Rebirth of a Champion

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Summary: “This year I feel like I’ve been reborn”

AUTHOR: Catw00man
EMAIL: catw00man@cryptoffic.com
RATING: PG
CHARACTER: Jeff Gordon, Ella Sofia Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff POV
PROMPT: Taming the Muse #68 (#43 for me) - Nurture
COMPLETED: November 7, 2007
WORD COUNT: 1,140
DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fic most definitely did not go the way I expected.  I was in Texas last week and I honestly thought this would end up being a bitchy Jimmie story.  But I think this turned out to be a case of the muse knew better than me.
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New York Apartment: November 5, 2007

He really does look stupid in a cowboy hat.  Not that I’m really one to talk.  I’d probably look as much a fool as he does, though I’m honestly starting to wonder if I’ll ever find out.  Hell, I’m really starting to wonder about a lot of things.

Somewhere I’m sure the party is still going on.  Wasn’t he heading down to Mexico for a few days?  Smile softly as I think about my trip to Mexico this time last year.  Ingrid and I were off to finally say “I do” and we’d just found out this beautiful little bundle in my arms was on the way.

Rock my sweet baby girl in my arms and as I look down at her it really hits me how things have changed.  There was a time I would be letting the Chase for the Championship completely tear me up.  Racing used to consume me every waking moment when it wasn’t haunting my dreams.  I think Jimmie’s that way now when he’s not off drinking his mind quiet with his buddies.  I know Chad is and part of me wonders when it will catch up with him.  But since my sweet Ella came along…nothing has been quite the same.

Cradle my little butterfly in my arms as I pace back and forth across the apartment and I know I should put her to bed.  They say it’s not good to hold babies all the time, that it spoils them.  But I never feel like I get to hold her enough and when I get the chance I can’t seem to help myself.  I’m just glad Ingrid seems to understand.

Feel her squirm slightly in my arms and realize she’s woken up again.  Stop my pacing to look down at her and I’m met by the most beautiful big, blue eyes staring right up at me.  Hold her with one arm so I can dangle my free hand over her and she immediately wraps her tiny fist around one of my fingers and coos softly. 

“That’s my beautiful girl,” I tell her softly.  Smile even more as she starts to babble up at me.  This is one of her never ending new things I adore.  These last few weeks she’s fallen in love with the sound of her own voice and I swear I could listen to her adorable ramblings all night long.  How could I have ever thought my life could be complete without a child of my own?

Carry her over to the large plate glass window over looking the city and part of  me wishes she could remember this time and how beautiful the city is at night.  But New York is no place for a little butterfly and next year Charlotte will be our home.  Stare out over the city for a moment and it seems a little ironic that as Jimmie finally gets settled here I’ll be moving away.  Moving on really seems to be a theme with us of late.

Listen as Ella’s coos finally start to die down and I rock her in my arms as I think about the last weekend in Texas and how much I really have changed.  No track on the circuit has given me or HMS more grief than Texas.  I’ve wrecked, sucked, thrown away wins at the last second, and until yesterday Jimmie’s luck was no different.  I should hate Texas for being so hard on me, for letting Jimmie take away my points lead.  But Texas was where Ingrid and I left from to get married. Texas was the first place I had my baby girl on the grid before a race.  Somehow those two things are enough to out weigh all the bad memories as if they were nothing.

Hear Ella gurgle softly in sleep and I wonder how I’d be if I didn’t have my beautiful girls.  Before them the only thing, the only one I’d cared about beyond racing was Jimmie and helping him be the best he could be.  He was my protégé, my best friend turned fiercest competition, and I tried to nurture and build his career as if it were my own.  Now I look at him and it almost seems like he’s the multiple time champion and I’m the one trying to catch up, and maybe in a way…I am.

I don’t think realized what four championships really did to me until now.  All those wins, all those dominating seasons, they didn’t lessen my love for the sport but they did leave me looking for a new challenge.  Looking back I think Jimmie was that challenge.  Still raw from Busch and rough around the edges, I wanted to make him the best.  Hell, I wanted to make him me and looking at him now…he really is what I used to be.  He’s even taken to living in what was always “my” city.  And now he’s even started to do things only I used to be able to do.  Nine wins, three in a row.  Those should be my stats, not his.  Some people might even say I should be jealous or resentful….

But I’m not.

Whether he credits me or not his success really is mine too.  But it’s more than that now.  Hold Ella tighter and remember how mad I got in Martinsville when he blocked me and held me off for the win and how much beating him at Talladega meant to me.  That was one of the best wins of my career and it wasn’t just because I had both my girls in Victory Lane.

It was because I beat him.

I’ve never gotten tired of winning.  Taking the checkered flag has always been my sole reason to race.  But in the last year racing him has changed everything.  You could almost say it’s like racing myself, but either way I haven’t had such satisfaction behind the wheel in a long time.  The competition with him has re-lit a fire inside me that I didn’t even know had gone out.  And if I do find a way to beat him and win this championship….

None of the others will come close to comparing.

Feel Ella shift in my arms and I know its time to put her down, time to go crawl in bed with my amazing wife and finally get some sleep.  The end of the season used to stress me out so much.  But not anymore.  With 81 wins I really don’t have anything else to prove.  Oh, I want to beat Jimmie so bad I can taste it.  But even if I don’t, I have next year, I have the amazing competition and I have my girls.

To be honest I feel like this year I’ve been reborn.

Not even losing to Jimmie can take that away.

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Catw00man - catw00man@cryptoffic.com