"You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms to full to embrace the present."

Shelby forces herself to take a deep breath. And then another, and another, trying to convince herself that the near perfect world she had spent two and a half years building for herself is not about to end.

( Two days earlier. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
1085 words

"Sometimes it's not the strength, but gentleness that cracks the hardest shells."

Shelby had been depressed about her birthday. She could still remember the year before, when it had been a fantastic day on the racetrack. It had been the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, which she considered a home race given that she had been born in Los Angeles, and she had won it by the most exciting of margins over her hero. It was a special accomplishment for her, then some of the other drivers had presented her with a cake afterward that Helio had tried to shove her face into.

( That had all been perfect. But... )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
527 words

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other." - Audrey Hepburn

Amarlie had gone along to the jeweller with Justin when he was having Sasha's birthday designed from scratch. Like she wanted to miss that. She knew it wasn't an engagement ring or anything, but it was a significant gift for Justin to be giving to Sasha, his way of thanking him for loving him and showing him how much he appreciated that they were a team. This was her little brother doing something adorable, and she wanted to share that moment with him.

( While she was there, she found her own musings about how life had changed so much for her lately... )

Amarlie-Rose Satori {Original Character}

"People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."

It's finally here: the start of another Verizon IndyCar Series season. Friday is the first day of on-track activities and Sunday will be the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. I'm ready to go back to work, even as I feel it in my bones that this season is going to be different from any of them that came before.

( Read more... )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
577 words

"The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself."
- Garth Brooks

Mark only realised he had fallen asleep when he was being woken up by an insistent and constant ringing of the doorbell. At first, he wasn't even awake enough to recognise it as reality and not something he was dreaming. Then it was like his brain suddenly gave itself a swift kick up the arse and he was shooting up in the bed in a groggy and disoriented fumble, trying to make a grab for his clock to check the time. It was nearly 11am. He had slept through his alarm. "Fuck!" He jumped up out of the bed while doorbell was being run again a few times over out in the depths of the apartment. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, buggering fuck!"

( Being naked didn't help anything. Nor did the fact he wasn't naked alone... )

MARK CAMPBELL // Original Character

"For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth."

I've never lived my life in controversy. I carry a responsibility on my shoulders to my family, as a teammate, as a representative of the Verizon IndyCar Series and as a public figure. Every time I step outside my front door I'm always aware of the fact that people are watching everything that I do and I need to behave accordingly. That's something I take very seriously, and I also take pride in knowing that I can stand here with my head held high.

( I know there are people who don't feel the same way. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
866 words

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx
mild triggering references
Some nights, having a sick baby could be really hard. For Lorenzo, it was the hardest part of parenting. When your baby cried because they were sick or in pain, it broke your heart if you had an ounce of decent parenting within you. Unfortunately, it was just a cross he had to bear. His little girl had been born with some health issues because her mother was a heavy drug user when she was pregnant. It seemed like such a battle back then. She had gone off her anti-psychotic medication for the sake of the pregnancy, yet continued trying to self-medication because staying clean with an untreated mental illness was too much of a demon to fight.

( These days, when Lorenzo looked back on it all, it felt like someone else's memories. He was scarred from the ordeal, he knew that... )

lorenzo chivalier
- original character -

"You can never plan the future by the past."
- Edmund Burke

The elevator hummed its monotone melody. Light bled through openings, one after the other, like stars appearing and fading into the darkness. No words, no sighs, nothing - only glances. Jyn stared into the face of the man opposite her, the man who reminded her of her ability to feel, to care, to hurt, to love. She wandered the depths of his dark, endless eyes - willingly and gladly losing herself in them, allowing herself to drown in their waters. She wanted to stay there forever. She wanted to bathe in his gaze, let that look in his eyes cleanse of her sins, her past.

( She saw the promise of a future, there. )

"A well-spent day brings happy sleep."
- Leonardo da Vinci

Usually, Justin wasn't a fan of those 'tired but not sleepy' moments. They had a tendency to tip him into the danger zone of overtiredness, which was never a good place for him to be. That night, it didn't feel like a danger zone. It had been a big day, but not really exhausting, surprisingly. Started with a medical appointment, and then a date with the person he felt like he would never tire of spending time with. It was a go big or go home day. Three-part date, starting with the aquarium, a fun yet hilarious stop at Build-a-Bear, dinner, and the Broadway show with VIP tickets.

( When they got home, tiredness was kicking in... )

Justin Campbell
Original Character

"Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life."
- Anne Roiphe

It had been an awful way to end an otherwise amazing holiday in London. But as the dust settled in the aftermath, Sasha knew that this was just how it could be sometimes in falling in love with Justin. It had been hard, and it had been even more terrifying, but he knew what he had signed up for because Justin had given him nothing but complete disclosure. His family followed up with even more disclosure and engaged Sasha in open conversation about Justin's illness. Especially Mr Campbell. Even if all this had been hard, Sasha didn't feel blindsided.

( Just tired. So incredibly tired and wiped out. The busy holiday, the long flight, and then the mess at the airport drained every last residual drop of energy he had. He was just shellshocked... )

sasha stanford ( oc )

"The pain started years ago, but I’d lived with it for so long at that point that I’d accepted it as an inevitable part of me."
- Ashley D. Wallis

Lorenzo sat up long after Clint and Lincoln went home. As numb as everyone was, sitting there in awkward silence together trying to process it wouldn't do anyone any good. Lorenzo asked for time to get his head around it, Clint said he just either wanted to fucking sleep for a week or get trashed. Lorenzo got why he felt that. He wasn't offended. It wasn't the secret eliciting these emotions, it was how it all went down. It was the betrayal. On top of that, Clint had to process the fact he was the 'ditched one' because he had been a sick baby.

( After they left, Lorenzo just sat there in the dark thinking... )

lorenzo chivalier
- original character -

"There are no secrets that time does not reveal."
- Jean Racine

If there was one thing Clint disliked in this world, it was situations that forced him to overthink how he was feeling. Usually he was just an act first, deal with the consequences later kind of dude. That got him into trouble plenty of times in his life, but Clint got off on trouble. That was no secret. It was why he had chucked in being a cop. He liked the thrill of flirting with danger, but didn't like being bound by the rules. Instead, he used what he learned to open his own Private Investigations business. It became lucrative because there was little (or anything) he wouldn't do in the name of solving a case. Did he take the law into his own hands? Fuck yes, he did. He wouldn't stop either.

Still, his professional life was the easy bit. It was his bread and butter and what he did like water off a duck's back. Personal, however, was another story. Generally, his personal life involved fucking a lot, doing shit he probably shouldn't but not giving a fuck about it, and protecting the people he loved. Much more recently, he had to face his demons head-on when his husband was stabbed on the catwalk of a fashion show with an attempt to murder him. Right in front of Clint, who had been sitting in the audience.

( It was an act of revenge, for an extremely complicated case Clint got in too deep in. He didn't regret it either... )

clint chevalier
original character

"A real friend steps in when the rest of the world steps out."
- Unknown

Paxton did something he hadn't done in ages - called in sick to work. He wasn't quite sure what the process was if a model was out sick, but he had more important things to worry about. When he went to visit Trent, he lost complete track of time. It had been a nice and relaxing evening. They talked, a lot, about many things, and it was easy to forget about the world beyond those walls for just a little while.

( What he didn't plan on, was falling asleep beside Trent on his bed, and not waking up until late morning the next day. He woke up to countless missed calls and texts, so many that he knew just looking at his screen that something had happened... )

Paxton Carlyle
Original Character

"If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were." - Richard Bach

One thing Mark usually wasn't was oblivious. Well, he was a typical man, so he had his moments. He didn't know the bloody difference between Maybelline and Clinique, or why the hell a push-up bra was needed when a woman had natural beautiful breasts with her own anatomy. He just wanted to play with them, end of story. That night, he definitely had an oblivious moment... or maybe it was more his son lulling him into a false sense of security here.

Music was Justin's life. He sang, he performed. It was what he did. It didn't matter if it was in a professional setting or not. More often than not, he was be doing something with music. The Karaoke evening at their hotel seemed right up his alley, but Mark never assumed is kid would want to sing by default. Sometimes Justin would be all over the mic like a rash, and it was game-on for anyone trying to get it off him. But this trip, Mark had witnessed Justin mostly laying back, with his priority definitely being focusing on time with Sasha.

( Then Amarlie pulled the big sister card, and it was cute... )

MARK CAMPBELL // Original Character

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." - Maya Angelou

For all the hangovers Kip had experienced, he felt like he was never going to get used to this awful woozy sensation like his head was being sat on when he came-to after a seizure. He had a complete meltdown in the doctor’s office the day before, not having coped well with the news of the diagnosis. It felt like everything was bullshit, because all of a sudden he was supposed to be having these frequent seizures, when he was pretty sure he maybe only had one before, and he didn’t even believe it was that.

( He was being a prized asshole, to say the least. It wasn’t intentional, it was just difficult to avoid because he was sick, scared, and freaking out having all this land on him suddenly. And why? Because he had been a drug user in his teens... )

+ KIP PRYOR (oc)

"I prefer physical exhaustion over mental fatigue any day."

Monday was my first full day back at the race shop and one of the conversations was about the idea of team orders. I'm sure you've heard the controversy that arose out of the Formula One final with Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. With Team Penske in a similar position here in IndyCar we couldn't help but talk about what might happen if we were ever in the same situation. It's really not that far off, since Will and I were competing for the championship this year just like Hamilton and Rosberg were.

( Team Penske's policy has always been that there are no team orders. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
822 words

"Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them."

Anyone who really knows Shelby Manning knows where to find her. Tonight she's sitting at a desk in the Indianapolis Central Library, a few strands of rogue blond hair falling over her forehead as she leans over a worn spiral notebook. Her lips pressed into a thin line, headphones anchored to her ears and playing the new OneRepublic album, as a cup of coffee and an ordinary blue Bic pen lay set aside. She'd look like any college student, if the black polo shirt she's wearing didn't say Team Penske on the breast.

( But Shelby has always seen herself as a student of the game. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
653 words

"Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart."

It was a series of conversations that led to the most difficult moment Shelby had ever faced in her life.

The announcement had happened on Wednesday. Her former teammate was going to join Team Penske and become her current teammate. She was happy for Josef; she'd spent her first two years racing with him and knew that he was talented, as well as a good colleague and a great representative for the IndyCar Series. But his decision wasn't so simple as just being reunited with a friend.

( There was a very firm dividing line between who Shelby had once been and the woman she was today. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
1066 words

- "I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words."
- Ann Hood

vara där inom kort.

Isak glanced at the text from his brother, replied with a quick okej, then slipped his phone back into his pocket. He was sitting on the couch in his sister's living room, waiting for his brother to meet them so that they would be able to head over to the hospital to see their father together. None of the Cederström children dared go on his or her own; even if their father was quite possibly on his death bed, they were stronger as a cohesive unit rather than as individuals. They had all learned that at a very young age.

( Elina was elsewhere in the house, doing what Isak was unsure. His anxiety was starting to rise, evident in the rapid rhythmic bouncing of his leg and the inability to sit still for long periods of time. He stood from the couch and began pacing the length of the living room, weaving his way around the coffee table. )

Word Count | 1448

"I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words."

They're sitting on the patio of the restaurant at the hotel, having lunch and mimosas that it's probably too early for, and somehow the talk has turned to what got her to where she is today. To be honest she knows the 'somehow' is probably her. All of Shelby's life revolves around racing and therefore most of her conversations do as well. She doesn't exactly have a lot to talk about not to mention that her brain has replayed the last few laps at Sonoma over and over again since they happened.

( I think the biggest thing I learned is that I have to give up control. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
667 words

"True love doesn't happen right away; it's an ever-growing process. It develops after you've gone through many ups and downs, when you've suffered together, cried together, laughed together."

Thirty-six hours after winning her second Verizon IndyCar Series championship, Shelby Manning is sitting on a beach in Hawaii. She's traded in her fire suit and helmet for a two-piece bikini and a copy of some issue of Car & Driver she forgot to read when it came out two months ago. The only thing that's the same is the hand slipped into hers, and she looks over at Chris Alvarez who just smiles back at her and asks if she's having fun yet.

( Shelby still hasn't figured out how she feels about him yet. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
597 words

"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain."

Inside her head Shelby is positively screaming. She's going painfully slow; slow at least by IndyCar standards, which is still well over a hundred miles an hour. But she's being coached to take her foot off the gas as she nurses her car through the final ten laps at Watkins Glen, and it is in point of fact driving her insane. Her entire job is to go fast and especially on this day, in front of friends who haven't seen her in two years, she doesn't want to be coasting home.

( But that's exactly what she's doing. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
960 words

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

The call had come in the middle of the night, as they always seem to do. In a haze, Isak reached for the screaming device on his nightstand, squinting at the name that came up on the screen. It was his mother. Given that their communication was at a bare minimum while they were in the same city, it was even rarer for her to call at such a random hour while he was an ocean away. He could feel the pounding of his heart in his chest, could feel it echoing in his head.

After what felt like an eternity, he slid the bar across the screen to answer the call. Tentatively, he brought it to his ear.

( Hallå? )

Word Count | 886

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

Sunday

Shelby will always remember where she was. Maybe five feet from the garage, gear bag slung over one shoulder as she had just started to make the walk back to her car. She had just raced 300 laps at Iowa and she was tired, not to mention ready to get away from corn. But then Terry had walked over to her with a bewildered look on his face, and Terry shouldn't have had that look on his face after a fourth-place finish.

"Have you seen Shane?" he asked her. "He just disappeared. And he's not answering my text messages."

"What?" she replied, staring at him. Shane didn't just walk off the job. Even if he had to go take a meeting, he always told Terry where he was going. And he also always stayed to make sure the load-in went well. Shelby reached into the pocket of her jeans, fumbled for her phone, and tried calling him.

( The first time any of them saw him was when he showed up at the airport to catch the team flight back to Charlotte. He had no idea that they'd been debating whether or not to call the boss and report him missing. )

Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
952 words

"I am trying my hardest not to act how I feel."

They're officially into the second half of the IndyCar season now, and Shelby and Shane find themselves looking back on it wondering how it's so different from the one before. They hadn't changed anything from last year, when everything seemed to be firing on all cylinders; so why does this year feel like it's worlds away? There's more professional success, but there's also a new dynamic amongst the team, like they graduated to some other level where everything just isn't the same. That wasn't how this was supposed to work. Everything was supposed to be just like before. Not so new.

They glance at each other as they're standing out on the balcony of his hotel room in Texas after a long afternoon of qualifying and practices. She'll start sixth tomorrow, which is her lowest spot of the season but still nothing to be upset about considering the speed of the cars in front of her. As they always say it's the race that matters. That's not what bothers them. It's looking at one another in a way they never have before.

( A year ago they might have killed each other. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need for Speed OC
987 words

"Everyone has challenges and lessons to learn - we wouldn't be who we are without them."

"Nine. Fucking nine. Are you kidding me?"

Shelby is angry as she stalks through the garage after the first day of Indianapolis 500 qualifying. She had made it into the Fast Nine that would compete for the pole position on Sunday, but as the last car in. There were eight drivers ahead of her on the scoring pylon and as the defending race winner riding a three-race win streak, she feels that was simply unacceptable. She wants to throw something, but there isn't anything to throw except her Oakley sunglasses and she needs those.

"Come on, Shelby." Shane is following behind her, both to try and calm her down and because he wanted to get to her before any TV cameras did and splashed her temper tantrum over the air. "Get a grip."

She laughs caustically at that, turning on her heel to face him complete with an accusatory finger. "We're better than ninth and you know it."

( I do know that. But I know this morning you fainted. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need for Speed OC
915 words

"Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun."

With everything that goes into being a Verizon IndyCar Series team, it's sometimes easy to forget why you compete in the first place: because you love it. Such is the case on Saturday night for the No. 2 Team Penske squad at Phoenix International Raceway. They've spent so much time, dating back to the preseason test day in February and who knows how many simulator runs before that, to get this evening right. It's been circled on their calendar since the 2016 schedule was announced, with a silent reminder: This is the race where we see what we're made of this year.

( If that is in the fact the case, they have nothing to worry about. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need for Speed OC
886 words

"A friend is what the heart needs all the time."

"Shane! Goddamnit!"

Shelby's laughing as she yells at him. She would never have expected to be laughing before. Even a year ago Shane Worthington was the biggest pain in her ass. He was difficult to work with and it was hard to stand him off the track. The two of them always seemed to have trouble speaking to each other without fighting, to the point where both of them got put in the corner. But now when she's yelling at him, she's doing it with a smile on her face.

( He's trying to keep a straight face of his own as he walks off with the bowl of Easter candy that he just swiped off the table in front of her. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need for Speed OC
645 words

"Tough times don't last, tough people do, remember?"

It all starts here. Six months where almost every weekend is a challenge of the human body and the human spirit. Pushing the limits of speed and of what you can physically take. Putting yourself up against the best that the world has to offer. Making choices that in a fraction of a second can mean the difference between winning, losing, and finishing in the wall. And that's just in the car.

( The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is the first event on the Verizon IndyCar Series schedule. )

--
Shelby Manning
Need for Speed OC
1,220 words

"One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment."

I remember so little from college. Actually, that's not true. I remember bits and pieces, maybe a free day here or there in the massive blur that was balancing full-time studenthood with a full on start to my professional racing career.

To be fair, the situation was the one I'd chosen for myself. Others around me had gone directly into racing in IRL and Champ Car, while it had always been my plan to continue my education. I wanted that Engineering background to be a more informed racer and I also wanted that college degree that neither of my parents had. And I still had to keep moving my career forward at the same time. I knew that going to school would put me in a hellacious crunch, and I did it anyway.

( So my college experience was four years of constant pressure. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need for Speed OC
803 words

"Pressure is something you feel when you don't know what the hell you're doing."

Not to pick a fight with Peyton Manning, but I have to disagree here. Pressure is everywhere on the weekend. There are 23 other teams in the paddock that you know are working just as hard as you are, just feet away from you. If it's a home race, there are sponsors in the stands. TV heads and pit reporters all talking about you, dissecting everything you've done and trying to predict what you might do. There isn't a weekend when we don't know what's at stake.

( I used to want to know those things. I used to want to know everything. Thinking that the more information I had, the better prepared I'd be. What I realized this year is that less is more. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need for Speed OC
627 words

"The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking."

The car pulls to a stop in its pit box. Her gloves come off, then aching hands slowly lift the helmet from her head. Her eyes are already burning with the threat of tears that she won't allow herself to cry until much later and somewhere else. She pushes herself up to climb out, but when she tries to make the move upward, she slips and it's only the quick arm of one of her crew members that keeps her from falling off and onto the asphalt. She is totally and completely exhausted, and she is the champion.

( In those few fleeting beats, before she's swarmed by photographers wanting that first picture and league personnel ushering her to Victory Lane and well-wishers congratulating her on a job well done, Shelby is remembering every moment that led up to this. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need for Speed OC
806 words

"A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them."

I got a lot of things right this season, but I made one big mistake in April, at the first (and now only) Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana. Running in the top ten and knowing the race might still be called by rain, I was itching to push further ahead while I still could. I tried to take the corner alongside Ryan, believing that he could see the nose of my car coming up beside him. He didn't. Instead, he bumped me off track and I spun back around into the side of his car, which in turn sent him up and nearly on top of Seabass. The result was my only non-top ten finish of the year and the race getting called shortly thereafter.

( I figured I would wreck at some point in the season; I didn't think I'd be the one to cause it. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need for Speed OC
684 words

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

I've talked about a lot of people in my life, but I haven't told you yet about Peter Fowler. My first strategist, the first man I fell in love with, and someone I'll now always consider like a big brother.

Peter was already at Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing when I got there, by way of Ireland. Unlike me, he'd come up through the Road to Indy program, so he'd already worked on F2000 and Pro Mazda teams before he got handed the 25-year-old upstart who just happened to be the daughter of his spotter. (This gives me a moment to clear up a misconception: my dad had nothing with me getting the seat at SFHR or being assigned to his race team. I can thank Sarah Fisher for the former and the latter was already in place before they knew it was me they'd be ordering around.)

( Anyway, Peter was a little bit nervous about the job. He was concerned about either failing his first major series drive or having my father punch him in the face. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
729 words

"Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is."

"Are we ever going to have a conversation about this?" Shelby asks Shane, the words filling in a calm silence as the two stand behind the pit wall at Road America, nursing morning coffee out of paper cups and waiting for the rest of the day to catch up with them.

( A conversation about what? )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
579 words

 - "I think you should only wear jewellery if it has a story behind it." - Robert Carlyle

"Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man."

I've had a few people over the years ask me why my personal trainer is a former UFC fighter. They want to know why I'm not with someone who works specifically with racers or who has more than two and a half years of experience as a trainer. The people who ask me this have usually never met Peter McCachren. Before I knew my husband, I had never seen anyone as in shape as Peter is. He was nicknamed 'The Predator' for a reason; the man is a beast. I've seen him literally kick a door in, with one shot. I could bounce a quarter off his abs, and I actually did once, much to his amusement.

Peter may train for mixed martial arts and not open-wheel racing, but he trains harder and more thoroughly than anyone else. And even if there were better trainers out there, which I'm not necessarily willing to concede that there are, there's no one who'd be better for me.

( I met him on the treadmill at the gym. I know that sounds like a meet-cute at the start of a sappy Lifetime movie, but it's the truth. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
1051 words

"You can always get better. Nobody can stop you from getting better, and nobody can stop you from trying to make something right."

We know exactly what we need to do to get better next season. We need to win more than one race. We need to have a solid showing at the Indianapolis 500. We need to maintain the consistency that we established this season while also looking for that extra two-tenths to turn all those third place finishes into seconds or firsts. It's not that we did anything so badly wrong; it's that we're racing against the best drivers in the world, and they get so many things right.

( As proud as I am of 2015 and as much as I know that it was my year, it's just one year. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
754 words

"And in the dark I found, lost hope that I won't fly
And I sing along, I sing along, and I sing along
I got all I need when I got you and I
I look around me, and see a sweet life
I'm stuck in the dark but you're my flashlight
You're getting me, getting me, through the night."

Here we are: San Francisco. It's Friday morning and by Monday night, all of this is going to be over. It's crazy to think we've come so far. Not just for me, but I think for a lot of people in IndyCar, the 2015 season has been one for the memories. As for me though, if you'd told me last year that I'd be standing here as the championship leader representing the top team in my sport, I probably would've laughed in your face. Even now, especially now, all of this is so surreal.

( Yesterday was one of those days I will never forget for the rest of my life. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
704 words

"Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for."

Let me tell you something about Shane Worthington.

Shane Worthington is an ass. He spent years in Formula 1, calling the shots for McLaren when he wasn't somehow involved with trying to launch an American F1 effort, and I still don't quite know how he knows Mr. Penske but somehow he was recruited to come to IndyCar as our team's fourth strategist. So he shows up in Indianapolis last year acting like he's somehow superior because he's worked in Europe with Hamilton and Button and Montoya, and I'm coming back to a seat after a year in the cold.

( Needless to say, we did not get along. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
614 words

"Maybe everything was meant to be this way."

I have all the days counted out in my head. There are two until I get on a plane from Indianapolis to Pennsylvania. Six until I step back into my race car for the first time in two weeks at Pocono. Nine until we fly from Pennsylvania to California. And thirteen until the season finale at Sonoma, where I'll either be celebrating my first championship or kicking myself that I let it get away. I know exactly what I have left to do, where it will be, and I can see the finish line.

( There's so much that's behind me now that it feels implausible. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
787 words

"The shock of any trauma, I think changes your life. It's more acute in the beginning and after a little time you settle back to what you were. However it leaves an indelible mark on your psyche."

Driving the pace car for today's Brickyard 400. It's an honor and one I didn't think I would experience. But it makes perfect sense: Jeff Gordon drove the pace car at the Indy 500, so why not then ask the Indy 500 winner to drive the pace car in front of Jeff Gordon. It makes a nice little circle.

You won't believe me when I say this, but I didn't think of it that way. I don't walk around all day thinking of myself as 'Indianapolis 500 winner Shelby Manning Martin.' I wasn't even planning on being here; I realized last week that our off weekend coincided with the NASCAR race that's literally next door to my apartment, so I thought I'd come home for the week and enjoy checking out Team Penske's action from the pit stand. I just wanted to sleep in my own bed and watch a race.

( People think of me differently now. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
430 words

"Family is not an important thing. It's everything."

Being raised by my father was the best thing that could've happened to me, but it also wasn't easy. Dad was still working on an IndyCar spotter's schedule, spending the summer traveling from racetrack to racetrack, now with a baby in one arm. When I was too young to fly, he'd have to leave me with his mother, but Grandma said he called every night, sometimes two or three times a day. As soon as I could travel with him, he took me to each track and kept me with him as much as he could. It wasn't uncommon to see me sleeping in my bassinet in the corner of the hauler or being pushed around the paddock in my stroller. And when Dad was on the rail, he had someone to look out for me. I was raised by the drivers and crews of IndyCar before I could talk.

( I'm always aware of how difficult that must have been for my father. )

--
Shelby Manning Martin
Need For Speed OC
601 words

"Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses."
- Ann Landers

Parker usually loved shopping. Any excuse he had to do it when he had the time to do it, he was usually on it like a rash. Only, he was feeling betrayed right about now, because the shopping trip his sisters got him all excited about had turned into bra shopping and as much respect as he had for girls, he did not need to be dragged through this particular ordeal. So, he had strategically ditched them and went wandering around Bloomingdale's on his own whilst simultaneously sending his husband a string of sexts that went unanswered.

( He knew the only reason his text messages didn't get responses was because Charlie was a well-to-do school teacher who was probably run off his feet keeping a bunch of someone else's brats in line... )

Parker Stewart || Original Character

"When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier."
- Roy E. Disney
contains content that may be triggering for some
Quentin had lost track of the amount of hours he had spent sitting sitting in the NICU beside this incubator and hoping - and yes, praying, despite not being religious - that the answers would just come to him. No amount of sitting here looking at the tiny, premature baby boy through the glass made any of it easier. He seemed to cope better with facing it now, but he knew there wouldn't be a miraculous road sign that pointed him in one direction or another.

Lying on the floor beside his feet was a folder containing a pile of lengthy adoption forms. The attorney had filled out a lot of the section, but they were all yet to be signed. The signing was the hard part. Sitting there, staring numbly into the incubator, Quentin wondered how many of those forms had been filled in and never signed. How many people in this world couldn't go through with giving their baby up? Probably a lot. How did they still cope in all the situations that had led to them trying to make that choice in the first place? He wondered a lot of things over and over again, of many things that he never thought he would have to face in his life. But then, everything his life had become to this day were things he had never envisaged happening to him.

( He put his hand carefully in through one of the circular access doors and softly rested the tips of his fingers on the baby's belly that was rising and falling with his breathing that was a little rapid but controlled... )

Quentin Lawrence
original character

“Life is a matter of really tough choices.”
- Joe Biden

How easy it was to make a promise to someone you cared about well in advance of having to face fulfilling it. Not that it had been an easy promise for Alex to make by any means. He remembered the evening so clearly that it was like it had etched away a portion of his brain to simply remain there forever. He had gone to visit Beau, hearing that he was having a string of bad days in the wake of a rough chemo round. 'Rough' was a loose description, though. Beau was a hell of a fighter, but even the strongest fighters could lose sometimes. He had been putting up a brave face for his husband and his family... something Alex knew was a sacrifice Beau would never not make for them, even if it wasn't necessary.

( It was pouring rain that night too. Alex had gotten soaked just from the short sprint from the cab to the apartment block where Beau lived now... )

Alex Hinton // Original Character

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
- Elizabeth Stone

Angel was in awe. He couldn’t believe that he was sitting here nursing a tiny fluffy pink bundle with a sweep of ginger hair in his arms, and it was his baby daughter. She seemed too small, too perfect, too amazing. It felt surreal and like he was going to wake up at any moment and it just be a really vivid dream, complete with the feeling like his heart was going to burst out of his chest and a face ache from smiling so much.

The hospital suite was dimmed and Rose was crashed out asleep in the bed. Understandable, considering what she had gone through. Though, he knew ultimately, down the track, she would probably feel really lucky that the labour she was aware she was in was only ultimately all of 45 minutes long. According to the midwives, it was probably much longer, but the intense backache hadn’t been what Rose characterised with their daughter signalling she was ready to come, and stat. Rose was nearly two weeks overdue and had been to the point she was despising being pregnant any longer. The moods swings were no longer and had just given way to one continuous bad mood, discomfort, feeling like it would take a truck to lift her whenever she wanted to move.

( In fact, she had been scheduled of a C-Section that coming Monday... )

Angel Shaw // Original Character

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
- Elizabeth Stone

John felt like he was going out of his mind. He was sitting in the hospital cafeteria with his four year old daughter, trying to keep his crap together so he didn’t upset her. She was a cluey little thing, so much like Stiles in so many ways. It was just hard to try to keep your emotions in check around one of your kids when you were worried sick about the other two. His family had grown so much. For so long, it had just been him and Stiles, but now it was them, with Scott and Melissa, and little Hope they had welcome as a untied link between them. He loved his family to the point there weren’t enough words to cover it. He had just always had an extra worry about Stiles, and the danger he could be in.

( He was onto his fourth coffee, sitting there watching his daughter draw pictures of unicorns and fairies across the page of the notebook Melissa had fetched from the hospital stationery closet for her with a pack of crayons... )

Sheriff Stilinski || Teen Wolf || for untiltheendstarts psl

“Obstacles are placed in our way to see if what we want is really worth fighting for.”
- Unknown

It seemed like it was going to be a good day. For the first time in a week, Euan wasn’t bedridden and he had come down stairs that morning (albeit slowly) to have tea with Julie. Ciaran and Noah were still in their beds, dead to the world, and the house was quiet... possibly even peaceful for the time being. Maybe it was a far cry from his usual attire, but there was something fondly endearing about Euan’s Star Wars pyjama pants and knitted sweater that was swimming on him now.

( The kettle was boiling and the teapot already housing Irish Breakfast tea leaves in wait... )

Julie Fitzpatrick // Original Character

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
- Elizabeth Stone

Ivy's shift had finished a couple of hours ago, but she got held back and then stayed even longer catching up on all her clinical notes from the long and arduous shift in Beacon Hills Emergency Room. But now, she stood in the Neonatal ICU and had her hand inside one of the infant intensive care incubators, her index finger nestled in under the tiny hand of the newborn baby girl inside. The infant was born almost eight weeks early when the mother was brought in following a massive motor vehicle accident. The mother's life was hanging in the balance in the adult ICU ward up the hall, and the baby's father wasn't in the picture. Ivy's stomach was churned up inside wondering what would happen to this tiny little person if they mother didn't pull through. Somewhere in the bowels of the hospital, the admin and legal team would be working to try to track down the mother's next of kin, who seemed to be in England. The 'in case of emergency' contact in the young women's phone was continuously going to voicemail.

( She had pulled a treatment stool up beside the incubator, just to take a load off her legs... )

♦ Ivy Belmont || Teen Wolf (Original Character)