SIX

"Papa, can Mick come and play with me? I want to show him my new dolls house!"

"Of course he can, but don't forget about Gina. You can't leave one sibling out, anjo." Luiz Cohen smiled fondly at his daughter.

"I could never forget about Ginny, papa! She always likes my dresses when we play together!" The seven year old beamed, eloping her father in to a tight hug, her small hands wrapped around his neck as she kissed his cheeks.

"Boa menina." Luiz patted his daughters soft dark hair as he kissed his daughter who he loved with his entire heart.

Nobody else could ever come close to how much he loved her.

Not even his wife.

Luiz knew that it would have been confusing for his young daughter, since her mama and papa were still married but separated, ever since he had caught his wife cheating on him with their neighbor, though their child wasn't to know about that, ever, or that it was the reason that her mother never went to her birthday party, because she was too busy sleeping with somebody who wasn't her husband.

But the pair had agreed to act like a couple around their little girl and for the cameras, just until she was old enough, before getting a divorce to save her from the heart ache that she would have to go through.

"Daddy..." Larissa's small voice sounded, earning her father undivided attention. "When can I see uncle Sebby, Nando and Kimi again? Or uncle Michael?"

"You can see Michael when he will drop Mick and Gina here for play time, as for Sebby, Nando and Kimi, you can see them at race week. How does that sound, anjo?" Luiz soothed, his voice soft and quiet to avoid scaring or spooking his beloved daughter.

"Yay! Will I be able to show them my new bike with the ribbons on it?" Larissa's eyes lit up at the knowledge that she would be able to see her uncles soon.

"Of course, I'm sure Kimi will love to push you as you cycle up and down the paddock again."

She had to get a new bicycle, since her old one, the one with unicorns on, had been stepped on a few weeks ago at a race, by Jos Verstappen, with the man not even bothered by the small girl stood next to it that was crying her eyes out.

Jos' son, however, who was a similar age to Larissa, had yelled at his father to buy her a new bike. Obviously, his dad had refused, so the boy had given her, his bike until she was able to get a new one.

She didn't know his name, all she had known was that she had kissed his cheek as a thank you and promised to return the bike when she got a new one, which was true as her father had informed her that he had returned the bike to the boy.

"Is everything alright, anjo?" Luiz Cohen frowned as he noticed that his daughter had zoned out, watching as she shook her head to presumably clear her head of whatever major thoughts were in the seven year old head and looked at her father with bright eyes.

"When Mick and Gina come, can we get pizza? And ice cream?"

"Of course we can Chuchuzinho, of course we can."

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"Hey, Lara, you good?"

Daniel Ricciardo shook the girl slightly, as he had been talking to her minutes before she seemingly zoned out.

She immediately came to, blinking away a few stray tears as she shook her head to rid herself of the memory.

It hurt her heart.

"You good?" Daniel stared at her with worry in his brown eyes, a reassuring hand gently placed on her shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good." Larissa attempted to play off the fact that she had just zoned out for ten minutes with a small smile, but she knew that as soon as she had recieved a pointed look from the Australian, that he knew that to not be true.

"I zoned out, thinking about my dad." Larissa admitted sheepishly, before her eyes caught the figure of another person in the distance at the Red Bull garage, causing her to storm her way towards them.

"OI! You! Dutchie!"

Max Verstappen furrowed his eyebrows together upon hearing the booming sound of her voice storming over to him.

"What have I done now?" Max groaned in distaste as she stood right in front of him.

"You gave me your bike because your dad broke mine." Larissa spoke, watching his face carefully for a reaction.

"You didn't remember?" Max frowned. "You didn't remember me?"

Larissa released a scoff. "Oh, I'm sorry. I tend to try amd forget most of my childhood since I lost my dad. You got a problem with that?"

Max shook his head. "No, I had just expected that you would have remembered me because I remember you."

"You do?" Larissa could not hide the surprise from her face.

Max nodded his head. "Of course, I had wanted you to be my friend, so I gave you my bike. I never saw you again."

The truth was, he did see her again, but she had clearly not remembered who he was since she had completely ignored him.

They had raced against each other in karting as kids, and again as teenagers, and he had always wanted to muster up the courage to speak to her and see if she had remembered him, but was never able to do so.

Though, because of that day when he had given up his brand new bike because of his dad breaking hers, he would never tell her what happened as a result of that.

She didn't deserve that.

"Well what can I say, I was a busy girl. At least you got your bike back though, so it was a win win." Larissa shrugged, not seeing the slight look of hurt in the blue of the Dutch man's eyes.

"Yeah, win win." Max muttered quietly. "What made you remember?"

Larissa inhaled sharply, remembering her conversation with the Australian moments before she had zoned out.

"Daniel was telling me about how he had met my father at a race when he was younger and how big of a fan he was of my dad. It just brought back some memories."

Max nodded slowly, seeing her eyes starting to glaze over as if she was remembering something else. He carefully placed his hand on her arm and shook her slightly, hoping to pull her from her thoughts.

"Larissa, Larissa." Max tried gently. He felt as if he could relate to her in some way, getting lost in thoughts and memories of their childhood. "Larissa, look at me."

"I've got her." Fernando Alonso walked in to the Red Bull garage, having been walking past and seeing her frozen in her spot.

He pulled his niece in to his side, and walked her out of the garage and towards his driver trailer in the Mclaren garage, hearing her breathing starting to quicken.

She was having a panic attack.

Fernando Alonso made sure his door to his trailer was locked, before he cupped the soft cheeks of his niece, seeing her eyes filled with terror, tears beginning to form in her brown.

"Deep breaths in," Fernando reassured, taking deep breaths so that she could copy him. "And out."

He had no idea what had caused her reaction, or her panic attack, and he had no idea what she had seen in her memories so he did what he could do, he pulled her in to his arms and comforted her, gently rocking her back and forth like he always used to do as she was growing up.

"Mom." Larissa whispered quietly, the Spanish man's head turning to stare at her in confusion.

Did she want her mother?

"I can call your mother if you need her." Fernando soothed softly.

"NO!" Larissa panicked, her eyes wide with terror as she shook her head.

"Okay, no mother." The Spanish man reassured, his fingers gently running through her hair. "What happened, little one?"

"Mom was cheating on dad." Larissa sobbed quietly, the picture from her memories still fresh in her mind. She hadn't realised that as a child she had caught her mom with another man, most likely because she had been so young and forced herself to forget, but she just couldn't forget it now.

Why would she do that to him?

"She was what?" Fernando Alonso stared at his niece in shock. He definitely was not aware of that at all. How dare she cheat on his best friend. How dare she!

"I didn't know, I couldn't remember but I saw mom with Pete, the neighbor when I was six and I couldn't remember it." Larissa spoke quickly, wanting to get the words out so she would never have to speak them again. "They were kissing in the hallway and I had just finished play time with Mick and Gina, I had just got a new rocking horse and we were playing, I heard the door and I thought it was my dad, I thought it was papa but-"

"Heyy, shhhh." Fernando kissed her temple to calm her frantic breathing down. Poor girl. "I will go and get Zahra and Seb for you, okay?"

"Okay." Larissa nodded her head against his shoulder, trying to calm her breathing down. She didn't want people to know that she had been crying, so she desperately wiped at her eyes, rather aggressively causing them to go bright red.

Fernando pulled her hands away from her eyes, kissing her knuckles before he left her alone in his trailer, heading for the Ferrari garage, to get Zahra and Seb.

He didn't want to get Kimi, or tell him that Sara had been cheating on their best friend, because he knew that Kimi would be livid enough to fly to São Paulo to confront the woman.

As soon as he arrived at the Ferrari garage, he caught the concerned eyes of Sebastian Vettel. The German man immediately nudged Zahra, gaining her attention to where the Spanish man stood, part of his shirt soaked from the Brazilians tears.

"She needs us."

The trio nodded at each other, immediately dropping every thing that they were doing, and ran back towards the Mclaren garage, where a Brazilian girl was curled up in the corner of a trailer, sobbing quietly.

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Larissa hated workouts.

The day after she discovered that her mother had been cheating on her father  before his death, she had a workout with her trainer, Lucy.

Lucy had not only been brutal with the workouts, but she had also forced Larissa to go on a very long run, one that caused Larissa to almost need a lung transplant.

She had completed her run, and instead of heading back to her garage to complete and extra thirty minutes of her workout, she had decided to hide until her trainer was forced to leave her for another session.

So, she hid in the Haas garage.

"Is there a reason that we have seemingly adopted a Brazilian?"

"Hi, Kevin." Larissa breathed heavily, sweat pouring off her body. She scowled as she noticed that the Danish man was trying to hold back his laughter. "I'm hiding from my trainer because she is trying to kill me."

"Ah, Miss Brazil, you look like you have just ran a marathon." Romain Grosjean smirked as he walked past her, patting her back.

"I feel like I have." Larissa groaned, trying to stretch her limbs out to get rid of cramp.

"Well, if we have adopted you, then I'm the father, and Romain, you're the mother." Kevin Magnussen grinned as Romain started to complain.

"How am I the mother? You're more mother Hen than me!" The French man complained as Kevin beamed.

"I called dibs on being the father of our new child." Kevin teased his team mate.

"Okay..." Larissa watched on confused as the two men argued back on forth as to who would be her father as they had apparently adopted her now. "I'm just going to disappear, you can battle for custody some other time..."

The two Haas drivers had not even noticed as their new adopted daughter slipped out of the garage as quickly as she had arrived.

She carefully walked along, past all the garages, keeping an eye out for Lucy when she inevitably came searching for her, and just as she passed a garage, she ran for cover as Lucy came in to her view, searching for her to complete her work out.

She would have hid with Pierre if she was able to sneak back in to the Toro Rosso garage, but because she didn't, she had to have a back up.

"Percival!"

Charles Leclerc was incredibly confused upon hearing one of his many middle names being called out by a very distinctive voice. He turned, having just been about to enter his trailer in the Sauber garage and saw a sweat covered Larissa Cohen heading towards him quickly.

"Is everything okay?" Charles frowned, wondering if she was in trouble or needed help.

"Hide me from my trainer before I die." Larissa panted as she spoke, still having not gained her breath back from her near death experience of a run.

Charles smiled softly at her, seeing her constantly looking behind her as if to ensure that she was not caught from her trainer. He pushed his key in to the door of his driver trailer, opening it so she could slip inside to hide.

He followed after, locking it behind him so she was safe from her trainer. He immediately began to make her a glass of water, handing to her as he watched her gulp it down.

"Lifesaver." Larissa gasped, slowly being able to catch her breath. Charles had refilled her glass before he took a seat beside her, though he frowned as she moved slightly further away from him.

"What? I'm a sweating hippopotamus, don't judge me." Larissa held her hands up slightly in defence as she noticed the boys frown.

"No you are not." Charles shook his head with a smile. "How did you know my middle name?"

Larissa giggled quietly as she looked at her feet. "We raced together for years, we never spoke to each other but I did know who you were. Unlike you."

Charles stuttered in surprise. "I did try to speak to you, but you were always too busy running around!"

"Oh, yeah. Sure." Larissa teased, rolling her eyes as she moved her body so she was sitting with her legs crossed on his sofa, facing him.

"I did!" Charles laughed as he tried to make her belive him. "You were either with World Champions or interviewers or your friends!"

"We had the same friends, idiot." Larissa laughed, wrinkles around her eyes as she laughed which made Charles smile grow wider.

"I know, but Alex and George never spoke to me about you so I didn't know at the time!" Charles defended, remembering when he had asked his friends who the girl was who they were racing against and they had just shrugged, pretending that they didn't know who he was on about.

"And Anthoine?" The Brazilian rose an eyebrow.

"He told me you were a part of the British Royal Family." Charles admitted, causing a loud laugh to leave the girls throat.

Anthoine Hubert loved to tease his friend as to who she was, so he used to always make up fake rumors about his friend. She was part of the British Royal Family, she was very talented at the kazoo, she once punched Mark Webber in the face and a bunch of others lies. For him, it was fun to see the confusion on the face of the Monégasque.

"The fact that you believed that, shows how gullible you were." Larissa shook her head, with the pair laughing together, gleeful smiles on their lips.

"He was so convincing, I couldn't help it. I couldn't talk to you, because you were always so busy with so many people around you, so I believed him." Charles looked down in embarrassment, his cheeks tinged pink.

"Coração, you look adorable when you blush." Larissa smiled softly, gently brushing her thumb over his pink cheeks. She couldn't help but giggle at the look of shock on the boys face as she moved her hand away from his face.

"Ma princesse, you're too kind." The Monégasque stared at her with a soft smile on his face, taking in her features. He wanted to talk to her more, to stare at her in awe for longer, but she glanced down at her smart watch, and smiled.

"Lucy will officially be gone by now, so I'm free from workouts for a few days." Larissa began to stand to her feet, finding that Charles did the same after a second of hesitation, to unlock the door of his trailer to allow her to exit.

As she was about to leave the trailer, despite the sweat that coated her skin, she pressed a gentle kiss to the boys soft cheek, offering him a smile that he thought could light up the world.

"Coração, you are my life saver. Thank you for hiding me."

She walked away as Charles stood there, dumbfounded, his fingers placed gently over the spot where she had kissed his cheek, which was now a bright red shade.

Charles whispered to himself quietly.

I'll always be there to help you, ma princesse."

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