding questions, smiling at the jokes the reporters throw out like bones to a pack. Charles is quiet. Not out of rudeness, he hopes. Just out of caution. He’s trying to gauge the room. Catch a hint. Pick up a breadcrumb.

To his left, a man says something that makes the reporters laugh. Charles looks at him, startled out of his fog. The man is laughing too—bright, sharp, golden. Hair blonde and slightly disheveled, face glowing like he’s lived in sunlight his whole life.

Charles stares. The laugh goes through him like music. Like something beautiful and familiar. The man turns toward him, mouth curled in a teasing grin, and Charles—reflexively—laughs too.

It feels real. His body knows to laugh, even if his mind doesn’t know why.

The next question is directed at the man.

“Max, you’ve spoken a lot this season about how fun the title fight has been,” the reporter says. “Especially given your history with Charles. What’s it been like to see that rivalry resurface?”

Charles freezes. Max.

Max.

The name catches in his chest. He can feel it trying to mean something. Like a dream just out of reach.

He lowers his eyes discreetly, flicking open his phone on his lap.

F1 App.
Max Verstappen.
Red Bull Racing.
Three-time World Champion.
Born: 1997.
Career points: 2784.

None of it rings a bell.

He swipes to the Notes App.

“MAX.”

He reads quickly. It’s like a stab of cold to the ribs.

Still, when he glances up, Max is smiling—still talking, answering the question with a shrug.

“We’ve been racing since we were five,” Max says. “It’s always been intense. It’s always been fun. I think we bring out something interesting in each other.”

Charles hears it. Not just the words, but the warmth behind them. Something genuine. Something that seems to belong to a history Charles no longer holds.

Maybe this man is his best friend, he thinks vaguely. Maybe that’s what this ache is—recognition, just without the memory to prove it. Like his soul remembers but the brain doesn’t catch up.

He nods softly. Doesn’t speak. Smiles like it’s enough.

Later, he adds a new line to the notes app.

Max: Maybe best friend (?)

Charles wakes up with pine needles pressed into his cheek and the sharp sting of cold biting through the sweat-soaked fabric of his shirt. The world around him is wet and black and full of crickets. His body aches. His throat tastes like metal. There are trees. Trees and dirt and more trees, stretching in every direction. The sky is stitched with branches.

He blinks. His head is heavy. His heart is beating so fast he can hear it echo inside his skull. He pushes himself upright, palms scraping against damp soil, breath fogging in the chill air. He looks around.

He doesn't know where he is.

Worse—he doesn’t know who he is.

There’s a name at the tip of his tongue. But it’s stuck. Slippery. Gone.

His hand, trembling, fumbles for the phone in his jacket pocket. There’s a smear of dried blood on the screen. He doesn’t know how it got there. He doesn’t know if it’s his.

The screen wakes up to the lock screen. The wallpaper says: CHECK THE NOTES APP.
He tries the Face ID. It doesn’t work. Not enough light. Or maybe—maybe it just doesn’t recognize him anymore.

He doesn’t know the password.

He breathes slowly through his nose. He’s wearing running shoes. His calves hurt like he’s been sprinting. He turns on the flashlight. It slices the dark open. Trees again. More trees. The beam finds a broken twig, a discarded bottle cap, the smeared trail of footprints in mud.

He walks.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, but his feet move like they remember something he doesn’t.

His phone vibrates in his hand. A call. Relief smashes into his lungs so violently he almost sobs.

“Fred.”

He doesn’t know a Fred.

Still—he answers.

“Hello?” His voice sounds like it’s been dragged through gravel.

“Charles?” the voice says. Sharp. Familiar. Worried. A sigh of enormous frustration. “Where the fuck are you?”

Charles pauses.

“I... don’t know.”

There’s a pause on the line. Then a groan. “I’m never letting you drink again, I swear to Ferrari, Charlie.”

Was he drinking?

Charles doesn’t answer.

Fred exhales. “I’m tracking your location. You’re five minutes from the cabin. Why the hell did you leave the party at midnight without telling anyone?”

“I needed to run,” Charles says, because it feels true.

Another pause.

“Of course you did,” Fred mutters. There’s a rustle on the line, like car keys and gravel underfoot. “I’m coming to pick you up. Don’t move.”

The call ends.

Charles stares at the trees for a while longer.

He makes a mental note:

Figure out who Fred is.

Charles walks toward the road, feet dragging, knees stiff. The forest opens up to asphalt and the hum of a streetlamp casting a yellow halo on the edge of the dark. The artificial light feels like salvation, like clarity. He exhales. It fogs in front of his face and disappears.

A pair of headlights appears around the bend. A car slows, crunching gravel. It stops in front of him, engine purring.

Charles squints. Hopes it’s Gerald. Or Fred. Charles doesn’t know.

The door opens.

“Get in,” says a man. A beautiful man. Blond. Sharp-jawed. Blue eyes like summer storms.

Charles hesitates.

The man says his name—“Charles.”

So Charles guesses this must be Gerald.

He gets in.

The man glances at him, frowning slightly as he pulls back onto the road. “Why did you leave the party?”

Charles stares ahead. “I needed to take a sprint.”

The man’s knuckles tighten on the wheel. “Is it because we kissed?”

Charles blinks. Turns his head. “What?”

The car jerks slightly as the man pulls off the road, coasting into a quiet layby under flickering orange light. The engine stays on, the heater humming.

The man turns to face him fully.

“You literally ran off right after I kissed you,” he says, voice low. Frustrated. Hurt. “You didn’t even say anything. You just—fucking bolted.”

Charles opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

Because he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know if he kissed this man.

He doesn’t even know his name.

The man laughs bitterly and runs a hand through his hair. “You think I didn’t notice? You’ve had a crush on me for years, Charles. Years. And you never said a thing.”

Charles swallows.

He doesn’t know if that’s true.

But he does know that this man—this impossibly handsome Dutch man—looks like someone worth being in love with. Someone who deserves a crush carved into the bones. Someone Charles knows, somewhere deep inside, even if he doesn’t remember how.

“So, I thought I could kiss you.” The man spoke, frustration and hurt and something else, something deeper bubbling through his tone. “And I leaned in slowly enough, Charlie. I gave you the gap. And then you leaned in and then we kissed and then you fucking ran away like 12 AM hit and you are the male adaptation of Cinder-fucking-ella.”

He stares. The man is quite beautiful. Charles doesn’t know why he would run from him.

“If this is some kind of fucked up Ferrari strategy where you attempt to successfully seduce your title rival, I swear on all things on earth, Charles —I’m gonna fucking scream.”

Charles shifts. His hand moves awkwardly on his lap. The man sees.

He reaches over and grabs Charles' hand gently. Warm fingers around his.

Charles yelps.

The man startles. “What? What is it?”

Charles blinks rapidly. “I think I might’ve splintered it.”

There’s silence in the car. The heater whirrs. The forest is quiet.

The man looks at him like he’s breaking. Like maybe he’s been breaking for a long time.

And Charles has no idea what kind of history lives between them, only that something in his chest twists at the way this stranger—who is not Fred, maybe?—holds his hand like it’s precious.

Charles wakes up with the dry taste of sleep on his tongue and unfamiliar sheets tangled around his legs. The room smells like skin and sex and fabric softener—faintly like someone else's home. It’s warm. The blinds are open just enough to let pale morning light seep through and cast soft shadows across the bed. There's movement beside him. Breathing. A presence.

A man.

Blonde. Bare-chested. Peaceful in sleep, mouth slightly parted.

Charles stares.

He doesn't know where he is.

He doesn't know who the man is.

He doesn't even know who he is until he slowly thinks, Charles... my name is Charles... and the sound of it fits in his brain like a key into a rusty lock.

He pushes off the sheets. Naked. His body aches—a pleasant sort of sore. His back twinges with every step. He shuffles across the unfamiliar carpet and into what he assumes is the washroom, blinking at the lights as he turns them on.

He pees first, standing there, blinking blankly at the tiled wall. Then he walks to the sink and washes his hands, splashing cold water on his face. He raises his eyes to the mirror.

His reflection stares back, a stranger wearing happiness.

His neck is a constellation of bruises. Bite marks and redness. His collarbones, his chest. There’s a particularly aggressive lovebite just above his hip. His lips are bitten pink.

He blushes. Hard. Something about the marks doesn’t feel threatening or wrong. Just... intense. Loved. Wanted.

He doesn’t recognise his own face, but he looks happy.

And that, he decides, is probably good.

He picks up the nearest shirt—navy blue with a Red Bull logo on the chest. It smells like someone else. Someone warm. Someone who might have whispered in his ear last night and called him beautiful.

He pulls it on, along with boxers and pants he assumes are his. When he walks back into the bedroom, the blond man is stretching lazily, rousing from sleep, his voice thick with it when he says:

“Blue looks cute on you, Charles.”

Charles pauses. The name. Charles.

Yes. That’s him.

He blushes again, because that voice—raspy and warm and teasing—sounds like it’s known him for a long time. The blond man moves from the bed, completely unashamed, muscles relaxed, hair a sleep-mussed halo around his head. He’s beautiful, and Charles thinks:

Maybe this is my boyfriend.

Maybe he’s lucky.

The blond tilts his head and grins. “Should we do it again?”

Charles blinks. “What?”

The man shrugs, still smiling, scratching absently at his neck. “Just saying. It was great. But if you’re not into relationships, we can just stay friends.”

That hurts, and Charles doesn’t know why.

He forces a smile. “I—I need to think about it.”

The man softens. Takes a step forward. “Can I kiss you?”

Charles nods before he even understands why.

They kiss. Gentle. Like a memory. Like something that’s happened before. Charles reaches out and pulls the man closer by instinct alone, like his body remembers something his mind has lost.

Afterward, the man tugs on a Ferrari shirt from the floor, pulling it over his head. The irony doesn’t register to Charles until the man smirks and says, “If Christian sees me in this, he’s going to riot.”

Charles doesn’t know who Christian is.

But he laughs anyway. He wants to.

When the man disappears into the hallway, humming some Dutch pop song Charles doesn’t recognise, Charles finally sits down with his phone.

Unlocks it.

His wallpaper tells him: “CHECK THE NOTES APP.”

He does.

There’s a whole section labelled Max.
There are bullet points. Memories. Feelings. Asterisks. Warnings. Hopes.
There’s a line that reads: You love Max. You loved Max. You might still love him.
There’s another that says: 2021 Abu Dhabi—don’t bring it up.

Charles stares at the top of the entry.

Max Verstappen.

He slept with Max Verstappen.

“Oh,” Charles says aloud to the empty room.

He updates the notes. Slept with Max. Woke up happy. Might be falling in love again? Kisses = very good. Red Bull shirt = smells like him. Still don’t know who Christian is. Need to figure that out.

He saves the note. 

And blushes harder than before.

Someone is yelling at him.

Loud. Cracked. A voice bursting at the seams with something desperate and angry and broken.

Charles doesn’t know where he is.

A room. White walls. Posters peeling. Trophies on a shelf. A Red Bull cap on a desk. Carpet under his knees. Carpet he doesn’t remember walking in on. He doesn’t remember the building. The city. The country.

He doesn’t know who he is.

He doesn’t know who this man is either—not really—but he thinks he might be beautiful in the kind of way that breaks the bones under your skin. Blonde. Blue eyes. Red in the face from rage or crying or both. Saying something about not being cared for. About Charles not giving a fuck anymore. About Charles looking at him like he’s a stranger.

Charles swallows hard.

There’s salt on his lips. He’s crying. He didn’t even know he was crying. It’s just… leaking out of him. Like a window left open in the rain.

“I’m the only one trying,” the blond man says, voice cracking like glass in the heat. “I’m the only one—trying—to keep us. You don’t even look at me anymore, Charles.”

So his name is Charles. Good. That’s… that’s one thing.

The man is pacing, pacing, furious. Pushing a hand through his hair. Kicking at nothing.

“We’ve been sleeping together for four fucking months, Charles.” He’s shouting now, the kind that shakes the walls even if it’s not loud. “The championship decider’s in Abu Dhabi next week and now you won’t even look at me. Is that what this is? Huh? Was this your strategy? Did you make me fall in love with you so you could ruin me?”

Charles flinches.

“I—I don’t—” he stammers, voice like wet paper, like a radio stuck between stations.

“Because it worked,” the blond says, voice trembling. “It worked. You did it. You got inside my head. I’m ruined. I can’t drive, I can’t sleep, I can’t think of anything but you.”

Charles wants to say something. Anything. But the words are all stuck. His mouth is a cage and his brain is an empty room with too many locked drawers.

“You fucked me,” the blond says, and this time his voice breaks clean in two. “You loved me. Or pretended to. And I—”

He drops to his knees.

Just collapses like a structure too tired to hold itself up.

“I fucking love you, Charles,” he whispers, looking up, eyes wide and wet and rimmed with red. “I love you. And if this—if this was just some— move, then I swear I’ll—”

“No,” Charles says quickly.

“No?” the man croaks.

“No,” Charles says again, softer, shaking his head, and he doesn’t know why he’s saying it, but the words feel pulled from deep inside his chest like magnets dragged from stone. “No, I love you too.”

And it’s true.

Or at least—it feels true.

It feels true the way the ocean feels wet. The way thunder feels inevitable. The way this man in front of him feels like he belongs there, kneeling with him, breaking apart in the same breath.

The blond stares, still broken. “Then why are you so distant?” he asks, almost a whisper now. “Why are you—why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you touch me? Why do you look at me like I’m not the person you’ve shared every breath with for the past fucking months?”

Charles doesn’t have an answer.

Because he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know this man’s name.

He doesn’t know where they met. Or how. Or when. Or what the hell happens involving Abu Dhabi and a world ending.

He just knows that his own memory is a pile of shattered glass, and every time he tries to walk through it, he cuts himself deeper. He doesn’t know why he said “I love you.” He doesn’t know if it’s the first time or the hundredth. He doesn’t know if this man knows the truth, if anyone knows the truth, if he’s supposed to know the truth.

“I didn’t mean to be distant,” Charles whispers. “I don’t— I don’t want to be.”

The blonde stares at him for a long second.

And then pulls him into a hug.

Not rough. Not broken. Not furious anymore.

Just—soft.

Like gravity.

Like instinct.

Like they’ve done this before, a hundred times. A thousand. A million nights of collapsing into each other after races, after press, after champagne and pain and bruises and whispered I-love-yous that still taste like adrenaline. They hold each other and it feels like flying.

Charles cries into his shoulder. Not sobs. Just trembling. Silent, exhausted tears. His body knows this man even if his mind doesn’t.

He still doesn’t know the man’s name.

Still doesn’t know why he’s crying.

Still doesn’t tell the man that his memory is a black hole, a canyon, a broken TV with all the channels wiped clean.

Maybe the man knows.

Maybe he doesn’t.

Maybe no one knows.

All Charles knows is that he can drive.

Probably.

Maybe.

Charles doesn't let go.

Not even when the man shifts, breath hitching slightly like he’s about to say something else. Not even when the air between them grows hot with whatever is pressing down on Charles’ spine. He just keeps hugging the man—holding on like he’ll disappear if Charles lets even a finger slip.

He needs to know his name.

He needs to know who this is—this man with the golden hair and the earthquake voice and the trembling hands that hold Charles like he’s glass and gold and gravity all at once.

Charles’ fingers twitch. His brain is still foggy, slippery, traitorous, but his instincts are sharp in the panic.

Phone. You have a phone.

Without moving more than he has to, Charles carefully fishes his phone out of his pocket with one hand, the other still wrapped around the man’s back. He feels like he’s doing something wrong. Like he’s reading a diary in the dark. Like this moment is sacred and he’s desecrating it with blinking screens and silent lies.

He flips the phone. It wakes. The lock screen blares read the notes.

His stomach drops.

Face ID unlocks it instantly. Familiar. The phone knows him even if he doesn’t.

He opens Notes. Still holding the man. Still pressing his cheek to the man’s shoulder. Still breathing in the scent of someone who feels like thunder and sleep and war all at once.

At the top of Notes is a pinned entry.

max ❤️

Charles clicks it.

There’s a picture at the top. It’s the man. The blond. The man he’s hugging.

His full name is—

But Charles doesn’t let himself read it out loud.

Doesn’t whisper it. Doesn’t breathe it.

Just lets it sit heavy in his chest like a puzzle piece that finally clicks. Like an answer he shouldn’t have needed to steal from himself. Like a prayer mouthed into a mirror.

The man— Max , now—shifts slightly in his arms.

His voice is closer this time. Rougher. Suspicious. “Are you seriously on your phone while we’re hugging?”

Charles blinks.

“Oh,” he says, clutching the phone tighter to his chest. “It’s—nothing.”

Max pulls back just enough to look at him.

That sharp, impossible gaze—like staring at a star too long, beautiful and blinding and maybe a little furious.

“This is what I meant,” Max says, voice low, wounded. “This. This exact thing. You’re always pulling away. Always distracted. Like—like I’m here, but you’re not.”

Charles wants to lie.

He wants to say something charming or clever or dismissive. A joke. A sigh. Something that would make Max laugh. Something Charles might have said if he were the version of himself that remembers how to love this man without Googling him.

But nothing comes out.

Just a soft, guilty “Sorry.”

Max looks at him like he’s trying to understand a language he used to speak fluently but now only hears in static. Like he’s holding something fragile and doesn’t know whether to try fixing it or just mourn what it used to be.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Max asks, quieter now.

And Charles wants to scream yes .

But instead, he just clutches the phone tighter and presses his forehead to Max’s shoulder like that’ll somehow fix it all. Like maybe if he just hugs tighter, Max won’t ask again. Maybe Max won’t see the cracks forming along Charles’ every word.

Maybe Max will hold him like this forever, and he’ll never have to admit he doesn’t remember a single moment of the life he’s already lived.

Max pulls away just enough to make Charles feel cold.

It’s immediate—the loss of warmth, of pressure, of being wrapped in something that tethered him to the here and now. Max’s hands are still on him, palms burning through Charles’ sleeves, but they’re no longer holding, just… hovering. Like Max is waiting. Like Max is afraid of what comes next.

He looks at Charles. Really looks. Like he’s searching for something behind Charles’ eyes that Charles doesn’t even know how to fake.

“Are you hiding something?” Max asks quietly.

Charles blinks.

The question feels like it hits harder than it should. A crack of glass underfoot. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s so close to right . Because Charles is hiding something.

But only because he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.

He swallows. “No.”

It’s not a lie. Technically.

It’s just… the kind of truth that leaves your mouth sour and your chest aching.

Because Charles doesn’t remember shit . He doesn’t know if they’re in a hotel or their house or someone else’s place. He doesn’t know what day it is or why Max is looking at him like he’s already halfway out the door. He doesn’t know what he’s done or who he is beyond a name on a phone and a pair of hands that remember how to drive and how to hold Max like this.

And something in his brain—some faint alarm in the back of his skull— tells him not to say that out loud.

He doesn’t know why. But it feels dangerous. Like if he says it, something will break, and he won’t be able to fix it.

So he doesn’t.

“I’m not hiding anything,” Charles says again, firmer.

Max stares at him for a second longer, then exhales hard through his nose. “I want to check your phone.”

Charles blinks. “What?”

“I want to check your phone,” Max repeats. “I know how it sounds. I know it’s toxic relationship shit or whatever, but I—fuck, Charles, I can’t do this anymore. You’re—you're here, but you’re not here , and I know you’re hiding something, and I can’t sleep and I can’t think and I just—I need to see what it is.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” Charles says again, quietly this time. Like the repetition will make it truer.

Max laughs without humour. It’s bitter and frayed and hollow. “You always say that. You scream at me when I ask. Every time.”

Charles frowns. “I do?”

Max nods. “You act like I’ve betrayed you just for asking. You make me feel insane , Charlie.”

Charles feels something twist in his stomach. He doesn’t remember screaming. He doesn’t remember anything. He looks down at the phone in his hand, like it’s some cursed object carrying the weight of ten thousand things he’s forgotten how to hold.

He exhales. “I guess I’m a changed man.”

It’s half a joke, but it lands flat.

Max doesn’t smile.

His eyes flicker between Charles and the phone like he’s trying to brace himself. “Are you really gonna let me?”

Charles nods.

It takes everything he has to do it. But he does. He unlocks the phone again—face ID smooth and compliant like it’s used to unlocking for this kind of moment—and hands it over, screen glowing in Max’s direction.

Max takes it slowly. Like he doesn’t trust it. Like he expects it to burn him.

Charles watches the way Max’s face twitches. The subtle tension in his shoulders. The way his thumb hovers over the screen, uncertain. Hesitant. Like he doesn’t want to be doing this, but wants not knowing even less.

“I’m sorry,” Max mutters, already opening Notes.

Charles shrugs, his voice dull. “You said it yourself. I used to scream. This is better, no?”

Max doesn’t answer.

He just stares at the phone in his hand like it’s a live grenade, thumb hovering, eyes narrowed, mouth pulled tight like a wire about to snap.

“Why,” Max finally says, voice low and tense, “does your home screen say ‘check the notes’ ?”

Charles shrugs.

It’s the easiest lie he can give. A shrug. A non-answer.

Because he doesn’t know . Not really. Not why the words are there or who put them or how long they’ve been sitting like that, screaming at him in plain sight. Maybe he wrote them. Maybe someone else did. Maybe it was him trying to outsmart his own crumbling brain.

But he doesn’t say that.

He doesn’t say anything .

Something deep inside his head says don’t tell . Don’t say it. Don’t let it out. Don’t admit it. Don’t make it real.

So he shrugs again.

Max’s brow creases. “Charles.”

“Dunno,” Charles mutters, noncommittal. “Maybe I wrote it when I was drunk or something.”

Max doesn’t believe him. It’s clear in the way his shoulders stay stiff, like he’s waiting for the punchline to hit him in the face.

“Can I look at the Notes?” Max asks eventually, eyes flicking toward the glowing screen.

Charles hesitates.

“I just—” Max rubs a hand across his jaw, visibly fraying. “I need to know if there’s something you’re not saying. Because I feel like I’m losing my mind , Charles.”

Charles shifts on his feet, heart pounding like he’s done something wrong. Like the ground’s tilted underneath him and he’s got no grip, no context, no footing. Just a phone and a stranger who holds him like a promise he’s forgotten how to keep.

“I want you to trust me,” Charles says softly. “Please.”

Max looks up, startled.

Charles doesn’t add that he doesn’t even know what’s in the Notes app. Doesn’t know what ghosts he might’ve left for himself. Doesn’t know if there are secrets, confessions, explosions waiting to detonate the second Max opens the wrong one.

He doesn’t know .

He just knows he doesn’t want Max to stop trusting him. Even if Charles doesn’t remember why Max trusted him in the first place.

Max exhales, long and slow. “Why is one of the notes titled ‘in case u forgot’ ?”

Charles freezes.

Looks over Max’s shoulder at the screen.

And there it is. Yellow text on black background, plain as anything: in case u forgot.

Charles swallows. “I don’t know.”

Max’s voice goes cold. “Are you doing this again?”

“Doing what?”

“This.” Max gestures vaguely. “Another elaborate mindfuck before the championship? Making me question everything, gaslighting the shit out of me, setting traps in your own Notes app so I end up looking crazy?”

Charles blinks. “I—what championship?”

Max stops.

“Seriously?” he says. “You’re doing that now?”

Charles opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

He doesn’t know what to say.

He thinks he’s telling the truth. He feels like he is. His mouth isn’t lying. His brain’s not scrambling to invent an excuse. It’s just empty . There’s nothing there. The word championship lands and echoes into nothing.

“I don’t know,” he says eventually. “I don’t think I’m doing that. I don’t know what championship you mean. I just… I wouldn’t hurt you. I know that.”

Max stares at him. Silent.

The kind of silence that burns.

Then Max inhales again and scrolls. His thumb flicks through the notes too fast for Charles to read, but every line must be hitting something, because Max’s expression keeps changing. Jaw clenching. Brows pulling down.

A sharp sound escapes him, like a breath he didn’t mean to let out.

“This is your diary, ” Max says, stunned. “Charles. This is your fucking diary. ”

Charles peeps over Max’s arm, leaning close enough to catch the edge of an entry. It’s dated a month ago. It says:

if max kisses me again i think my chest will explode but in a good way. like an affectionate aneurysm.

Charles blinks. “Maybe,” he says, cautiously.

Max scrolls again. Stops. Makes another noise.

“Oh my goodness,” Max mutters. “This reads like the guy from Memento. You know that movie? The one with the dude who tattoos his memory onto his skin?”

Charles shrugs. “Never watched it.”

A pause.

“We literally watched it together with all the drivers last year. I was glaring the shit out of you. You were ignoring me as usual. And, Charles —”

Max’s gaze snaps to his, sharp and bright and searing.

“Charles,” Max says, low and slow, “did you lose your fucking memories ?”

Charles pauses.

His heart punches his ribs. His palms feel clammy. There’s a low ringing in his ears.

He’s been trying not to say it out loud. Trying not to admit it, because once it’s out, it’s real. Once it’s spoken, it can’t be pulled back.

But maybe it’s already real.

Maybe it always was.

So he looks at Max, helpless and small and honest in the worst possible way, and says, “Do the notes say that?”

Max just inhales.

A sharp, broken breath that sounds like it hurts him to take.

Then he looks at Charles, eyes wide with something like disbelief and fear and something else underneath, something older and tired , and whispers—

“Yeah.”

And everything, suddenly, makes sense.

Max’s expression crumples, and Charles watches it happen from behind the dense fog in his own mind—watches as Max’s lips part, then press together again like he’s sealing something in. His eyes flash with too much too fast—anger, betrayal, fear, something else molten and hard to name—and his thumb resumes scrolling with a frantic, fevered desperation.

Flick.

Flick.

Flick.

More notes. More words. Max’s face keeps changing with each new entry.

“Fucking hell,” Max whispers, and then again louder, “ Fucking hell, Charlie. ”

His voice is thick with something Charles thinks might be heartbreak. Or rage. Or both. It’s all muddled. Everything’s muddled. Charles feels like he’s underwater and someone keeps shouting at him through the waves. He can hear the panic, feel it in his skin, but the words are slow and blurry and don’t quite make it to his bones.

Max hunches over the phone like it’s bleeding.

There are pages. Pages and pages and pages.

On each driver. On everyone Charles has met. Their faces. Their names. Their car numbers. Their team colours. What jokes they like, what foods they hate, what memories he’s shared with them. Some are long and messy and emotionally unhinged. Some are clipped, factual, sterile. All of it typed out, as if Charles has been building himself a map. A makeshift brain. A library of people he should remember but can’t.

Max keeps scrolling.

His thumb doesn’t stop.

Some entries are dated six months ago.

Some are newer.

Some have voice memos attached, little audio files titled reminder to tell Carlos about the engine weirdness or don’t forget that Ollie likes nutella on pizza (you still think that’s disgusting) or Seb=dad??? or simply don’t be scared of Max.

Charles catches that one over Max’s shoulder, and something in him clenches.

Max scrolls back up. Further. Past the race notes and schedule screenshots and blurry selfies with Lando and a note titled if Oscar is scowling that doesn’t mean he’s mad at you, until—

“Seven months,” Max breathes.

His thumb stops.

“The oldest entry,” he whispers. “It’s from seven fucking months ago. ”

Charles just stares at him. Numb.

Because he doesn't know . None of it feels real. Seven months could be a day or a decade. He doesn’t have time right now. He just has Max, breathing hard and looking like he’s either going to collapse or combust.

“ What the fuck, Charles, ” Max says suddenly, voice rising, cracking with disbelief and panic.

Charles blinks.

“ Seven months ?” Max shouts. “You’ve been losing your memory for seven entire fucking months and you didn’t tell anyone ?”

Charles sways. His chest tightens.

Max doesn’t stop. Doesn’t give him time to speak.

“Oh my goodness, ” Max hisses, and now he’s crying— actually crying, his hands shaking around the phone. “You were racing! You were in the fucking car every weekend, racing, and you didn’t tell a single fucking soul—”

“I didn’t know,” Charles says, voice small. “I mean. I did. But… I guess I didn’t want to know.”

Max scrolls again and then lets out a strangled, furious noise. His thumb stabs at the screen.

“This,” Max says, holding up the phone. “This one. This note. Read it. ”

Charles does.

The note says:

Don’t tell anyone. Especially not Oscar. Osc is too practical and legally a snitch (you love him tho). If FIA finds out, they’ll take the licence. Don’t let them take the car. Don’t let them take you off the track. It’s all you are.

Max’s hands drop.

His shoulders curl in like he’s folding under the weight of it all.

He lets out a furious, broken, helpless sob and then suddenly pulls Charles in and presses a kiss to the top of his head so hard it hurts .

“You could’ve fucking died, ” Max whispers into Charles’ hair. “You could’ve died out there, every week, and you let it happen. You didn’t even remember to tell someone.”

Charles stands still.

He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t flinch.

Because he doesn’t remember doing anything wrong. He doesn’t remember anything .

So he just says, quietly, “Am I a racing driver?”

Max pulls back, blinking through tears.

“Are you—what?”

Charles looks up at him. Eyes wide. Lips parted.

He doesn’t ask to be cruel. He doesn’t ask to be dramatic. He asks because he doesn’t know . Because the words sound foreign in his mouth. Because the tracks on his arms, the muscle memory in his spine, the notes on his phone mean nothing unless someone tells him they’re real.

He remembers a track. He remembers… something. Grandstands, maybe?

Max gasps, like the question punches him in the chest.

“Oh my goodness, ” Max says. “You’re serious.”

Charles just nods.

“I don’t—know,” he says. “I don’t feel like one. But I guess I must be. If the notes say so.”

Max is crying again.

Full body shaking now.

And then he says, “You’re not racing in Abu Dhabi.”

Charles stares.

“I—what does that mean?”

“It means you’re done, ” Max snaps. “You’re done for the season. You’re not getting in that car again. Not until we figure out what’s happening with your brain.”

Charles frowns. “But what if I have to? What if they—”

“You don’t, ” Max says, frantic. “You don’t. You have a five point lead. We can skip Abu Dhabi and you’ll still win. I’ll take the blame. I don’t fucking care. I’ll— I’ll say something happened. I’ll take a penalty. You’ll win the WDC anyway, okay? Just— don’t race. ”

Charles stares at him, blinking slow.

WDC. Abu Dhabi. Five point lead.

None of it connects.

None of it makes sense.

“I don’t—I don’t know what that means,” Charles admits. “I don’t know what a WDC is.”

Max's face crumples.

Like hearing it out loud finally kills the last piece of him holding everything together.

Then, softly, he pulls Charles back into his arms and whispers against his hair—

“You’re an F1 driver, Charles. So am I.”

Charles’s heart stutters.

Max holds him tighter.

“We’ve been fighting all season,” Max says, breath hitching. “For the 2025 World Championship. You’re leading by five points. We’re supposed to settle it in Abu Dhabi next weekend.”

Charles doesn’t move.

He just lets himself be held.

Lets Max cry into his shoulder.

Lets the world rearrange itself around this new information, this terrifying, burning fact.

He’s an F1 driver.
He’s leading the World Drivers’ Championship.
And he doesn’t remember a single lap.

Max keeps holding him like Charles is going to disintegrate if he lets go.

Like Charles has already started.

And maybe he has.

Maybe he’s already dissolving, cell by cell, into the fog that’s been eating him alive for seven months. Maybe he’s already been dying in fractions, losing himself piece by piece, note by note, word by word. The truth is that Charles doesn’t even know what he’s lost—only that it must have mattered if Max is crying like this. Only that something must have been beautiful, once, if it’s hurting so much to let go of.

He wants to ask how long Max has known.
He wants to ask how long Max has loved him.
He wants to ask if they were happy.
If he ever made Max smile.
If Max ever held him like this before or if this is just the first time Charles was too broken to run.

But he doesn’t. He can’t.

Because he’s not sure he has the right.

Instead, he leans into Max’s shoulder and whispers, “Am I still good?”

Max stiffens.

“What?”

“I mean,” Charles says softly, “am I still fast? If I don’t remember anything. If I don’t even know who I am. Am I still… good enough to race, despite the memory faults?”

Max goes still.

His breath catches in his throat like it’s trying to strangle him.

Then—

“ Fucking hell, Charlie. ”

Max pulls back just enough to look at him. His face is blotchy and wet, his eyes bloodshot and raw, but his gaze is razor-sharp.

“You’re not— listen to me, ” Max hisses, hands tight on Charles’ arms. “You are not getting in that car again until we know what’s happening to you.”

“But—”

“I don’t care if you’re fast. I don’t care if you could beat me with your fucking eyes closed,” Max snaps. “You could be the fastest person on the planet and I’d still say no. Because if you don’t remember how to brake at 300kph, or if you forget where the DRS zones are, or if you black out in the middle of a damn high-speed corner—”

Max breaks off.

His voice cracks.

His entire face shatters.

“Then you’ll die, Charles.”

The silence after that is so deep it’s violent.

“You’ll die,” Max says again, but softer this time. Quieter. Like he’s saying it to himself. “And I’ll be there. And I’ll have to watch it happen. And I won’t be able to do anything. ”

Charles stays quiet.

“You don’t know the pain I went through after 2021,” Max says, hesitant. Like his heart is being peeled open. “I was supposed to hate you and love you all at once. So I decided to ignore you. And now we are here and I am not fucking losing you, Charlie. The day Lewis stole that championship from me was the day I realised I don’t care if I lose, I just want you to be fucking alive and breathing. And that principle hasn’t changed to this day. Never will.”

Charles looks away.

Because he doesn’t know what to say to that.
Because maybe he has died already.
Because something inside him has been trying to claw its way out for months, screaming for help in the only way it could—leaving clues, writing notes, planting breadcrumbs for a version of Charles that might never return.

“I didn’t want to stop,” he says, eventually. “I think… I think I knew something was wrong. I think I knew I was forgetting things. But the car—”

He swallows.

“The car is the only place I don’t feel like I’m missing something.”

Max flinches.

Like those words have physically cut him.

“You feel safe in the car,” Max says hoarsely. “Because it’s the only place you don’t have to remember.”

Charles nods.

Max drags a hand down his face. “That’s fucked, Charles.”

“I know,” Charles whispers. “But I think I didn’t want to let go. Because if I stopped racing… what else is there?”

Max stares at him for a long, long time.

Then he says, voice wrecked and trembling and honest in a way that makes Charles ache, “ Me. There’s me, Charles. There’s all of us. Oscar, Lando, Carlos, Ollie, Seb, even fucking Toto. We’re here. We’ve been here. And you didn’t let any of us in.”

“I didn’t want anyone to stop me,” Charles whispers.

“And now I have to, ” Max snaps. “Because you won’t. Because you’d rather forget every person who’s ever loved you than give up the one thing that’s killing you.”

Charles blinks.

“Loved?”

Max exhales like someone punched him.

“ Yes, ” he bites out. “I love you, you idiot. I don’t know how long I’ve loved you. I don’t know when it started. But I’ve known for weeks that something was wrong. I’ve been trying to pretend it’s just burnout or stress or whatever bullshit excuse you throw at me but it’s not, is it? You’re disappearing, Charles.”

“I didn’t know—”

“No, you did, ” Max yells. “You did. Maybe not all of it, maybe not this —” he waves the phone, still glowing with the notes app—“but enough to know that you were lying to everyone. Including me.”

Charles says nothing.

Because he did know.

On some level. In some distant corner of his heart. That’s why he wrote the notes. That’s why he hid them. That’s why he kept racing, again and again and again, like if he just kept moving fast enough, the truth would never catch up.

Max presses his fist to his mouth and breathes through it.

Then he says, shakily, “There’s a note in here that says, ‘In case you forget, you love Max. You always have. You always will.’”

Charles freezes.

His heart stops.

Max’s eyes meet his.

“I don’t care if you remember or not,” Max says quietly. “I’m not going to leave you.”

A beat.

Then—

“But I am going to stop you.”

And that, somehow, is the cruelest kindness of all.

Because Charles doesn’t want to stop.

Because he’s terrified of what comes next if he’s not fast, not sharp, not someone the world needs on track.

Because he’s scared that if he stops driving, there’ll be nothing left.

But Max stays.

Even when Charles can’t speak. Even when he can’t breathe. Even when the grief starts clawing up his throat and spilling out of his eyes in silent, broken tears.

Max stays.

Max holds him.

Max tucks the phone away and presses their foreheads together and whispers, “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. I’ve got you.”

And Charles wants to believe him.

He wants to believe.

But the truth is, he’s already started writing the next note in his head.

Max held me tonight. He cried. He says I’ve been forgetting things. He says I’m not allowed to race. I think I love him. I hope I remember.

And the worst part?

He knows he won’t.

A week later, Max is wearing a fucking lanyard.

It's the first thing Charles notices when he stumbles into the kitchen, barefoot and confused and still wrapped in the same hoodie he’s worn for three days straight because it smells like vanilla and something safer than the fog clawing at the inside of his skull. The lanyard is bright yellow, hangs stupidly around Max’s neck, and says “MAX – BOYFRIEND” in bold, blocky black letters like he’s working reception at a clown-themed relationship office.

Charles blinks. Rubs his eyes. Blinks again.

“Why are you… labelled?” he mumbles, half-asleep, hair sticking out in thirty-seven directions and a single sock slouched around his ankle like it’s given up on life.

Max looks up from where he’s burning toast. “So you know who I am,” he says simply.

Charles frowns.

“I know who you are.”

“Yesterday you asked me if I was your mailman.”

“You were holding a box.”

“It was a shoe box, Charles.”

Charles shrugs. The logic still holds. His brain’s been scrambled eggs for weeks and Max smells like coffee and guilt and something so familiar it hurts in the chest. He’s been here every day. Max. Not the mailman. He’s certain now, probably because of the lanyard.

He pads across the kitchen tiles and leans into Max’s side without asking.

Max doesn’t flinch. Just tilts his head and lets Charles rest his temple against his shoulder like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Like Charles didn’t forget his own name last Tuesday and then cry about it for forty minutes in the shower while Max sat outside the door reading his notes aloud through the steam.

Charles breathes.

There’s silence, except for the smell of burning toast and Max muttering “fuck” under his breath as he flings the bread into the sink like it insulted his mother.

“I’m not sure whose house this is,” Charles says eventually, voice quiet.

Max blinks.

Then he smiles, tight and crooked.

“It’s yours,” he says. “Ours, technically. But mostly yours. It has five coffee machines and three piano rooms.”

“Do I play piano?”

“Badly,” Max says.

Charles nods, as if this is helpful. Maybe it is. He doesn’t know. He’s been carrying around a notebook like a baby blanket. It’s got Max’s handwriting in one colour and Charles’ handwriting in another, which is how they tell if something’s new or old or dangerous. Charles used to write every entry with a timestamp, a rating system (1-10, memory fragility), and tiny emoji annotations.

One of the earlier entries just says:

ZANDVOORT CRASH. If you forget this, check the footage. Left side impact. Head trauma. Do not ignore. Dizziness = not fine.
Max will know what to do.
Max always does.

He doesn’t remember writing it. But he reads it every morning. Like a mantra. Like a reminder that even when his brain turns into cotton, some version of himself knew to trust Max.

The doctor had a name he couldn’t pronounce. Something long and consonant-heavy with a German inflection and a wall of degrees behind his head like a war shrine. He wore round glasses and spoke too softly. Max gripped Charles’ hand the entire time.

They ran scans.
MRIs.
Neurocognitive baseline assessments.
Oculomotor tracking.

The results came back in a thick folder and an even thicker silence.

Post-concussive syndrome, the doctor had said.
Chronic neuroinflammation, likely exacerbated by stress and repeated exertion.
Functional retrograde amnesia due to diffuse axonal injury.
Essentially: a brain injury. Mild traumatic. Untreated. Lingering. Fixable.

Fixable.

That word had cracked something in Max. He’d cried again, right there in the office, tears slipping down his cheeks as Charles sat motionless beside him trying to remember how to feel something other than blank static.

“From the crash?” Charles asked, voice small.

Max nodded, once. Swallowed.
“Zandvoort.”

Charles remembered the sound of metal. That was all. A violent thud. A scream on the radio. Nothing else. The footage Max showed him was worse. He watched himself hit the wall at 240kph. Watched the car snap like a toy. Watched the helmet bounce once, twice, a whiplash twist, the whole world shaking on replay. He didn’t move for a long time.

That was seven months ago.

Seven months of forgetting people.
Forgetting himself.
Forgetting Max.

Seven months of scribbled notes and half-smiles and pretending.

The doctor had said it would heal. With rest. With time. With less stress. The brain, he said, was neuroplastic. Able to rewire. To restore. But only if Charles stopped.

No racing. No mental overload. No Abu Dhabi.

No championship.

He said it gently, but Charles had known what it meant.

It meant Max wasn’t racing either.

Max, who was five points behind him. Max, who had spent the entire season fighting for this title. Max, who had made peace with the fact that Charles was probably going to win it—until Charles forgot what winning even meant.

Max didn’t say anything about it until they got home.

And then he laughed.

He laughed until he cried again and kissed Charles so hard it made his eyes water.

“I don’t give a fuck,” he said, breathless and shaking. “I don’t give a single flying fuck about Abu Dhabi.”

“But—”

“We’ll go to Monaco instead,” Max said. “We’ll sit in the sun and eat gelato and I’ll quiz you on who the fuck you are until you remember that you hate olives and love bad French comedies.”

“I do?”

“You do. And you think ciabattas are superior to all bread, which is fucking wrong, but I’ll let it slide until your brain heals.”

Charles laughed. It came out wet and broken and raw.

Max kissed the corner of his mouth.

They didn’t watch the race.
They turned off all the TVs.
Seb texted, “Proud of you, kid.”
Oscar sent three crying emojis and a video of Lando sobbing into a trophy.
Carlos mailed a six-page letter on Ferrari stationery that made Charles cry for two hours.
The FIA called twice. Max didn’t answer.

They made pasta that night. Charles forgot to salt the water. Max nearly set the sauce on fire. They ate it anyway, half-laughing, Max still wearing the stupid lanyard that read “MAX – BOYFRIEND” like the title was official now.

Charles kissed him.

Later, in bed, with the lights off and his fingers curled into Max’s hoodie, Charles whispered, “Do I still love you?”

Max froze.

“You did,” he said eventually. “Every day. You used to look at me like I built the sun.”

Charles hummed.

“I think I still do,” he whispered.

Max didn’t speak for a long time.

But his arms tightened. His breath hitched.

And Charles, tucked into the warmth of the one thing his body still remembered, wrote it down in the notebook before he forgot again.
2025 WDC. I won. Max stayed. We’re going to be okay. 

And the second, written just hours later, is even simpler. 

In case you forget: You are Charles Leclerc. You are loved.