epilogue - aurélie
She was my finish line. - Callum
The world didn’t end when I crossed the finish line.
It exploded.
Light. Sound. Heat. A blur of fireworks bursting above the circuit. My own breath hitching on a half-sob, half-laugh, because the radio was screaming, “YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT! AURéLIE, YOU’RE WORLD CHAMPION! A WORLD CHAMPION!”
Everything became fractured. It was all bright and loud and unreal, my mind barely able to keep up with what was happening after the intense focus I’d had since the second the race started.
I heard my own laugh crack out loud, breathless and disbelieving. “I did it. Oh mon Dieu, I did it.”
I remember my own hands leaving the wheel for a moment, hovering in disbelief, because I had done it. I, the girl who’d once stood on her toes in Spa just to see the timing screens, had just won the World Driver Championship.
I remember seeing Kimi’s helmet in my mirrors, waving his arms and swerving like he was celebrating behind me.
I remember my brother’s voice cutting through comms, thick and emotional in a way étienne never let the world hear: “Je suis tellement fier de toi.”
I remember Marco’s voice breaking through the static, raw and ragged as we climbed out of our cars, “Allez, Bébé, fuck yes! You did it!”
Even though I’d narrowly won this title against him.
I remember slowing the car on the grid, hands shaking around the wheel, the world tilting like it was too big, too full.
And then my husband.
Two Frasers that now held titles. Two legacies becoming one.
I felt him before I saw him. I turned and spotted him standing at the edge of Parc Fermé, chest rising and falling like he’d run all the way down the paddock.
His eyes were on me. Only me. Always me.
The chaos around us blurred into white noise when I saw him take one step forward, then another, and another. Until I couldn’t breathe anymore because suddenly he came into focus.
My husband. My fierce, impossible, forever love. The man who had believed I would get here long before I did.
I didn’t remember running to him. I just remembered flying, his arms catching me, his breath breaking against my neck, his voice shaking when he whispered, “I knew you could, baby. I always knew.”
Everything after that was colors and noise and champagne and tears.
A thousand memories. A thousand hands tugging me away for interviews, photos, cameras, celebrations, noise.
But the biggest thing I truly felt?
Him. His pride. His love. His joy for me—louder than any crowd.
Last night had been the best kind of chaos.
The podium. The anthem. The trophy in my hands. The champagne dripping from my hair. The weight I’d carried for years—lifted, released, bursting like fireworks above Abu Dhabi.
I won. I was a world champion.
And when the world finally quieted—when the last camera turned off, when the last interview wrapped, when the last fan chant faded into the desert air—there was a moment on the hotel rooftop where it all fell away.
And all that was left… was my husband.
Callum stood against the railing, sleeves rolled, hair a little messy from my fingers. The city lights cut sharp lines across his face, and he looked at me like he had last year in this same city, like everything he’d ever believed in was standing in front of him.
Not the trophy. Not the title. Me.
I walked into his chest and he caught me instantly, his arms sliding around me, holding me like he’d waited his entire life for this quiet.
For us.
“Feels surreal?” he murmured into my hair.
I nodded against him. “It feels… like everything.”
He chuckled softly, pressing his lips to my temple. “You deserve everything, mo chridhe.”
And maybe it was the moonlight, or the adrenaline crash, or the way he kept kissing the top of my head like he was grounding himself with every breath, but the night blurred into warmth, into touches, into laughter, into whispered confessions between champagne-soft kisses.
Not frantic or hungry, just as at our core—whole and safe, forever.
I woke the next morning tangled in his arms, his breath warm against my shoulder, sunlight peeking through the curtains in soft cracks.
My medal still hung around my neck, after he insisted and made love to me with it between us. The sport that brought us together, the championships that forced us from rivals to lovers.
His hand was on my hip, thumb brushing slow, tender circles like he was memorizing my skin all over again.
“Good morning, my little champion,” he whispered, voice rough and sinful in my ear.
I melted. “Morning, mon champion.”
He propped himself up on an elbow, eyes warm and entirely too knowing. “Get up,” he said. “I have something for you.”
I blinked. “Right now?”
His mouth twitched. “Yes. Before you start spiraling about interviews or debriefs or whatever else you think you’re meant to do today.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he leaned over me, kissed me once. Long enough to stop the world, soft enough to ruin me.
Then he went to the closet and pulled out a dress. A soft, impossibly feminine, blush-pink dress. It was light, airy, beautiful… and I had no idea what it was for.
I frowned. “This is… not what I expected to wear for post-race anything.”
He shrugged one shoulder, casual in that way he only ever was when he was hiding something monumental. “It’s what you’re wearing with me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Where are we going?”
“A celebration,” he said simply.
My heart fluttered stupidly. I opened my mouth, and—because the universe has a sense of humor—I absolutely butchered the sentence. “I think you, ah… calibrated me plenty last night.”
Silence.
Then Callum’s face cracked—actually cracked—into a grin so bright I could’ve punched him. But his laughter was infectious, and it was pointless trying to stop myself from joining him.
“Merde,” I groaned, slapping my hands over my face. “Why can I not speak English anymore?”
He stepped forward to pry my hands away. “God, I love when you short-circuit like that.”
Heat burned up my neck. “Shut up.”
“I won’t. It’s one of the things I love most about you,” he said, kissing me again, making me melt all over again. “Get dressed, Mrs. Fraser. Trust me.”
And I did. I always did. He knew I’d follow him anywhere.
While I got ready, I couldn’t stop thinking about how far we’d come — from that first conversation in a bar in Bahrain, to our collision in Suzuka, to Barcelona, to the crash in Montreal, to everything in Silverstone.
To Greece and Scotland and even to the fucking bathroom in my parents’ estate, to now.
Fighting for each other. Fighting with each other.
Loving each other through wreckage and rebirth.
When he took my hand and led me out of the suite, but not out of the resort. My chest tightened in that familiar, overwhelming way.
His thumb traced my palm as the elevator climbed and climbed and climbed.
Higher, higher, and higher still.
When the doors opened, the world spilled into gold.
A private terrace sprawled before us, all glass and white marble, overlooking Abu Dhabi from dizzying, glittering heights. Lanterns hung like stars. A string quartet tuned softly in the corner.
And everywhere I looked were the details I once mentioned only in passing.
The pink peonies I said reminded me of Provence. The candles I loved from a little shop in Monaco. The exact pastries from our resort in Milos. Soft pink linens and glass trays of rose-petal ice. Photographs printed of the two of us, framed in delicate silver.
Every friend. Every teammate. Our families.
All waiting silently, smiling, already knowing.
I froze as soon as we stepped off the elevator, in utter disbelief. My breath left me in one violent exhale.
“Callum,” I whispered, my voice breaking instantly as I took it all in. “You… you planned this?”
He stepped behind me, his arms sliding around my waist, chin resting on my shoulder as he pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Of course I did.”
Tears hit my lashes so fast I couldn’t blink them away. “Why?” I managed, my voice trembling.
His grip tightened—gentle, protective, and entirely his.
“Because you didn’t get it last year,” he murmured.
“Because I know how important it is to us—to you—to celebrate this properly. Because of all the conversations about the receptions you liked, or dresses you’d wear, or little details that made you smile but you said were stupid and silly, I wrote them down. ”
My hand flew to my mouth.
He turned me gently in his arms, blue eyes soft and steady. “I did this,” he whispered, “because you’re my wife. And because last night wasn’t the only dream you fulfilled. I wanted to give you this one too. The celebration you deserve. The one you never got.”
Tears streamed freely down my cheeks.
“And Auri, mon amour?” He brushed a thumb beneath my eye, his forehead dipping to mine. “This isn’t about vows or promises. We already made those. This is just me showing you that I remember.”
My knees almost gave out. He caught me instantly, pulling me against him as I shook—overwhelmed, undone, completely ruined in the most beautiful way.
“You remembered all of this?” I whispered, sobbing into his chest.
“Every word,” he said softly. “Everything you ever said in passing. Everything you never thought I’d hear.”
I looked past him then, to the terrace blooming with pink, to the skyline glowing like liquid gold, to the people who loved us most waiting to celebrate the woman I had become.
“And you did all of it for me?”
His smile broke my heart open. “Always.”
I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his neck as the world blurred around us.
This wasn’t silver or scarlet. This wasn’t podiums or trophies. This wasn’t a grid or a finish line.
This was love.
This was us.
Since Spa. Since always. Since the beginning.
And as he held me against the sky, Abu Dhabi glowing beneath our feet, I knew with perfect, devastating clarity, I loved him more today than the day before.
And tomorrow I would love him more still.
Because forever wasn’t a vow—it was a choice.
One we made every single day.
And he had chosen me again.
Just like I would always choose him.