The chequered flag waved. P1.
The radio erupted: “World Champion! World Champion! You’ve done it, Lucas!”
He pulled into parc fermé, killed the engine, and sat frozen for three long seconds, chest heaving. The weight of it crashed in—years of grinding, crashes that should’ve ended him, nights wondering if he’d ever be enough. His hands shook on the wheel. Then he climbed out.
The team mobbed him—mechanics roaring, engineers clapping helmets together, strategists pulling him into sweaty hugs. His family broke through the crush: his mother first, tears streaming as she clutched his face, whispering broken thanks into his neck. “My baby… my champion…” His father next—arms like iron, voice rough and thick: “My boy. My boy. I’m so proud.” His brothers piled on, laughing through their own tears, ruffling his hair until it stuck up wild. Jax grabbed him in a crushing bear hug, lifted him clean off the ground and shook him. “You bloody legend! You actually did it!”
Lucas laughed—raw, ragged—then felt the dam crack wide open. His vision blurred. All the years of doubt, the nights wondering if the ghost of his grandfather would ever stop measuring him—it crashed over him now. He was crying openly, unashamed, shoulders shaking as the team circled tighter, holding him up like they always had.
They moved him to the media pen. The commentator thrust the microphone forward, cameras rolling tight.
“Lucas Moreau—Formula 1 World Champion. How does it feel?”
He exhaled shakily, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Like… like everything just landed at once. The team gave me a car I could fight with every weekend. I just tried to give it back what it deserved.” His voice cracked on the last word.
He glanced toward the barriers—his family there, waving, crying, proud beyond words.
“My family’s here,” he said, voice breaking again. “Mum, Dad, my brothers—they never let me quit. And my grandfather… he never got to see this, but I carried him every lap today. This is for him.”
The commentator leaned in. “Anyone else you’d like to thank?”
Lucas’s gaze swept the Ascari area. There—Mia. Standing just behind the barrier, arms folded tight across her chest like she was holding herself together, eyes shining. She hadn’t moved closer. Hadn’t presumed. But she was there. After all the silence. After everything.
His heart lurched.
He handed the mic back mid-sentence. “Excuse me.”
The cameras followed as he jogged over. Eddie stepped forward first, hand outstretched. “Congrats, mate. From one champion to another—I know exactly what this moment costs.”
Lucas shook hard, grin splitting wide despite the emotion still choking him. “Thanks, Eddie. Means everything.”
Then he looked at Mia.
Their eyes locked—raw, unguarded, everything they hadn’t said since Vegas hanging between them. The silence of months. The hurt. The quiet thing that had never quite died.
He reached over the barrier, hands under her arms, and lifted her clean over it. She gasped—half laugh, half sob—as he set her down and pulled her into him, arms locking tight around her like he was afraid she’d vanish. The crowd roared louder,phones flashing.
He took her hand—fingers threading through hers like they’d never let go—and led her back to the pen. The commentator raised an eyebrow, mic ready.
Lucas picked it up again. “Sorry.” He smiled—shaky, real. “You asked if there was anyone else. This is Amelia—Mia Brookes.”
He turned to her. She looked up at him, eyes glassy, lips trembling, like she was bracing for whatever came next.
“Mia was one of the first people who believed in me when I started in Formula 1 five years ago. She’s the reason I’m standing here as champion. She taught me how to be human—how to show it—and that it wasn’t weakness. It made me stronger. She helped me talk to all of you lot—she’s a miracle worker.” His voice dropped, rough with everything he’d carried for so long. “And she’s the person I want standing here with me tonight. I love you Mia!”
He cupped her face with both hands. She rose on her toes, and he kissed her—deep, desperate, pouring every unspoken word, every apology, every hard-won hope into it. The cameras zoomed.
The crowd exploded—cheers, whistles, applause crashing like thunder.
When they broke apart, breathless, Lucas kept her tucked against his side, arm locked around her waist like an anchor. The commentator recovered, grinning wide. “Well… I think that says it all.”
But Mia felt the words still burning in her throat, unsaid for too long.
She turned in his hold, hands rising to frame his face, thumbs brushing the sweat and emotion from his cheeks. The roar faded to white noise; the world shrank to just them.
Her voice came out low but clear, carrying over the nearest cameras and into his eyes: “I love you too, Lucas.”
The words hung there—simple, unshakable.
