ELEVEN

"What do we say to our problems?"

"Fuck off."

Esteban Ocon laughed loudly, his chest constricting and tightening from his best friends words, and the look from upon her face which he found hilarious.

Josephine Belle Rankin was dripping in sweat as she ran alongside him, face glaring at him in annoyance. She could run distances sure, but when he had dragged her out of her bed as soon as the sun came up, to go for a run which was still to end even though it was past noon, it was almost as if she was about to die from exhaustion.

The answer that she had given him had two meanings, one was in fact the answer to his question, whereas the other was aimed at him for dragging her out of her comfy bed whilst she was sleeping.

For once.

He brought them to a stop by a bench, much to her relief as it allowed herself to try and catch as much of her breath as she could, of which was not much at all.

Her tired, aching and exhausted body dropped to the asphalt beneath her so that she could stretch her body to get rid of the cramp that pained her, rolling her shoulders and moving her neck in circles until it made a small cracking sound.

"I bet that you regret coming back right now, don't you?" Esteban chuckled, seeing his friend rolling her eyes at him. "How did Sandra take the news?"

"Surprisingly well."

It may have come to a surprise to some of the people at the modelling agency where Josephine worked at, but her boss Sandra was completely fine when the Rankin woman announced that she planned to leave the agency.

It was almost as if she had expected it.

It had soon spread to the paparazzi that the famous model was leaving the agency where she had spent an entire decade of her career, which meant that they had tried to interrogate her with questions as to why she had left.

But they had seemed to have forgotten that the Australian woman was now skilled at disappearing from the public light, so by the time that they had got wind of the story, Josephine Rankin had already disappeared from the agency and was already at the airport to travel to Monaco.

Where she was met by the Ocon man who was more than happy to see her, pulling her in to a gentle and caring hug.

She was debating on whether she wanted to leave her home of Perth for good to relocate near that of Charles, Arthur and Pierre so that she could be in their lives more to make up for the time that she had missed, but she still wasn't completely sure.

"Come on, Josie. We've got to finish this! We're on the home stretch!" Esteban giggled as she attempted to slap his bare lower leg, failing as he jumped out of the way.

"It's a good thing that we are not near water right now Estie, because I would a hundred percent drown you." The Rankin woman groaned as she had to force her aching body back up and on to her feet.

"Who would buy you dinner later if you did?"

"Daniel."

The woman coughed out with a smirk crawling up on to her lips, seeing the French man beside her lightly nudge her as if he was pretending to be offended.

"Or Pierre, or Lewis, or Sebastian." Esteban teased his best friend lightly, seeing her chuckle as her smirk was replaced by a smug smile. "I used to have a crush on you, and now I don't, everybody else does."

"Oh please. Sebastian knows where he stands."

"Pierre's schoolboy crush didn't fade, Josie. But then again, who could blame him for crushing on the Josephine Rankin." Esteban giggled.

Whilst he and Pierre may not have been the best of friends, the Gasly man did still come to him, and Charles, to talk about Josie, since they both cared about her.

The crush that Pierre had on her, would never go anywhere, they knew that, but it was funny for Esteban to mock him that the crush just hadn't gone away ever since he first met her.

She was a super famous and very attractive model after all.

Lewis on the other hand, didn't have a crush on her. It was more an attraction because of her looks so it was not to be worried about. He was still one of her closest friends because he vowed to always have her back.

Sebastian, well, he just needed to move on from his feelings and get rid of them. Josie had, and even his friends had told him that he had to do it, because she didn't like being around him knowing that he had feelings for her still. It made her uncomfortable.

She didn't find herself worthy to be loved by anybody, since she was such a broken mess so for Sebastian to still hold feelings for her, didn't feel right.

"Says the guy who used to have a crush on me because I speak French." Josephine giggled, her head rolling back as it turned in to laughter.

"You sure know how to bully a guy, don't you!" Esteban surged forwards to grab her by her waist, lifting her over his shoulders as she laughed loudly, since she knew that he knew that she was just teasing him.

His heart beat faster as he heard her laughter become louder, wrinkles forming around his eyes as he beamed from the sound that he had waited so long to hear.

Josephine Belle Rankin sounded happy.

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"G'day."

Daniel Ricciardo grinned as he heard her soothing voice, though it sounded extra Australian as if she was exaggerating. His eyes took in the sweater that she was wearing, which he recognised easily as one of his items from his merchandise.

"Hey José."

Daniel shot her a wink as he spoke, attempting to make himself sound Mexican which brought a genuine smile to her face. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she came to stop beside him, nestling comfortably in his side.

"I got you something." The Rankin woman sung as she handed a small black box to him, placing it in to his hand and wrapping his slim fingers around it.

The Ricciardo man stared down at his hand with a small smile on his face, raising one of his eyebrows at the look of pure delight on the face of the woman beside him.

He used his other hand to open the small black box, making sure that he was gentle when opening it, to reveal a silver watch staring back at him.

"Did you seriously buy me a Rolex?" Daniel smiled down at her as she stared up at him, lightly shrugging her shoulders. "Josie, thank you."

Josephine felt a slight blush coating her cheeks as the Austrailian man pressed a soft kiss to the both of her cheeks before hugging her tightly, resting his head on the top of her head.

"I heard that you wanted a new watch, so I wanted to buy you one because your birthday is coming up and I don't want you to spend money on something that I was already planning on buying you." The woman explained to him, whilst his smile grew as he watched her talk, his eyes sparkling down at her, his heart beating a little bit faster than usual.

Upon not having a reply from the Renault driver, the Rankin woman raised her head and lifted her gaze to see him smiling down at her, making a smile of her own appear, lifting one of her hands to gently cup his cheek and gaining his attention.

"You okay there, Danny?" Josie giggled, shooting him a playful wink. "Has nobody ever bought you a Rolex before?"

"Uh, yeah actually. Somebody did." Daniel smiled down at the woman, his heart aching as he saw the realisation fill her face and reach her eyes.

He knew immediately that he shouldn't have brought it up because it had made her upset, but at the same time, he didn't want to have to never talk about him again.

The Rankin woman took a deep breath of oxygen in to her lungs in an attempt to steady her breathing and hold back tears, hands starting to shake though she tried to hide it from the formula one driver in front of her.

"O-oh." Her voice spoke timidly, though she cleared her throat in an attempt to hide it. "Well he uh, he uh- he..."

"Hey it's okay." Daniel attempted to soothe her, but watched as she shook her head from side to side.

"Well." Josephine spoke once again, clearing her throat once more. "He always did know the kind of things that you liked."

Her breathing was uneven and shaky, much like her hands which were violently shaking behind her back from where she had hidden them so that the Ricciardo man did not worry about her. Tears were forming in her eyes, though she found that she was successfully managing to blink them away.

She was getting better at recovering, at least.

Daniel watched her carefully, seeing the woman trying to control herself and her feelings, which made his chest ache.

Once her breathing calmed a little bit more, he watched as she ran one of her hands over her face before smiling up at him, obviously trying to pretend that she hadn't just nearly had a panic attack.

Josephine watched as he slowly nodded his head at her, wanting to make sure that he was okay, and forced a smile on to her lips.

She didn't want to never talk about him again, all that she wanted was for the pain to go away.

"I remember when he would come to Perth and tell me all about his best friend, Danny. If you went out partying, he would always send me the photos that the two of you took."

Daniel's eyes widened as his brain realised what it was that she was doing, forcing herself to talk about him and whilst his whole body was screaming at him to tell her to stop, his mouth wouldn't let him.

Because she was talking about Jules.

Instead of actually keeping it to herself, crying herself to sleep, running away and hiding from the world, she was actually talking.

The woman who had lost everything when his best friend died, was talking about the very man that she had lost, the man who her heart would forever long and ache for, the man who would forever be her soul mate, her first love, her guardian angel.

The man who she so desperately wanted to start a family with, to settle down with, to marry and grow old with.

Jules Bianchi had been all of that.

The same man who had been his best friend, his brother, the missing piece of the puzzle, the key to his heart. His best friend.

For so long now, Daniel had thought that the world was coming to an end, well, his world, because he had lost the will to live and a part of him when Jules left the earth to join the angels above them.

But as he watched with his Hazel eyes sparkling like the night sky and his soft plump pink lips grinning like a Cheshire cat as she spoke about Jules, whether she was forcing herself to do it or not, and recounted all of the happiest memories that he had shared with the angel that she had been told about, he found his heart soothing ever so slightly.

Maybe, just maybe, his world wasn't coming to an end.

Maybe his world was only just beginning, and maybe the part that he had lost those years ago was finally coming back.

Maybe that missing piece that he lost when he lost Jules, was coming back, in Josephine.

The woman of whom he could now confidently say, he was in love with.

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A/N

Omg it's happening!!!

I've got flashbacks coming up as I'm planning on doing a few chapters for this tonight so that I can update it, and maybe near getting it finished??

What do you think?

Anyway, I hope that you all enjoy this chapter and I'll see you all soon for the next one,

I'm so proud of all of you, my loves

Love you all,

-RUBY