A/N: Yes, as always, big thanks for all the reviews I've received for this story so far.

I know that no one will complain about the long update as I've been finalizing the last chapters of Eight months, but I apologize anyway. I have great ideas for this story and can't wait to spend more time on it. But, since I'm studying at the age category of 30+, I'll have to spend a lot of time during the next couple of weeks on that too.

This is all about the training that Ana will receive.

Important: I do not own the Fifty Shades Trilogy or the characters. They belong to the very talented E.L. James.


Taylor POV:

6 August 2011.

Two and a half weeks and we found nothing new. Apart from confirmation that Charlie Tango was indeed tampered with and that not one, but both engines failed prior to the crash, no new information was obtained. Christian is fanatical about security and Charlie Tango is best in her class. There is just no way that both engines would fail at the same time of not tampered with.

I have the training programmes and a schedule ready to present to Ana as soon as we get back to Escala. There will be absolutely no stopping her to go along when we extract Christian if she completes her training. Scrap that, when she completes her training. She might lack physical strength, but she makes that up with sheer determination at this stage. She's not been herself lately. Her emotions are all over the place with her longing for Christian. I would never have believed, in a million years, that Christian Grey would have this profound effect on another person. Right in front of my eyes, Ms. Steele has gone from insecure, timid, naïve and innocent to strong, sophisticated, determined and yes… lonely too. Her contagious cheerfulness that we all fell in love with died the day Charlie Tango went down.

When we finally arrive back at Escala, I'm glad to be home. Gail is scheduled to return in two days and I will have to get as much done before then in order to spend some quality time with her. As bad as I feel for Ana's loneliness and Christian being kept somewhere against his will, I still have a life to live and if I want my happily ever after, I will have to ensure I don't fuck this up with Gail in the process. I'm still determined to find Christian and restore order in our lives, but I will have to make time for my life too if I don't want it to end the day I bring Christian home.

After a longer than needed shower, I get dressed in a black t-shirt and faded jean with black boots. Give myself a once over in the mirror before going out to face an exhausted and disappointed Anastasia Steele, not at all surprised to finally find her in Christian's closet.

"Ana?" I ask and she looks up. She looks so young in these vulnerable moments and I hate that I forget sometimes that she is only turning twenty two in September. No one should have this much sorrow in their lives at such and early age.

"Nothing Taylor. We've basically wasted almost three weeks. Maybe…if we…" she stops and looks down again.

"Ana, no if's and no but's. We make the best decision we can with the information at hand and we live with them. If we didn't go ourselves, we would be sitting here wondering what if's because we didn't. We will find him, Ana. I promised you that we will and I'm going to keep that promise." I reach down and help her up, forcing her to look me straight in the eye and see the conviction of the words, "I will find Christian."

"Okay. Let's go talk about that schedule. Bastille should be waiting in the study as he arrived a couple of minutes ago." All traces of sadness gone and replaced with determination again. She is not going to be easy to live with, if she doesn't kill herself with exhaustion first. Sleep is becoming less and less of a priority to her and her time is filled with reading through business books and magazines when she's not reading though pages and pages of spreadsheets trying to understand what it contains.

We walk into the study and go to sit at the meeting table with Bastille. My eyes don't miss the look of longing in her eyes as she looks at Christian's chair behind his desk. I start with the list of training before moving over to the rest of her schedule.

"Bastille will start by giving you the types of physical training. Then I will give you the details of the weapons and offensive training you will be doing. When we're done, we can determine your schedule, but remember that you need to be at GEH on Mondays and Wednesdays and then at SIP on Tuesdays and Thursdays, even if it's not full day. That excludes any meetings you will need to attend. On Friday mornings we both think you should go for a massage early in the morning before your weekend begins, maybe go to a spa or something that Andrea can arrange for you." When she goes to say something, I cut her off, "we are well aware that you won't be partying and having fun filled weekends, but you still need to relax and wind down at least once a week."

"Okay, please get Andrea to make arrangements then for Friday mornings… so Claude, what's up?"

"Ana, you have to take this slow. I know the current… situation is not easy, but pushing yourself too hard will not be wise and as a registered personal trainer, I cannot allow you to try and push yourself beyond your limits or physical capabilities. Not to mention my own physical need to breathe and when Christian is found and he finds out what you've been up to, and let's face it, he will get every single detail, I would like to keep being able to breathe." Bastille may make a joke about it, but every move any one of us makes that involves Ana, is followed by the same question, 'Will Mr. Grey be pissed when he finds out about this?'.

"I'll handle Christian, you just manage my training." Ana says quickly and waves a dismissive hand. We don't doubt that she will do just that, so we continue.

"The first from of training for you twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays at six pm, will be Krav Maga. The first principle of Krav Maga is to encourage students to avoid confrontation, but if that's not a possibility, it promotes finishing a fight as quickly as possible. Attacks are aimed at the most vulnerable parts of the body and the trainer we appointed for you, will teach you techniques that are limited to avoid severe injury to your own body, while taking down your opponent quickly and efficiently. We want you to win in case of a fight, not kill your attacker or opponent. Drills provide maximum safety to students by the use of protective equipment and the use of reasonable force. You will learn to defend yourself against a variety of attacks and will be taught to counter in the quickest and most efficient way.

"The idea of Krav Maga is to counter attack as soon as possible or attacking pre-emptively. To target attacks to the body's most vulnerable points such as the eyes, neck, throat, groin, ribs and knees for instance. To neutralize your opponent as quickly as possible and most importantly, to maintain awareness of your surroundings while dealing with the threat in order to look for escape routes, further attackers or objects that could be used to defend or help attack.

"Training can also cover situational awareness to develop an understanding of one's surroundings and identifying potential threats before an attack occurs. The main aim however, is still to avoid violence whenever possible. Attack as the last form of defence." Bastille finally stops and Ana looks impressed and even a bit scared, "I know this is a lot of information right now, but your trainer will explain everything to you as your training evolves. At two sessions a week of an hour each, you should be able to complete the program within a couple of months, depending on your grasp of the moves and how well you execute them." He finishes and waits a couple of seconds for that to sink in. When Ana nods, he continues with the training that he will give her himself.

"Now, since we don't know what waits for you guys at the end of the tunnel, we will need to work on your endurance. I'm aware that you have not been fond of exercise in the past, so I'm not sure what your endurance profile is, but we will start with the basics as well. Endurance allows you to work out at a certain intensity or for an extended amount of time. Running for long periods can train slow-twitch muscles to fuel workouts more efficiently and to fight fatigue more effectively. A continuous practice of long-distance running can also help convert fast-twitch muscles to slow-twitch muscles, which will enhance endurance.

"Now I know how erratic your current sleeping pattern is… and don't look like that at Taylor, as your trainer I need to be aware of not only your sleeping pattern, but also your eating pattern and we will get to that shortly." I can't help but scoff as I remember the numerous times Christian and Ana fought over the very topic. "Anyway, the golden role of John Mandrola is that you go hard on hard days and easy on easy days. Never string hard days together without adequate rest. You need to get at a bare minimum a solid six hours of sleep. No exceptions. If you don't sleep or show up to training tired, we won't train." He looks at her sternly and she sighs knowing better than to argue.

"Fine, six hours minimum."

"Six is minimum, Ana. I would suggest closer to eight." Bastille won't give in on this.

"Seven." Ana counters and twines her fingers together on the table.

"Fine. As to your eating habits, or rather the lack thereof, that needs to change. For your body weight, I would suggest at least forty grams of carbs every hour since the body uses glycogen for fuel. A mix of carbs and protein can enhance endurance performance and reduce muscle damage and that's what you want. You will have to find the right combination of carbohydrates, fat and protein that's the right combination for you and in order to get that, Taylor will make an appointment for you with a nutritionist as soon as your training schedule is set up. The nutritionist will need a full grasp of your physical training to calculate the correct combination.

"When it comes to endurance training however, variation is important and resistance training is needed to strengthen your bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles. We will mix up aerobic exercises with kettlebells, dumbbell and bodyweight exercises that will also improve stamina. This will be done by me for the next couple of months on Tuesdays at six pm and on Saturdays at eight am. On Wednesday and Friday evenings, you are not to do any heavy exercise and should you feel like it, maybe use the treadmill in the gym downstairs. On Sundays, you are not allowed to do exercise at all."

"So no running then. That's good, I hate running." Ana says and quickly stops talking when Bastille starts laughing.

"Not quite. Taylor will take you running every morning. You will start out slow and steady and increase millage as your fitness level increase. The key here is to drink tons of water. No teas and juice during the day. Apart from your favourite tea in the morning and camomile tea before bed, please try and stick to water during the day. Also, running is only allowed for you on Mondays through to Fridays. Not longer than forty minutes for the first four weeks and then it can be increased based on Taylor's professional opinion."

"Wow, that's a lot. Training with yourself, Taylor, and a trainer for the Krav Maga lessons. Will that be all and when do we start?"

"Ana, that is only your physical training. You will also needs weapons training and you will get that every Saturday from twelve until two pm. The instructor I appointed normally only do classes in groups, but I… persuaded him to make an exception for you. Your training with him will start this Saturday and continue every second Saturday until he feels comfortable with your shooting capabilities."

"Christian hates guns," she says absentmindedly while running her fingers in circles on the table's surface.

"Ana, extreme circumstances calls for extreme measures. We don't know what or who we are facing yet. There is no way in hell I'm taking you on an extraction mission if you are not able to defend yourself and also our team members. Kidnap situations can get out of hand and you will need to be ready to pull the trigger if needed. When you have to choose between the live of your kidnapper or the live of the man you love, I need you to have the tools to go through with your choice and also be able to do it properly. Of all the training, this is the most important." I explain but I'm fully aware that Christian Grey will not agree with this. Fuck, he will kill me for taking her with me in the first place, so I might as well make sure she can protect herself when the situation calls for it. I'll just face the wrath of Christian when he is standing in front of me.

"Okay, so tell me more about it then. I know how to shoot, Ray insisted and taught me well, but I get the feeling that whatever he taught me is not what you want me to learn, but if it makes you feel any better, Ray says I'm a natural." She says shyly and this is the first time since I met her that she says something nice about herself and that pleases me for some reason.

"We have chosen Saturdays to do the firearm training. This Saturday you will start with a four hour course from 10am to 2pm. It's the Women's Basic Handgun course. It's a beginner program designed specifically to empower women who have had little or no exposure to firearms. It will start in a classroom with a general discussion on the familiarization of firearms, safety and the fundamentals of marksmanship. You will gradually move to a level where you are able to safely and confidently handle and fire a handgun. Some topics of this course are weapon presentation, safe handling, loading and reloading, malfunction drills and live fire exercises." For the first time Ana is starting to look nervous and I put my hand on hers to calm her.

"Ana, you are not alone and Sawyer and I will be with you at all times. If it's too much right now, you need to tell us. The problem is that we don't know how long it will be before we find Christian and that don't give us the luxury of time. Besides, once the first course is done and we get you registered, I think it will be good for you to release some nervous energy at the shooting range. We can even have some cut outs made for you to shoot at." I try to joke and sigh in relieve when she starts to giggle.

"So, the next course will be in two weeks as we don't want to overwhelm you. The Saturdays in between we can go to the range for practice if you want, but courses are not recommended to close to each other. The next course will be a one day course of eight hours. The basic idea of this course is that 'speed is good… but accuracy is final'. That's what they focus on… accuracy and of course safety. It will also include fundamentals, drawing and re-holstering techniques, immediate action drills, multiple threat engagement and assembly and disassembly."

I run her through eight more courses, each more advanced than the other, before she grabs her iPad to plan her schedule. In total, her training will be three months. Even if we find Christian sooner, and I'm beginning to lose hope of a speedy rescue, it will be good for her to get this training. Being involved with Christian long term will make her a target and she needs to know how to protect herself in a dangerous situation.

Her schedule starts from Monday and she will take the rest of today and tomorrow to prepare herself mentally. Even though she is nervous, she also seems excited to have something to do other than crying and waiting. With the schedule she just did for herself, she will have no time to sit and do nothing. She forwards her schedule onto Andrea and leaves the study. Bastille looks at me, clearly concerned for Ana's state of mind.

"Taylor, look after her. She needs to start eating properly and getting sufficient rest is an absolute must. If you need to, pull the Christian card. That being said, do you think you will find him? If he's out there somewhere?" he asks and I run my hands over my face.

"I will find him and I'm certain he did not die in that crash. Fuck Claude, a body can't just disappear into thin air and it makes me fucking sick that everyone gave up on him so quickly. Can you imagine someone like Christian, being kept against his will, no control over his own life and most of all, away from Anastasia? It must be fucking hell for him and I just hope that when we do find him, that there is no permanent damage."

"And you are sure it will be okay for Ana to tag along? If something happens to her during the rescue mission, you are a dead man, you do know that?"

"What the fuck am I supposed to do, lock her up? We just have to make sure that Ana is ready when the word comes. I will do my part, you do yours. I will not let something happen to Ana, she will be safe. I'm more worried about his reaction when we do find him and he sees Ana there. Whether she is in danger or not, Christian will not be pleased. But he is not here and for now Ana is my boss and I will do what she asks as long as there is not a threat to her safety."

After a brief conversation about golf, cars and the new woman in Bastille's life, I kick him out and go to my office to phone Gail. The day has just been too fucking long and I need to hear her voice.


A/N: I know it was a bit boring, but I thought it best to cover the training schedule in one chapter to get it out of the way. Please review if you have a minute.