Chapter 55

Nika and Tatsuo took the offer that came at the season's end. Their team provided a small apartment similar to the one Nika lived in before they met, but they kept the house so they'd have a place to live and store the cars they didn't use. They dominated the GT300 season that followed their debut with the Takahashi Racing Team, where their biggest competition was Mikio and his teammate, and they retired shortly after the season ended when right around Christmas Nika found out she was pregnant and they returned to take up their offered roles as teachers at the school that had once been their training grounds.

Mikio took second place in the GT300 championship behind Nika and Tatsuo, but the year after he took the title for himself, Izumi began working alongside Fumihiro and Natsuki at the Takahashi Racing School ever since she finished her bachelor's degree in business management. They had a daughter named Mayumi shortly after Mikio's second place in the GT300 championship.

Gavin and Reiko were able to keep their house in Maebashi, but ended up having to move closer to Fuji since they both started working for Takeshi Kanzaki's old team and therefore needed to work towards the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Gavin had almost no real competition during his first season with the team, taking the championship after 5 straight victories. The twenty-four hour race ended with Reiko crossing the finish line first that season as well. Reiko announced her pregnancy about a month after that and was seriously tempted to stop racing all together. Gavin managed to talk her into taking a second twenty-four hour race after their son Kaito was born, and they won that one too.

A few days after the Super GT season's end three years after the Takahashi Racing Team dominated the championship, a tall blonde haired man and a curly black haired woman stepped into the main lobby of the Takahashi Racing School. The blonde walked over to the red and gold NSX and the trophy that remained on its hood for the Super GT championship for the GT500 category and laid his hand on the hood while the woman simply looked around the photos on the wall that included one featuring the two cars sitting in the lobby.

A young girl about three years old with long brown hair and brown eyes drew their attention as she ran into the main lobby area and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the two strangers.

"Hello young lady, can you tell us where to find Natsuki Fujiwara?" the black haired woman asked kneeling down to look the girl in the eye.

"You know Mommy?" the young girl asked, noticing that both the man and woman's faces seemed to light up.

"We not only know her, we know an awful lot about you too Takara-chan," the blonde replied with a soft tone, quietly chuckling at the girl's surprised face.

"She's this way," Takara replied cautiously as she tried to figure out who these people might be to know her name.

The second Takara led them into her mother's office Natsuki immediately jumped up and hugged the two adults as if they were family, confusing the poor child even more.

"Mommy, who are they?" the brown haired girl asked still not quite able to take her eyes off the tall blonde.

"This is Gavin and Reiko Reynolds, they used to work for your father, that gold and red car out in the lobby is the car they drove," Natsuki answered with a motherly smile before turning her attention back to Gavin and Reiko, "What are you two doing here? It's been almost three years since we've seen you."

"We were a little busy Natsuki-san, you know the life of a racing driver," Gavin answered with a chuckle, "With my press appointments and Reiko's being a stay at home mom now," he added with a bigger laugh.

"Don't worry Natsuki-san, Kaito is with both sets of his grandparents over in Maebashi," Reiko added with a quiet laugh when Natsuki's eyes started searching the room and then looked a little panicked.

"How have things been since we drove out of here last?" the buzz cut blonde asked taking a seat in front of Natsuki's desk.

"Oh pretty good, the classes after yours are pretty quick, no one has beaten Gavin's last lap record in the Super GT cars, but we've had a couple of scouts come by for one or two of them. The open wheel guys are having fun with their first classes though; by my understanding one of them almost wrecked one of our GP2 cars yesterday," the brown haired woman said with a shrug as Takara played around just in the corner of her vision, "Keisuke and Kyoko's son Suko is probably out at the track with his father if I know him at all."

"You said open wheeler guys; does that mean you've gotten more cars for F1?" Gavin asked sounding just a little excited by the idea.

"No not for F1, we added on classes for F3 so we've got two cars for that and a small fleet of karts for the kids that just want to come by and have fun," Natsuki replied with a smile at Gavin's 'kid in a candy store' face, "The only cars I will let you go near are the new GT-R and the Mazda RX-8 we picked up for the road legal collection," she added with a half joking, half warning tone.

They had a few laughs and talked about a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with the school before Natsuki took them out to the circuit to see everyone. They got out there and several of the students of the class wanted autographs and such which caused Nobuhiko to call off his lecture and the two cars from the track. When they finally got through that they greeted their former managers and strategist.

"Where are Tatsuo and Nika?" Reiko asked looking around for her brother and sister in-law.

"Tatsuo is in the mechanics bay, Nika stayed home to tend to Tamiko, she hasn't been feeling well the last couple days," Keisuke answered with a sympathetic tone, "Suko is with him if you'd like to meet your defacto nephew."

"What's that mean?" Gavin asked with a confused tone earning a chuckle from everyone but his wife who looked just as confused as he did.

"Suko may only be a year and a half old, but the only person he likes outside of me and his mother, is Tatsuo," the spiky blonde haired man said with a wide smile, "I'm guessing you didn't bring Kaito considering the car you drove up in, where is he?" he asked as he nodded to the Jaguar XK8 in the lot.

"Spending time with both sets of his grandparents," Gavin said with a chuckle of his own, "Can't get him away from them for anything but food, borrowed the father in-law's car for a little bit since we've got a dinner date tonight."

"He's about a year and a half himself right?" Nobuhiko asked having not met the kid yet.

"Almost two if the calendar is right in my head," Keisuke replied instead, "Tatsuo was very happy about everything for about a week, wouldn't stop showing off pictures of his nephew and daughter off for a solid month."

"I heard rumors the Super GT champions were here, I guess I can believe it now," said a tall black haired woman wearing a white doctor's coat over her slacks and sweater.

"Dr. Nakahara, it's nice to see you here," Reiko said getting a quick hug when they reached each other.

"I've not been Yuki Nakahara for almost two years now," the woman replied showing the solid gold band on her left ring finger, "It's Yuki Takahashi now."

Reiko's jaw nearly hit the pavement in shock before a barrage of questions about the wedding and why she and Gavin hadn't been told started pouring out. Yuki calmly answered her questions and told them about her wish to be assigned to the school as the permanent physician in the small medical room the school had. Tatsuo came out and greeted his sister and brother in law and started talking about things. When Ryosuke arrived at the school most of them stopped talking long enough to see if he had some kind of order out of sheer habit before letting him join the conversation.

"So what brings you here today?" Ryosuke asked once he'd been filled in on everything else.

"Came by to see about a job; my contract is up but even with the offer to re-sign I'm not willing to risk missing Kaito's life," Gavin replied with a serious tone.

"Alright, you're hired," the brown haired doctor said with a small smirk on his lips, "On one condition that is."

"And that is?" Reiko asked tentatively.

"You teach a few of our newest students how to drive properly; I've fixed the road legal cars more this year than any other," Ryosuke replied with a chuckle.

"It shall be done; we'll have to start next week though since we've got to move back up from Fuji," Gavin replied with a chuckle of his own before he and his wife left the school and headed off to meet Takeshi and Kumiko for dinner.

They paid a visit to several of the mountain team leaders that weekend while they were in town. Shou Enomoto had gotten himself married to a girl he'd known since they started school together and was extremely happy to announce to the whole world he was soon to be a father. Takako and Makato got married about a year after the Takahashi Racing Team took on the scene and had a six month old daughter of their own. The Usui Sparks and Akagi Blue Fire teams had faded off the map; there was already a new team on Akagi but Shou didn't know the name.

It wasn't until the first Fuji race of the next season that things got crazy again. Mikio was the last member of the Takahashi Racing Team still in the series. Gavin and Reiko were watching with Nika, Tatsuo and the kids when there was a pretty bad accident on the field. A GT500 car appeared to simply drive straight into Mikio's GT300 car; the impact was strong enough to roll Mikio's black Toyota Supra and launch the SC430 over the rolling car.

None of the adults relaxed until they saw Mikio waving from the stretcher they placed him on. Gavin made quick work of getting everything ready for them to leave and they all drove to Fuji to pay a visit to an old friend. When they got to the hospital Mikio was sent to, the bleach blonde was asleep and had on a couple of plaster casts.

"Hey Izumi, what's it look like?" Gavin asked after everyone had a chance to hug her and their daughter.

"He's going to make a full recovery, but he's got a broken collar bone and four clean fractures in his forearm and calf," the auburn haired woman replied with a half hearted smile, "They brought him in conscious but a little delusional, he asked someone if he won the race."

"He didn't, but he won a heck of a fight with that SC430," Tatsuo said with a quiet chuckle.

"And I'm retiring because of it," Mikio's voice said with a slight groan, "Not that I'll finish the season anyway."

"With what your injuries are Mikio, you could go back to it if you wanted," Reiko said while Izumi gave her husband a drink of water.

"If I get an offer to go back I'll think about it, otherwise I'm okay with leaving it behind," the bleach blonde said with a rough chuckle, "So what did I miss?"

"Not a thing, you've only been out a couple of hours," Izumi replied from his bedside.

Kaito, Mayumi and Tamiko all seemed rather preoccupied with their own dealings to ask a lot of questions about Mikio's crash. Having met each other at least once seemed to help keep the girls occupied but Kaito seemed a little lost among the girly stuff they were talking about so he climbed his way onto the bed and poked at the cast on Mikio's leg.

"Taniguchi-san, do you want to teach where Mommy and Daddy do?" the young black haired boy with deep blue eyes asked still poking the cast.

Mikio looked at Izumi and then to his daughter before looking over his ex-teammates, looking as though he wanted help answering the question.

"Kaito-kun, I think I will do just that," he finally said with a chuckle right before the doctor came in to check him over.

When the doctor left the driver of the SC430 came in, he had a broken left arm and a bandage around his right but hospital rules had him in a wheel chair, and greeted everyone before he just sat quietly for a moment seeming to gather his thoughts.

"Taniguchi-san I'd like to apologize for the accident, I'm not entirely sure what happened but when I figured out something was really wrong it was too late," the young man said with a somber tone.

"I heard on the radio it was a mechanical failure of some kind, nothing you could have done," Gavin said trying to be diplomatic.

"The car felt wrong the whole weekend, I should have said something before but for some stupid reason I kept my mouth shut thinking it was me cause my partner didn't say anything either," the SC430 driver replied with a cold tone, "And I was the one driving so I'm taking my lumps as they come."

"If you're looking for anger from me, you won't find any, there's nothing to be forgiven," Mikio said from his place on the bed, "Besides, if it was a mechanical failure it wasn't your fault it happened."

The younger man looked so stunned that he seemed to freeze in one place hoping that if he stayed still enough he wouldn't wake up from whatever dream he was in. When it finally sank in that he wasn't in trouble with the older driver he wheeled out of the room muttering about trying to get his team to take it the same way.

"He's a GT500 rookie this season, he'll learn," Mikio said making everyone chuckle.

"He any good?" Gavin asked curiously.

"He's fast, but as you can see he has issues voicing his opinion about certain things so he's not as fast as he could be," the blonde replied with a shrug.

"So he's not like Tatsuo here? Adapt to the car and go fast as hell while doing it," the buzz cut blonde asked with a chuckle.

"No he seems a bit more like me actually," Izumi said making everyone turn to her; even her own daughter was staring like her mother had grown two heads, "Reserved and staying out of things he doesn't really understand," she added with a slight glare at the group.

"Ahh, I thought you were going to say a quick learner but afraid of the speed," Gavin said with a small chuckle earning him a not so playful backhand to the chest from Reiko, "Hey, no insult meant, just stating fact," he added with a laugh.

The three families talked for a while before a doctor informed them that visiting hours were over. Gavin left only after telling them to call if they needed anything. Six weeks and about a week of rehab later Mikio came into the school on crutches with little Mayumi and Izumi right behind him making sure he didn't fall coming up the steps, which was extremely cute considering all Mayumi was doing was holding her arms up in the air just reaching her father's back.

Mikio became a theory and mechanics teacher until his rehab was completed. He had no offers to rejoin the Super GT series which was okay by him. The blonde started out driving the street legal cars on the circuit about halfway through the rehab so by the time he was done he'd be able to get back behind the wheel of at least the GT500 NSX, since it still wasn't recommended that he drive without power steering for a little while.

The team had been back together for two months as teachers and decided to go to Akina Lake after school to have a little time to themselves before going home to the kids and the babysitters to be paid.

"You know I think we've done this before," Gavin said with a chuckle as some of Tatsuo's music played through the speakers in his RX-8.

"So what's happened with all the cars we used to have? I know my Lan-Evo's gone and Reiko's SE, but what about your Z33 Nika?" Mikio asked just trying to spark conversation.

"Well we had to get rid of it because of Tamiko, it had the better trade in value since it wasn't heavily modified engine wise," Nika replied with a soft smile, "But the S30Z is still parked in the garage, driven almost every day when I have errands to run."

"What about you Gavin? Any changes to the FD that we can't see?" the bleach blonde asked with a smile.

"Not much to really change, but I've been thinking about doing a little tune up on Reiko's 20B Cosmo," the buzz cut blonde replied with a chuckle at his wife's bug eyed look.

"You won't touch that car in any such way as long as Kaito's car seat is in it," she half shouted at him.

"Does that mean when he outgrows the seat I can modify it?" her husband replied knowing the answer already, but he felt like teasing.

"NO!" came from everyone but himself taking him a little by surprise.

"Okay, no modifying the family mover," he said shrinking back a little.

"You can tune his first car to his content, how about that as a little compromise?" Nika asked earning herself a glare from her sister in-law.

"Easy Nika, she knows I was teasing, I may have a death wish but it's not by her hands locked on my neck," Gavin said with a more serious tone, "Besides, we'll have a third car soon, Reiko's lead foot is getting twitchy."

"Why doesn't she drive your FD like she used to?" Tatsuo asked more directed at Reiko than Gavin.

"Because I'm still a little afraid of the thing, I've never actually driven it in the mountains except at speed limit," Reiko replied sounding a little nervous.

"No time like the present to try it out," Mikio teased as he made a move towards her.

Gavin picked up on the joke almost immediately as he usually did and opened the driver's door of the FD just as Mikio and Tatsuo picked Reiko up to Izumi and Nika's wild laughter. They deposited her in the seat and Gavin closed the door and jumped into the passenger seat before his wife could move out of the driver's seat.

"And the ring of troublemakers rises from the ashes," Reiko muttered as she started the FD, "You know I'm not going to try anything in your car right?"

"That will be up to Mikio and Tatsuo now won't it?" Gavin asked leaning as far back as the bucket seat would allow.

Reiko didn't lie; they made it to the bottom of the mountain without being able to force her above the posted speed limit.

"So, does anyone regret leaving the professional world?" Izumi asked once everyone was out of the cars at the base.

A few quick glances between Gavin, Tatsuo and Mikio made it possible to see how easily these men got along now that they were back together, because they were back to reading each other's thoughts to a point.

"Not one bit," Gavin said getting confirming nods from the rest.

FIN!