The Bull Prince | Max Verstappen

SEQUEL - Chapter 13

So, this is a rather long chapter, with a lot of shocking and new things, so please don't scream at me. But as always, comments are welcome. I also want to thank you all for your lovely comments. So, well. Everything has its reason and purpose, I promise. Or at least I hope so. Enjoy reading. Cheers. 

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20th June 2019 – FRANCE – FIA HQ PARIS

The days between visiting the woman who had given birth to her and her flight to Paul Ricard's Joanna had broken so many of her rules. She wanted badly to get drunk alone and take some pills but instead, she ignored all the calls from Alain, Kiwi and Andrew. They even made Sebastian reach out to her, but she didn't want to speak with any of them. She wanted to be alone.

Her mother was exactly as she always feared she would be. Somehow it felt ironic. Diana was the future Joanna was so afraid of having. She didn't want to die alone, sick and destroyed by her obsessions, but there wasn't really a way out, was there? Of course, the Austrian knew it wasn't too late to still change a few things, but in the end, did she want that? Wasn't it better if she would just disappear one day?

Diana had said Morbus Parkinson, which left Joanna – as soon as the hangover was under control and her sunglasses in place – to google what it exactly was her mother was suffering from. Muttering a short, of course, as Joanna read that it was a genetically inheritable disease, she stopped her research and called her doctor. Just to stop her from panicking and to ask someone, who was actually more professional than a search machine.

The doctor gave her a crash course, telling Joanna enough to agree that she would take a DNA test as soon as she would land at Paul Ricard's so they would know if Diana Delacroix was the woman, who had given birth to her or not until they would know about these test results, there was no reason to worry. Other things would be disgust later, which kind of calmed but also made her uneasy.

"Do you want to talk about something?" Kiwi asked Joanna as she sat down next to her in a corner at the Mercedes facility. Their breakfast was already waiting for them, the tea has almost gone cold, but Joanna wasn't one to be on time, even though she was a professional race driver.

Reaching out to take the bowl of fruit salad which was topped with a little bit of yoghurt Joanna shook her head. A lot of things were on her mind but talking about it was about the last thing she wanted to do. Her mother was exactly like she had imagined her to be after all, so there was no reason to talk about it.

"I think it's time to tell people, Joanna." The Aussie said after a long moment of silence. Her voice was low so nobody could hear them.

"I know you don't want to talk about it and that we had a deal that I would never talk about it either. You would take your vitamins and take good care of yourself, but even though you believed it, the situation isn't taking care of itself." Kiwi pointed out worried, gesturing around with her fork with which she had speared a piece of pineapple. All Joanna could do was allow her eyes to follow the piece of fruit before it ended up in Kiwi's mouth. She wondered if Kiwi actually liked to eat kiwis, she had no idea.

"I never got that far before," Joanna whispered more to herself than to Kiwi. "How high were the chances that the universe changes its opinion about me?"

They both knew that it was stupid, but Joanna had always been good at blocking things out. Her pregnancy wasn't something she had allowed herself to think about since she found out the morning after she returned from her father's refugium in the Austrian Alps. Joanna didn't have the headspace to go through all that again, so she did the only thing she could think about, so she and the baby would at least be moderately okay, she told Kiwi. The only person she trusted enough to take care of things for her.