EPILOGUE

"Ma Princesse, I love you so much and I can't wait to grow old with you."

Charles Leclerc smiled with such love towards the woman standing in front of him, her hands clutched tightly within his own.

The seats at the venue were full to the brim, with only four seats empty, of which were right at the front, reserved for their missing angels.

Luiz, Hervé, Anthoine and Jules.

Everybody within the building knew that their angels were watching over them, smiling proudly as the two of them expressed their love for one another.

"Do you, Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc, take thee, Larissa Kimi Cohen, to be your wife?"

Tears welled up within the eyes of the Monégasque as he stared at his love, knowing that he was going to be able to love his soul mate until they died together, in their nineties, surrounded by the many children and grandchildren that they wanted to have together.

"I do."

"And do you, Larissa Kimi Cohen take thee, Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc, to be your husband?"

Larissa glanced briefly at the empty seats of the building that would have held her father and her Anthoine, imagining that they were sat there watching her proudly, with Anthoine having walked her down the aisle.

Instead, all four of her uncles had done so.

"I do."

Larissa playfully shot the Leclerc boy a wink which made the boy giggle in happiness, the euphoria flooding his body at how she had not turned him down, accepting him for who he was and loving him all the same.

"I now pronounce you, husband and wife."

Their lips gently pressed together as the crowd behind them cheered, love evident within the room. She was a married woman.

She was finally Charles' wife, she was finally married.

She was officially, Larissa Kimi Leclerc-Cohen.

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"That's my girl!"

Lucy Appleton shouted at the top of her lungs as she watched Larissa Leclerc-Cohen qualify in first place at the track in Monza, with the seven time world Champion easily out qualifying all of the other drivers on the track, even her team mate, Mick Schumacher.

Well, Lucy knew that it wasn't exactly seven championships, because she was already confirmed to have won her eighth championship, due to the FIA having added many more races and sprint races to the calendar, with Larissa winning all of them.

She had the eighth world title that nobody else did, and she was due to have her celebration party to coincide with her birthday, since she had only just decided to start finally celebrating her birthday at Monza once again.

She was healing, slowly.

It was the year of two thousand and twenty seven, a whole twenty years since she had lost her father, she had reached the age of twenty eight, the same age as he was when she had no choice but to see him burn alive in front of her and whilst it would forever hurt, she had gotten used to it.

She had gotten used to the pain.

But, for the twentieth anniversary, it was good news because she was starting from pole position.

She knew that she could do this.

She was a Cohen, after all.

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"Schumacher is in second, Leclerc in third, hold on Cohen."

Her radio engineer spoke in to her ear as she drove her stricken car, because whilst in first place, she had recieved a double puncture not long after leaving the pits which meant that she had to try and make it for a whole lap until she could get fresh and undamaged tyres.

The good news was that it was her team mate and brother in the car behind her which gave her time and room to manoeuvre her car safely around the track without needing to defend.

"You're gonna have to start lapping cars, first up is De Vries."

Larissa was barely listening to her radio engineer as she was driving, concentrating solely on lapping the drivers that needed to be lapped without hindering their drives, or hers.

Nyck De Vries was passed without issue.

"Up next to lap is Sargent."

Logan Sargent's car was a little more harder to overtake, since the Brazilian had no choice but to overtake on a corner, but he was still overtaken with ease.

"Next is Bustamante."

The Mclaren of Bianca Bustamante was overtaken easily too, since her car had recieved damage earlier on in the race which meant that she too was trying to avoid incidents and battles with other drivers, with the Filipino girl smiling happily as she watched the woman that had practically made her career possible, by creating the F1 Academy and funding multiple female drivers including her friend Hamda, pass by her with a small thumbs up.

"Tsunoda next."

Yuki Tsunoda was passed with ease, with the Japanese boy waving at his best friend, which was something that he always did every single time that he was overtaken by the Brazilian.

"Vesti is next for you to approach."

Frederick Vesti and his Haas was then lapped.

"Zhou is next, Cohen."

Zhou Guanyu simply blinked only for a car to overtake him, smiling as he could tell by the color of the car who it was, though from his Haas he could see the occasional spark coming from the tyres which made him hope that they could make it to the pits before they lost control.

"You've got Gasly and Ocon to lap and then you're at the pits, don't take risks, Schumi is holding Leclerc back."

Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were battling against one another, despite being team mates, with the pair of them wanting to beat the other, though of course it was all just jokes and competition between friends.

So when the pair of them could see a damaged Mercedes approaching them from behind in their mirrors, the two Alpine drivers seemed to think in unison, moving out of the way for the damaged car which their best friend was driving, allowing her to pass by them with only a couple of sparks appearing from the back of her car where her tyres were starting to disintegrate.

Much to the relief of her entire Mercedes team, the eight time world Champion pulled in to the pits only moments after that, ready to rid herself of the punctured tyres that had occurred,

"Fresh tyres, you're good to go. You should come out of the pits just ahead of Schumi and Leclerc."

The Brazilian formula one driver sped off out of the pits as she could see the two of them approaching, speeding off ready to lap even more drivers, this time with much better traction.

She passed the other Mclaren of Oscar Piastri, she passed the first Alfa Romeo of Hamda Al Qubaisi, she passed the first Red Bull of Lando Norris which then was followed quickly by the other Red Bull which was driven by Max Verstappen.

She passed by the Aston Martin of Felipe Drugovich and she passed the Ferrari of Alex Albon, she passed the Williams of George Russell.

The weather was turning so she knew that once again that she might have to pit and change for different tyres, but for now, she could just about line up her next overtake on the last remaining Alfa Romeo of Liam Lawson.

All that was left for her to do, was to overtake Lance Stroll, pit for different tyres yet again, and then win the race and celebrate her eighth championship.

"Stroll has reported issues with his cars steering so give him a wide birth when you overtake. We don't want him accidentally taking you out."

Larissa mumbled within her helmet in order to signal that she had recieved and understood the message to give the Canadian more than enough space to move.

And she did.

As she approached him, the dark of her eyes could instantly see that the Stroll boy was desperately fighting with his car for control to the point where Larissa hoped that he would either get it in to the pits or pull safely off the track, preferring that to the Aston Martin driver suffering a bad crash.

Especially at Monza.

The world Champion took it easy as she overtook him, not doing it on a corner or somewhere with limited space for the pair of them to move, but instead on a straight stretch, allowing her pass and head towards the next corner.

As she got to that corner, she felt a jolt within her car as she seemed to hit a drain cover, sending her off the track and left her desperately fighting with her own car.

Her car spun violently as all of her control was lost, the speed that she was going meaning that she could not even attempt to wrestle back for the control of the car.

She couldn't help but watch helplessly as her car spun repeatedly until it came to a complete stop, smashing violently in to the barriers at one hundred and eighty miles per hour.

A high pitched ringing sound followed as Larissa clutched at her helmet, worried that in her dazed state that she had lost her head and had been decapitated.

She still had her head.

The Mercedes Formula One driver lifted the visor up slightly so that she could see the predicament that she was in, though something that she saw immediately made her panic.

She saw the orange.

The orange of the bright burning flames that came for her in what almost seemed to be a blur, as one minute it seemed to just be a spark, however then it was like a bonfire and she was trapped in an inferno.

Tyres screeched to a halt as other cars arrived at the scene, her fear filled eyes immediately meeting the crystal blue of her brother and team mate, Mick as he ran towards the car to pull her out.

Then, she saw Charles, and he was running too.

Then, it was Lance, then Liam, then George, then Alex, Pierre, Esteban and Lando.

But then, she heard the desperate screams of her best friend.

Zahra screamed as she clung to the halo of the Mclaren driven by Bianca Bustamante, with the Filipino girl having driven as fast as she could in order to get Zahra to the scene.

Before the car had even stopped, Larissa watched her best friend leap from the car in heels and sprint towards the crash where multiple people were gathered desperately around trying to pull her out as the flames took over the car.

Multiple stewards pulled up at the race with fire extinguishers within their grasps, the other doors to their cars open to reveal more people so desperate to help.

Daniel, Lewis, Nico, Kevin, Romain, Carlos, Sebastian, Kimi, Fernando, Michael, Jenson, Hanna, Arthur, Lorenzo, Pascale, Nicholas, Lily, Stoffel, Marcus, Alexander, Pato, Jamie, Felipe, Pastor, Antonio, Jack, Robert, Daniil, Gina, Lucy, Checo, Valtteri, Toto, Tatiana, Susie, Gunther, Juan, Christian, Fred, Franz, Mark and more.

And yet, for Larissa, time had stopped.

Because the eyes of Larissa Kimi Leclerc-Cohen fell upon the desperate eyes of her husband, Charles, and whispered something that she so wished that he would be able to hear.

"Eu te amo, minha alma gêmea. Desculpe."

Then, there was flash and all she saw was white.

And when the white had cleared, she smiled with content as she was greeted with what she had craved, for a very long time.

The warmest of hugs from Anthoine and her father.

"It's okay, anjo. You can rest now."

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