OK51 - Where There's Tea, There's Hope

"So today had its ups and downs."

"Oh do bugger off, it was awful."

Euphemia laughed, waving it off, which certainly went quite a degree towards rubbing Kallen entirely the wrong way, however Kallen was, as well as being tired of the entire discussion of tyres and having to conserve them, was tired of getting herself into deep water by losing her temper, and at this point was consciously trying to keep her blood pressure low, sinking into the chair to try and cool her muscles, slow her breathing, anything to allow her to cool off, as if this temporary solution would make any steps towards

They were back in Euphemia's office, cluttered as ever, with Euphemia having been summoned to an emergency conflab requested by Kallen herself, who felt hollow after such a regression

"Before we start, because this is quite impromptu, and I've not quite got my entire house in order just yet, do you remember the thermometer? The anger thermometer?"

Kallen nodded, replying "Yes. This was about an eight out of ten."

"Goodness. That's quite a bit." Euphemia whispered, raising her eyebrows. "Was there no warning ahead of time?"

"I guess there was, but I couldn't…" Kallen began, before she stiffened her fingers in frustration and shook them. "I couldn't leave that situation without conceding the point, without them doing with my car I didn't want them to. They'd take my leaving as a concession, which couldn't happen."

"Was it worth that much to you? Risking a repeat of Brazil?"

Kallen let an immense breath out, before shaking her head and stuttering "I don't know. I don't think so, but I was just…"

Kallen rubbed her eyes, sighing and starting again.

"There are all these… tyre complaints, the manufacturer is taking flak, and there's a big issue with tyre conservation… and… I'm tired of it. I kinda just want to say, 'screw it', and just drive as fast as I can. It's just so frustrating, and I just want to show up these people. I just want to rock up, consume six sets of tyres, and just have a good time driving flat out, and win the race my way."

Euphemia nodded, replying "I remember you saying it was the speed. If someone is trying to take that away, does that make you cross?"

"Yeah. If they take away the thing I enjoy about it, the… the feel, the control just at the limit it just kills me. It's the reason I do this, why I don't just roll over in bed when the alarm goes off."

As Euphemia noted this, Kallen chuckled, snorting "Me and a drug addict- spot the difference."

"Anger when someone threatens their high, hmm, I wonder… nah, I'm just kidding, relax." Euphemia laughed, as Kallen put on a face at how quickly Euphemia had accepted Kallen's thesis that she was just living from endorphin high to endorphin high, shuffling through the off-race weeks before recharging whenever she sat in a car. Moving on with a smile, the therapist changed the topic to a new one, clearing her throating and transferring to discussion mode.

"Everyone experiences anger—it's a completely normal emotion, and it's healthy within limits. It can even be a force for good. This sport wouldn't be anything like as safe as it is now without a good amount of anger, especially back in the nineties in response to drivers deaths. But as we know, anger can become a problem when it gets out of control. When is anger healthy, and when does it become unhealthy or harmful?"

"When it's healthy… it would be something like if someone was threatening your family, or your country." Kallen eventually murmured, quite uncertain, before reaching an example she liked and perking up. "I don't remember much from school, I was truant quite a bit, but one element that stuck out was the Korean and Manchu Independence Movement, from the Shōwa period. Resistance there… if things had shaken out differently, and I was born in a time and place like that, I'd be absolutely livid, and I think I'd be right to."

"Valid." Euphemia nodded, presenting an understanding face as she took more notes. "But this is hardly colonial occupation, it's the team not putting you in the car you want. Steady on."

"You asked for an example of justified anger, I don't think either of us believe today's outburst was justified."

Euphemia now frowned, before pointing her pen at Kallen and asking "Then why didn't you stop it? You had the techniques, we've gone over them."

"I know, I know…" Kallen sighed, shaking her head. She tried to verbalise, before shaking her two hands in front of her in frustration. Exasperated, she gave up and tried honesty.

"I just… I need to win. I will do anything. After last year, when Lelouch… I've been working myself to the bone, studying, exercising, practically camping out in the sim, and when these folks just get in the way with what I think will win us races, it's... it rankles. They don't do anything. They don't drive the car. They're accountants, and, despite putting in no effort, not lifting a finger to help us, they just block my request. It's so frustrating, and I wasn't conscious of it. I didn't realise it was taking hold until, well I had shouted my peace."

Euphemia, with eyebrows up in the next floor, scribbled away, before vaguely replying "Well, that was a lot. Now first off, two of my mates are down in engineering, and I'll just take a second to defend them. They're the lads and lasses who make sure you're sitting on Pole and not in the post office to collect your dole. They put a lot of work into getting this team the fastest package it can on the technical end, just like you do on the human end. Just because you're wound up doesn't mean they're just bean counters."

Kallen harrumphed, as Euphemia shook her head and sighed "Look, I'm sorry, but there's no getting around it. You are a second driver. You don't have the clout Gino does, and I know that rankles you. Cornelia used to talk all about your scraps with Tohdoh back at Rebellion. Speaking of, I'm gonna have to run some stories by you to see what which were truth and fiction, but anyway, Gino had to wait behind my sister in the same way you are for four years. She called all the shots on the car, because she was more experienced and familiar with the team personal. He's done his time and paid his dues, and he now is the senior person on the driving front. Now, hopefully that won't lead to any big material consequences through the year, it's not written into contracts, but its places like here where it does have an effect. How do you think Gino would feel if he was this patient only to have someone skip the queue? What if it were you?"

"If my teammate was flat out faster than me, I would retire immediately."

Euphemia laughed, before shaking her head and tapping her pen off the desk, just having thought of something.

"But…there's something you brought up that could do well for you. Gino is insisting that he goes back to the 2018 car, and he gets priority on who the team supports, but, as you said mid-rant, the team can run two different specs of car. There are some people I can speak to to try and grease the wheels on that front."

Kallen's eyes widened, almost like a puppy, or an addict with a fix being waved in front of their face, and gasped "Ah! Oh thank you!"

"But it's conditional."

Kallen immediately moved into a moping frown, as Euphemia raised her forefinger and began.

"One. They will take your car to Britain, and subsequent Grands Prix, however since Gino has made the call to focus on the 2018 car until the updates are ready. Any spares and replacement parts will be for the 2018 spec until the new car is ready. That means you can get your car, but if a piece of bodywork breaks, like a front wing, a barge board or whatever, it can't be replaced. You'll either have to make do with the broken car, or take the 2018 spec."

Kallen didn't like it, but given how bad it could have been she would eat up, smile and say 'Thank you ma'am' by comparison with being caught with the 2018 car right off the bat. She'd have to be careful and avoid breaking the car, as she had been somewhat prone to in early 2018, however she was in a far better mental space, even if she had just been yelling at the technical team. Continuing, Euphemia raised another finger and lectured "Two, you need to take the rest of the day off. You're pent up to tight, and your write up for the week depends on you vacating the premises and not doing anything other than cuddling up on your couch with hot chocolate and a film. You're at an eleven emotionally, you need to be at maybe a three."

Kallen shrugged, and with an unusual nonchalance replied "If it helps me get the car I need to win, I'll do anything. That Is all that matters. I can't win with the 2018 car."

Euphemia smiled, and nodded "I know. You've made a lot of progress in that regard compared to when you were a Rebellion, getting into funks that affected your form and so on. Right now, I don't know what could shake you, you've such a drive and a passion."

Kallen smiled and nodded, confident Euphemia would write that report. However, as she moved to leave, Euphemia snapped her fingers in realisation and yelped "Oh and one more thing."

Kallen, curious, turned back and simply raised her eyebrow, asking silently 'Oh?"

"We need to meet up sometime, I seriously need you to verify my sisters' stories. Some of them were spicy!"

On any other day, Abbey would be flat out. In the rain, it would be flat out only if you ignored the hips of the car sashaying about as it crested over the apex and round to the exit kerb, the drop in the pit of your stomach as the car lost lateral traction and slid over to the far side like a crab, the rush of blood to the chest and the rushed intake of breath which made every nerve beg to make sudden adjustments to course, or to lift off the throttle to stop aggravating the moody, snarly beast.

However, Kallen was either brave or irrepressibly stupid, and kept the pedal welded to the floor, even as the texture of the road through the vibrations in her seat, through the shaking and torque being put through her steering wheel, through the resistance rising and falling in her application of the throttle as it pushed back into her ankle, insisted with the certainty of God that the grip was not there, had not been there, and was not going to be there.

And while there was significant crossover between brave and stupid, Kallen didn't feel she was either, as the two outer wheels satisfyingly came to lateral rest just as they brushed against the kerb on the outside. She simply knew the limits of the car to the ounce, millimetre, or whatever other unit of measurement was relevant. She had tested this corner in dry, wet, sleet, and, in three amusing instances, snow on a computer bigger than her flat, and knew the exact combination of inputs which could conquer Abbey in the wet, like a cheat code. To purposely let the car slide briefly outside of her control in such a way that it would return to her in a smooth and predictable way, to force it into brief moments where she could not influence the direction of the car, with the certainty that it would not crash, and she would regain control in due course. In deliberately placing it in a situation where she was no longer in immediate control with an understanding of when and how her influence over speed and direction would return, she had ironically never lost control; she had registered an input, knew what it would cause, and was able to go round the corner. She knew what would happen and trusted that it would be so.

With the car aligned parallel with the track direction and momentum on her side with having taken Abbey flat, she could follow the kerb on what had turned from the outside of Abbey to the inside of the longer, but less severe, Farm curve. Allow the car to travel on a curved line slightly less harsh than the curve itself, as there was a brief straightaway out of Farm before the next right hand hairpin. Only returning to the kerb on the left hand side just before the braking zone having taken the line of least resistance, the line which required the lowest maximum steering angle, the lowest momentum lost through conversion into direction change, the least severe movement of the front wheels away from dead straight ahead, she dabbed the brakes, allowing the downforce of the car to shed away, like an athlete taking off a weighted vest after a run. It became skittish, far less planted, as the tyres had the force of the air riding over the body and pressing them into the ground taken away, and the solidity, the certainty from the rubber, now feeling less like cement, a substance in which you could put your full faith into, lean into with ones entire body mass without a moments worry or doubt that it could be taken, to oil. The resistance of the wheel stripped away in parallel with the downforce, with the grip in the steering now communicating a light, airy feel as opposed to one which was tough enough to budge to pull Kallen's biceps into force, having to try and force it into place.

However, while the bicycle had been taken down a few gears in resistance to rotation, this was not necessarily a bad thing. While it did indicate that the car would be more sensitive, behaving more like ice than Velcro, Velcro was not always what was called for.

For corners like Village, Kallen would be more than happy to have ice for tyres as opposed to grippy Velcro.

Village, which had proven so troublesome in Qualifying for 2017, which had been the site where Bradley had punted her in the race of 2017, could now be tackled with confidence. She braked late, and turned toward the apex far too fast. With a conventional style, she would have speared straight off the far side. She was far too fast to take this corner even if it were dry, however because it was wet, she had an ace up her sleeve.

As well as holding the brakes to deliver a far more sudden aggravation to the wheels, causing the rear to swing round and rotate the car, she engaged the paddle operated clutch, partially cutting drive to the wheels, before mashing the throttle, watching the revs soar, and dropping both the clutch and brake. Satisfyingly, the car, at some twenty five kilometres per hour faster than everyone else, rotated, before she quickly hopped off and on and off and on and off and on the throttle again to return the rear wheels to a more controlled state without losing the revs, and away.

Plunging headlong into a heart of darkness, with the black, black clouds directly in front of her, towering over the Buckinghamshire countryside, she charged like a knight down, feeling the car fall away from her as she accelerated, as if she were falling off the edge of a cliff.

If she were, the ground, in this context, would here be represented by Brooklands, and it was equally imposing; a long, swooping curve, which rewarded smoothness and gentle driving. Gino loved it. Tohdoh loved it. Kallen, finding more favour in short radius corners which rewarded aggressiveness, taking the track by the scruff of its neck in a mercurial flurry of energy and bombast, did not love it.

However, love it or otherwise, it was a part of the lap, and she had to come to some kind of equitable settlement with it, shake hands and begrudgingly move past, even if it were with a sour taste in her mouth. And so, she held her breath and dived into the pool, the water chilled her to the bone. Breathless, and feeling the cold water shock, she held, held, built up the energy in the spring more and more, pulled it further and further back, further through Luffield, before unleashing the spring, all the fires of hell, the collective might and fury that had ever been charged though her spine and then some into two forty centimetre wide ribbons of treaded rubber. It was the conductor, the medium through which she shouted, and screamed as she charged through Woodcote, barely visible through the rain. The wheels did not bite fully through the first part of third, did not bite fully through the first part of fourth, and only just bit from the entire length of time from when the car entered a gear until it left it when it reached sixth.

Kallen screamed as the car fired into the mist, into the ink, where only instinct and knowledge could chart her course around this miserable, soaked track on the godforsaken spit of land that was England. The lap had been immeasurably draining, and would have been entirely beyond 2017 Kallen, and likely 2018 Kallen. But this was 2019 Kallen, having made a successful appeal for her 2019 car, and was looking to set the 2019 Pole for the 2019 British Grand Prix.

And so, as she rushed towards the Maggots-Becketts-Chapel complex, she felt charged with confidence, felt filled with energy, standing ready to be loosed with all the power that being changed could give.

Jerk the wheel right unapologetically, like a box to the face. Go down two gears as a means of breaking without actually lifting off the throttle. Say thank you to the gearbox mechanics. Finally brake, though without lifting off the throttle, only just skate over the kerb on the exit of Chapel, with the two outside wheels on the grass and the inside two just barely within the track limits. She felt the underplate scrape off the peak of the kerb, before flying. If the Wellington straight felt like falling from a cliff, the Hangar straight felt like climbing out of hell, like soaring up almost vertically, converting speed into altitude, like redemption. Where her breath previously felt compressed, bottled up in her lungs with the pressure of a nuclear reactor, now she breathed lightly as she left the valley of darkness, and saw a hint of light. Only a hint, but she was nearly home.

As she peaked Everest, she then slowed her descent into Stowe, once again abusing the gearbox to rotate the car, feeling it wanting to tug away and giving it a leash, but a short one, once again letting the rear do the heavy lifting and carrying speed through the corner in a style that was not only untraditional, but anti-traditional, an active afront to Fangio and Stewart, however, in her busy manhandling of all elements of the car, she skated round with the speed and precision of Yuzuru Hanyu, though it perhaps lacked the grace.

However, Kallen would sacrifice all grace, all neat, smooth satisfaction she could, for tenths, for hundredths. She would be ugly, she would present a sour face, she would be hated, reject all norms and all humanity, if… as she broke into Vale, and planted the throttle in some quiet, bright garden, very far away, if, she could just get this lap right, as she rode up, getting as bloody close to the wall on the inside as she bloody dared, and finished.

She was finished.

She let off the throttle, and tried to cool her muscles down. She had woken up more than once after a day in the Brecon Beacons barely able to move without shooting pain, and had to bring her muscles down from heavan slowly, to avoid falling too fast and injuring them once she hit the ground. Her breath was fluttery, and, with her limbs asleep, she was shivering with the post-lap anxiety.

"How's that?" Kallen spluttered, as she moved through the first turn.

"Kallen… aha… that's Pole mate! Get in there, Pole position! You've taken it by seven tenths over Naoto, almost a whole second! Well done, well done! Great job, ahhaaha!"

She pumped her fist, letting the pace slowly wind down as she rolled the car up through the cool down lap, around and back to the pit straight, where she parked up between the Rebellions of her brother Naoto and Tohdoh.

She silently observed that the top five cars, Kallen, the two Rebellions and the two Schwarzenritters, were all on 2019 chassis. The fastest 2018 car, driven by Gino, was a second slower than the slowest 2019 car of Rolo Lamperouge. While that was significant, it would easily be made up for with the 2019 cars needing at least two times as many pit stops, to the point where the 2019 cars would be hard pressed to keep their qualifying position.

But Kallen didn't care. Kallen had been the fastest woman on track, and was as happy as a clam as she leapt off the nose of the car and into the arms of her team. They shook one another, before she turned back to the second and third placed starters, moving over to shake their hands. However, she was soon given a quick reality check.

Tohdoh and Naoto, who were quietly huddled together, then noticed Kallen had turned her attention to them and immediately moved from faces and positions of delight to ones of suspicion as soon as their eyes turned from each other to her. Kallen's own face fell, as Naoto sneered "Back to your team then. Go on, I'm sure you've got plenty to celebrate on your own."

Kallen sighed as her brother flicked his two fingers at her and swore in Japanese, before she shook her head and turned away, her jubilance now turned sour. Of course, she hissed internally. She wasn't entitled to Naoto's pride. She hadn't earned that back. But she missed it. She missed Naoto ruffling her short spiky hair when she would win a karting race, get a podium in Formula Ford, or take Pole in F3. She was so small compared to him, Kallen having only had a growth spurt in the last four years while Naoto had always been near the top of his age group in altitude, so he would bundle her up and, while also hugging her, tickle her mercilessly.

Kallen had moved past those times, of course, and was achieving more than she had ever dreamed was possible, by it was also distinctly unique in that she was now doing it alone. Her celebration was of course shared with an entire factory, but there was no one who would celebrate them with her on a more personal level, especially now as she reached as high as she ever had. This was not even to mention how isolated she felt on days when all wasn't going well. She just missed having Naoto, with an uncomplicated relationship of ribbing, good fun, and mutual support.

But adulthood was inherently more complex than childhood. While Kallen knew that there were people who would give anything to go back to the naive, unambiguous simplicity of their childhoods, she was not among them. She enjoyed the freedom adulthood had given her, and would be incapable of going back, not least after what she had done. She didn't deserve to go back, which did dovetail with her not having much interest in doing so.

However, there were elements of childhood she missed, like Naoto's affection, or the cheeky skiving off to the local track, free of stakes or consequences. She did not want to give up what she had gained to return to such a world, but this went no way towards mitigating her soreness for their absence. She would just have to live with them. She would have to accept that Naoto would likely not ever feel the same about her, and that there was little she could do about it.

Living without the affection of her sibling was not an existence Kallen was entirely comfortable with, but she was not a child. Naoto was not some solipsistic figment her imagination had conjured up for her own comfort, like an imaginary friend; he had his own beliefs, his own needs, and his own boundaries.

She was not entitled to him. She was not entitled to his positivity, or affection. He owed her nothing. The only error was ever assuming he had ever given the love he had out of some social obligation, as opposed to a genuine love. The love was gone, and there was in tandem no affection to be found moving from the elder sibling to the younger.

Just as there was with Lelouch, there are some things that time could not mend. Some hurts that go too deep. Naoto might at some point come around, but whether he did it or not was his prerogative. She missed him dearly, but did not engage in reactionary ideas of recapturing or preserving childhood. There was nothing she could do, or that she ought to do. Whether he made the decision to reconcile was his decision. Until such a time, she would learn to live without him.

Tomorrows race awaited, and required her full attention.

Next chapter I put a lot of work into, and I'm really, really pleased with it. Looking forward to the reception to it, but that's for next week.

This week, we have some drama, with Naoto still angry at Kallen, with Kallen herself on thin ice, and with a need to push like all hell to make up for the amount of pit stops she's going to have to make.

See you then. In the meantime, please review if you'd be so lovely! It is super elevating, and I really love to read all the commentary. There's always room to improve, and I very much plan to, and need to, improve.

~G1ll3s