A/N: Certain questions some of you are asking will be answered in future chapters, but as for most of them, you'll have to reread if you've forgotten. Ana has skin cancer, so go back to the…intimate…scenes if you want to find any clues. There is one, very small hint you will find. In fact, toward the beginning of those scenes, you'll be hinted about one of her conditions.

I know you all have more questions that deal with the plot, but I ask that you be patient, keep reading, and find out for yourself!

Be prepared for this heavy chapter, and if you have the time, please let me know what you think once you've finished!~


DAY FORTY-FIVEWednesday, June 27, 2018

The call of the elevator grabs my attention when I'm coming out of my study.

"She's here for you, sir," Taylor announces when he sees me, waiting by the foyer.

I nod simply in response, beckoning him to proceed with my hand.

No less than thirty seconds later, a short woman enters my home with noticeably dark brown, balayage-dyed hair ending shortly at her chin. Her clicking footsteps announce her arrival, wearing a gold shirt with black trousers and matching black heels. With eyes fierce and wise in the depths of its dark color, she eyes me curiously as she steps forward, echoing clicks from her feet sounding off in the space of my empty home.

"Dr. Bailey," I greet, meeting her halfway with my hand out, "thank you for coming out to Washington on such short notice. I know the timing is a bit inconvenient, so I apologize for that."

She takes my hand and shakes it. She has soft hands for someone in her profession.

"There wasn't any inconvenience. I was quite intrigued by what you emailed," she responds quietly, whistling quietly and slowly as she looks around my apartment. She's impressed by my wealth.

I put my hand awkwardly in my pocket, gaging her with an uninterested eye. I straighten up my posture once I remember my manners.

"May I get you something to drink, doctor?" I offer quickly. "Coffee? Water?" I'm secretly begging my guest not to request for anything. I want to get to the root of what I need from her. I don't have much time, and I am reminded of that with every ticking second that passes by.

She's staring out from the window, eyes gazing toward Seattle before turning back to me.

"No, thank you, Mr. Grey. I've had something to eat and drink before coming here," she replies, patting her stomach lightly.

Thank God.

I nod, putting my hand back in my pocket. I don't know what to do with my hands right now. They feel clammy. I've never been through this before.

Any of this. Do I approach this like a negotiation? A meeting? A bargain?

"I take that your flight from Houston was all right?"

"It was," she answers with a secretive smile. "It's not every day I have a famous business mogul paying for my services and a first-class ticket to Washington."

It's not every day I could find myself in this situation.

"It was nothing," I answer honestly.

She snorts and then chuckles. "For you? I'm sure it was."

I clear my throat, gesturing toward my leather couch. "Shall we sit?" I ask, already making my way there.

Dr. Bailey sits down, adjusting herself comfortably in her seat before crossing her legs with her hands folded in her lap. "Now that we've gone past formalities, Mr. Grey—"

"Christian," I interject. With the rate at where she and I will be going, it's best if we keep each other on a first-name basis.

"Christian," she corrects herself with a tight smile, "if you don't mind, I just have a question or two to ask before we get to yours."

I shrug. "It's only fair with the many I'm asking in return."

"Right." Her expression remains unamused as her smile, but it's her eyes that tell me otherwise. "How did you find me?"

I stifle my chuckle and scoff. "I'm good with my research."

I've been getting better and better at it.

"And your research says?" She massages her curls with a curled hand into her head.

"Miranda Bailey, M.D., attending surgical oncologist at the Anderson Cancer Center—the country's number one hospital for oncology," I recite quickly from memory.

I've done an extensible amount of reading, research her work days before our inevitable meet. I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't get every fact about her down to the nail.

"If what I read was correct," I continue, "you were once a resident at Seattle Grace Hospital before becoming the head of your department in Texas."

She blinks once and nods, smiling with appreciation. "Dr. Webber is a fine mentor and a valued friend," she adds respectfully. "I'm glad to see he's still teaching there. He's a great chief."

"You've become the go-to doctor for patients with cancer," I finish, transitioning to my point, "and as much as I've enjoyed your company so far—in the short amount of time we've met—it's your skills in your specialty that I'm seeking after."

"A man after my own heart. Or rather my brain, I should say." Dr. Bailey smirks. "You did your research well, I'll give you that."

"Well, when you're a…famous business mogul, you're only after the best," I return her smirk with my smile, not wanting to appear smug too soon. I need her on my team. "Why would I settle for anything less than that?"

"Fair enough," she chuckles, raising her hand up. "So, what can I do for you? You didn't fly me out here for an interview, did you? Because if you did, I would be flattered but an email could've sufficed."

Cutting past the bullshit. I already like this woman a lot more than the particular neurosurgeon that comes to mind.

"I have a girl—"

I pause suddenly, blank to my thoughts as I stare widely at a furrowed-brow Dr. Bailey. The next words that come out of my mouth are spoken involuntarily, and I ignore how right it feels off the tip of my tongue.

"My girlfriend," I correct myself, "needs your help."

"They all do," she sighs quietly to herself. "You're a lucky man, Christian. As of currently, I don't have many patients in dire need of my assistance, so you have all my attention."

"Good. Because you aren't leaving until this thing is gone." My tone suggests it's a joke, but I know the truer intentions of my words.

"Let's get started. You aren't paying me two-hundred fifty k for nothing."

Conveniently and coincidentally, I pick up the one thing I've been staring at since I've received it from Dr. Shepherd, memorizing each word and scan as I reviewed it over and over. Other than Dr. Miranda Bailey's file, the things I've been holding in my hand have been at the forefront of my mind.

"Anastasia Steele," I explain to her, handing her the folder. "Twenty-two years old with stage-four metastatic melanoma. It shows in her scans that her primary-care doctor found a massive tumor in her temporal lobe, as well as others in her liver."

Cancer is a mysterious, merciless beast. The word itself instills fear in all victims.

The thing is, even when patients are done with their battle, cancer never really steers clear from a patient's life, continuing to haunt them within their memories and trauma. It isn't curable, either—like a deep scar that never goes away, reopening the wound whenever it wants to. It invades the cells in your system, takes control of your body, and brings you to heel with the crack of its whip. All without your consent. I know this feeling too well. And in spite of this, patients use the term "remission."

This only means that the cancer merely decides to give them a break. But in the first five years after recovery, cancer cells have the chance of returning.

Remission, my ass.

Skin cancer is treatable. Immensely so, apparently. I was relieved when I found out about the news, but it didn't make sense when I stared at Ana's MRI scans. This meant further digging and researching.

Like I said before, skin cancer is highly treatable.

But here's the inevitable, perfect catch.

Only if it's caught on time.

Skin cancer isn't like lung cancer or a blood disease such as leukemia. Its symptoms are subtle—barely noticeable and easy to miss. It's the silent killer nobody really sees coming. But when it does finally make itself, it sneaks up on you, going in for the finishing, fatal blow.

I couldn't make sense of this. How does this relate to Ana? I had to find out what it meant for her. If it's skin cancer, why is it affecting her brain? Why is she suffering from neurological deficits? And her liver, too? It doesn't make any sense. And that's when I realized, it gets worst.

Usually, there are four stages to cancer, categorized into three groups: localized, regional, and distant. Besides not having cancer at all, if you had to choose between the lesser of three evils, localized is the one to go with. Survival rates are higher with surgeries able to completely rid of the entire thing in general, as it has not yet spread.

Assuming that it—a metastatic tumor—has spread slightly, the next stage that follows is regional, simply spreading to nearby tissues and lymph nodes. Though the chances of surviving are reduced, if found and treated immediately, the invaded sight can be controlled, leading to the same result of the localized stage.

And finally, there's distant cancer—the beast in its final form, as it invades not only local sights but spreads furthermore, traveling through a patient's body and invading their other organs.

Out of those three, Ana became the lucky winner this jackpot on top of another added bonus.

In addition to the distant stage, her cancer forced its way into her brain. And now, her liver. It's made its way into the very part that makes Ana…Ana. And as each day passes, it continues spreading and growing slowly, eating away at every part of her being.

Five percent, I hear her voice whisper in my ear.

Dr. Bailey pauses immediately at the scan of Ana's brain.

"O-Oh…my…" she gasps, dropping her jaw at the sight.

I swallow nervously, my heart spiking to her shock.

Not exactly the response I'm looking for.

"It's…magnificent." She caresses the scan with her fingers, eyes marveling at every intricate detail of the tumor in it. "It isn't just the temporal lobe…part of it is in the hypothalamus."

"Can you help?" Please.

"Of course, I will," she murmurs distractedly, continuing to gaze at the size and shape of the tumor. "In my life, I've only encountered patients with a localized version of this skin cancer. Success rates are nothing to worry about. But, dear God…I've never seen a distant stage with a tumor like this…"

Fuck. "And?" I swallow.

Bailey breaks her gaze from the MRI scan, turning to me and smiling reassuringly with understanding.

"Let's not get your hopes up. Or make you lose hope," she says softly. "Each patient is a different case, Christian."

I simply nod at her, breaking away from her gaze of pity. Ana is different, and I don't want anything happening to her.

"When was the last time you saw her?" she asks, forcing me to look back at her.

"Monday."

It feels much longer since I've last seen or spoken to her, but I needed the time alone to process all the information she bombarded me with.

"And how is she?" Dr. Bailey asks. "Since you've last been with her, what's happened?"

Two days ago – Monday, June 25, 2018

What I feel is beyond what I can control. Fiery anger is liquefied in my veins, and I can feel myself burning hot like a meteor that can't be stopped by any force. Being angry is quite simple. I can be angry any time I want. I can easily find reasons to be angry. And yet, I never act out of that emotion because I refuse to let anyone have that power and control over me.

However, as Aristotle once said, finding someone to be angry with—to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way—is a power that not many possess.

I thought I had a limit to the anger I keep bottled, but I am farther from the truth as I stand in front of Anastasia with an unrelenting fury. A fire that can't be put out as it blazed brighter.

I take a deep breath, hoping to extinguish my mood. "You lied."

"I didn't lie—"

"Spare me whatever easy excuse rolls off your tongue, Anastasia. You lied to me," I shout, causing her to flinch back with a gaze that breaks away from mine. "Was this always a habit of yours? Your way of functioning?"

Ana stares down at her fiddling fingers, nervously chewing on her lip as she remained silent. She annoyingly avoids eye contact with me, and instead, takes a seat at the edge of the bed. Her silence is deafening, and I can hear the rush of my blood heatedly pumping through my veins with a wrath I've never experienced before.

"What else don't I know about you?" I spit loudly, causing her to flinch more away from me. Within the instant of her reaction, I stop myself.

Fucking calm down, Grey. You're scaring the girl.

I sigh heavily in frustration, hoping to let the steam out of me as the silence continues between us. I turn away from her and face out the window. For a Seattle day as bright as it is, the mood in this room is plummeting, spiraling like the eye of a storm. I rake my hair with both hands, keeping my hands at the roots as I gently pulled.

Despite how…livid…I am with Ana, I still need to know everything, and I can't do that if I'm scaring her or forcing her to close off from me. So, I try again, turning back around to face her as I do my best to soften the lines of my tense expression.

"Who else knows?" I ask sternly yet lowly. As the question comes out of my mouth, I already find myself heating up without an answer.

She swallows, finally meeting her gaze with mine. These powder-blue eyes have changed before me, no long warm and full of light. They're glimmering but with a void of an unrecognizable depth.

Are they apologetic? Scared?

A part of me wants to reach out and hold her, but another part doesn't trust myself near her just yet. I'm too angry to know what I'm going to do. Now, that does not mean I would hit her. I would never. However, I can't promise I won't say nor do the wrong thing based on this…fire in me.

"Kate," Ana whispers mutely, the words barely making any sound from her anxious trembling lips.

As expected.

"Who else?" I demand. "Does my brother?"

"I don't know," she breathes out gently, pinching her skin as she folds her hands together. "I think Kate may have told him. Elliot has been acting differently around me than he usually does."

I can't help but feel betrayed. My own brother knows information about her before me?

Wait. What about… "Grace?"

Instead of meeting my gaze again, her eyes trail down to my shoes. "She found out as soon as she had a hold of my scans," she answers with distress, running a hand through her dark locks. "I couldn't lie to her once she found out—"

Ana stops as I turn away from her with a handful of my hair in my fists.

"I don't understand why she didn't tell me," I mutter bitterly, acid running up my throat. She said she would. It explains what I saw those nights ago, seeing her reveal the folder. "She told me she would as soon as she discovered anything new."

"She was just respecting my privacy as a patient. I asked her to keep it between us," she replies immediately, coming to my mother's defense. "Please, don't be angry at Grace."

I immediately whip back around to her words. "Oh, I'm not angry at her, Anastasia," I say through gritted teeth, emphasizing my point.

Blue eyes flash into my gray with their own heat, but she breaks her gaze from me, soon filling with shame and guilt.

I don't allow the silence to take over again. I will explode if it comes after me.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

Seconds pass by between us, and I take that as my answer, but Ana surprises me when she speaks.

"Yes."

I clench my fists to my sides, approaching her in small steps so I can hear her more clearly. I want to remember this.

"When?" I demand.

"When I was ready."

"Ready? What do you mean ready?" I snarl as my anger takes over my expression. "You told me that you trusted me! But why the fuck should I be surprised if that was a lie, too?"

She slams her hands onto her thighs and glares up at me. "I do trust you!"

"Tell me why I should believe you now, Ana," I challenge loudly, moving in closer. "You say one thing and then you do another. You distract people and hold off information before you want to reveal them. When I think I know something about you, I get proven that I couldn't be farther from any truth. What should I believe other than being strung along this entire time?"

"I-I do trust you!" she stammers as the volume in her voice increases with mine, standing up from the bed. "I would've told you! I swear!"

I am standing face to face with her, and I give her the only monosyllabic response that matters.

"WHEN?"

The glaring heat in her eyes remains, giving me nothing of her emotions.

"When, Anastasia?" I ask again, my icy stare daggering into her powder-blue. "When were you…"

Her lip trembles and I catch her lips fractionally turning into a frown. She is the first to look away from me once again, letting me revel in my own thoughts. It's a running theme between me and her, discovering the answers for myself like some morbidly fucked-up scavenger hunt.

I am in incredulous disbelief, taking a step back.

"When it was too late?" I whisper quietly.

She fiddles with her fingers again, constantly pinching at the skin in the back of her hand. "It's already too late, Christian," she mumbles.

"You were going to tell me when there was nothing I could've done," I growl. "You wouldn't have ever given me the chance to help you!"

Ana crosses her arms, staying quiet.

I'm starting to understand her more and more. There is an answer to everything. From the structure of her body, to her quiet demeanor, to even the stubbornness of her actions. She's answering more clearly than ever as I begin to understand her. The more I gauge her reactions, the more I am able to see the truth. Even when nothing comes out of her mouth.

"When did you know you were sick?" I demand. How long have you kept me in the dark?

"Does it matter?" she sighs tiredly, rolling her eyes.

She's deflecting again, but the way she's acting tells me it's been for longer than I think. I don't have time to be angry with her gesture. I only seek the truth. I make it my mission to.

"It couldn't have been recently," I answer for her, speaking out my thoughts as I gaze into her. "No, it wouldn't have. You've been hiding this for too long. It had to have been farther back."

"Christian, what's the point in—"

"Dr. Shepherd knew this whole time. So, that would mean I would have to go further back… Right? " I interject, ignoring what she has to say. I begin pacing slowly back and forth. "Graduation day? No…because Derek seemed to already be well-acquainted with—"

I freeze immediately, just as my eyes widen to my discovery.

"Hi," she greets me shyly before sitting down. "There aren't any available seats but here. Is it all right if I sit here?"

"It seems as though you've already taken a seat beside me," I respond, lending my hand out to her, "but by all means, Miss…"

"S-Steele," she stutters, taking my hand. "Anastasia Steele."

It can't be. By cruel chance, it can't have been…

"What are you doing here in Seattle? Shouldn't you be preparing for graduation?" I ask.

"I had to come down for a scheduled doctor's appointment," she replies quickly before tackling onto her next topic.

I blink once and then rapidly, as my vision comes back to the finger-fiddling Anastasia. Everything is finally aligning.

This is how it all started?

She stares at me, a pleading look that begs me to stop. "Christian, please…"

"It was the night we met, wasn't it?" I mutter out my discovery. "You found out about your cancer that day. Am I wrong?"

Anastasia closes her eyes and lets out a heavy sigh, rubbing her face briefly with one hand. She leaves us both in reflective states of mind, unable to think of anything else other than what lies ahead.

What do we do?

What do I do?

Where do we go?

I am completely out of my league.

Yet another first with Miss Steele.

"It was a long day for me. And I'd never been to a bar before, so I figured I'd try something new. Something out of the ordinary," she reveals quietly. "That's why I went for a drink on a Monday night. I wanted to start doing things I'd never done before until…"

I am looking back into her pained eyes, broken-hearted that I became the person that finally broke behind the barrier of her warmth.

"I just…" She shrugs at me with defeat, the lines on her lips shifting back and forth from a false smile to a frown. "I wanted to feel like a normal girl. To have a drink with a really good-looking guy and nothing else to lose."

"You aren't dying," I snap, lunging toward her to trigger some sense back into her…tumor-invaded brain. "You don't get to talk in past-tense when things haven't happened."

"Things have already happened, Christian. They're happening to me now. The only difference in this situation is…" Beautiful powder-blue irises begin glistening and welling with emotion, through and through the small, pitiful smile she gives me. "…now you know."

"Something can be done..." I exhale sharply through my nose, hoping to release my steaming aggravation as I shake my head. "There is a way. There is always a way for you—"

"Five percent," she interjects. "Where I'm at now, I have a five-percent chance of surviving."

I let what she tells me to sink in, and it only allows for my darkness to swallow me more. I feel heavy with dread, and my heart beats faster than I can take.

I frustratingly don't have the answers, and I am angered that she is trying to convince me of something I refuse to believe. It's not going to happen. My hand is shoveling through handfuls of my hair before rubbing my face.

I need to focus.

I just need to get the right team.

Find the right answers.

Give the right treatment.

I'll prove her wrong. And I'll show her that she needs to be admitted into a psychiatric ward, not a hospital bedroom. She and I can then laugh about her situation when all of this is over, and I'll remind her how wrong she was from the beginning so she can always trust me. That she should've trusted me in the first place.

"Christian, listen to me," Ana calls my name softly, bringing me back to her. She caresses my cheek with her cool hand. I usually invite her touch on me, but now, it stings—all with the knowledge of why it feels the way it does.

"I am still the same girl you met our first night," she continues, her tone pleading with me. Hearing her sound this way breaks me, and my face is reflecting the same anguish back she's expressing. "The same girl you spent many times in bed with. I have always been me, the girl that…smashed a cupcake in your face weeks before and danced with you in your kitchen the next morning."

"Ana…" I cup her face into my warm hands, and she places her cold ones atop of mine. "I'm still upset with all of this. I can't understand… Why didn't you?…" I am at a loss of words, confused by everything going around me. My world is spinning around chaotically, just as my emotions unravel in a way I can't relax.

"I've told you already. It would have been easier if you didn't interfere," she whispers, frowning slightly.

The words that escape her lips burn me enough to flinch away, taking my hands off her. "And I told you to trust me," I snap. "Tell me what have you been doing all this time?"

Anastasia crosses her arms over her chest, tucking them into her underarms as if she were cold. "I've been preparing everything for my mom," she replies earnestly. "There's a lot of money going to be taken out of this, and I don't want her to be burdened or stressed even more when all of this is over. My student loans come from financial aid, so the debt will be discharged upon my…leave. I met up with a probate attourney and prepared a will for her and everyone in my life, too. He helped me understand the legalities needed to be taken into place. We also confirmed the life insurance for the medical bills I'll leave behind."

She's already given up.

I gape at her, and I can't be sure if my face is expressing immense rage, shock, or horror. It doesn't matter, not when she isn't looking at me when she explains her suicidal martyrdom.

I need to end this. I need her to cease this poor explanation before I really blow up.

"When I'm gone, I want to—"

"Stop saying that!" I scream with thunderous volume, causing her to jolt back. Ana, enough. Just quit it. Please. I can feel my heated stare burning into hers. "You're not going anywhere. There's no point in preparing for anything. Stop acting as though you're going to die because you're not!"

She frowns at me, an expression of pity. "You're in denial…"

"Stop deflecting! I'm not!" This girl is really trying me today.

"Then, why are you looking at me like I am?" she asks.

I freeze and blink. I haven't realized that I am.

Am I? Or is she trying to distract me again?

"That is one reason why I struggled telling you," Ana begins, running her hand through her dark locks. "I hate that look on your face. I've recognized it by heart from the numerous amounts of people that looked at me the way you are now. I never wanted you to look at me in that way. I just wanted to be normal around you."

"Anastasia, we aren't normal. We were never ordinary people, even if we fooled ourselves into thinking we are. We never have been." It pains me to say this, but she and I need to get past this if we're going to go anywhere. "You can't disillusion me with a fantasy you play in your head forever. Face your reality for what they are instead of running from them."

Ana simply gazes at me without emotion, and I am unable to decipher what she's feeling or thinking. I can't tell what's going on in her mind, and it is a burning claw to my body having to gauge her. It isn't until then I realize that she's numb. Not even that, I feel myself suddenly being closed off from her, and I know it's because she's distancing herself from me.

Because of my fear, I come back and reach out to her with my hand, but what stops me is an interruption at the door. Neither Anastasia nor I have broken each other's gaze to see who it was.

"What?" I mutter lowly.

"Is everything all right in here?" It's the fucking doctor himself. "I just want to let you know that, despite how thick the walls are in this room, it doesn't hide everything you're saying. We can hear you outside."

"Everything is fine," I answer, digging my fingers into my palm as I clench my fist. When I hear that Dr. Shepherd doesn't leave, I know it's because he's waiting for Anastasia's reply.

"I'm sorry if we caused a commotion, Dr. Shepherd," she murmurs gently, being the first to break our connecting gaze and meet the doctor's. She smiles instinctively, as if it's forced. "Things are fine."

Dr. Shepherd nods once at her in my periphery. "I can come back later if you want, Ana." I finally meet his wary eyes to the sound of his implied voice, catching that he's staring at the medical file on the bed.

She shakes her head. "No. It's fine. Let's just get this over with."

I want to object so she and I can continue our conversation but a part of me is eager to hear about Ana's status.

He nods once more and clears his throat. "Ahem…well, all right. As of right now, we know—"

"No, Derek," Ana interjects, tightening the fold between her crossed arms. "Just the two of us."

What?

My head turns to her. "Ana, you can't be serious."

"Mr. Grey," Dr. Shepherd calls on me and opens the door more widely. "May Miss Steele and I have a moment of privacy?"

No, Ana. Don't do this.

I need to take power back into my own hands. "You can't just kick me out," I object, returning my gaze back to the doctor. My eyes let him know what I mean, but he doesn't seem to relent.

"You may be my new boss, but I still respect my patient's needs. And right now, she is asking for privacy." He clears his throat once more, speaking more sternly as he gestures with the tilt of his head. "Please, leave the room, Mr. Grey."

You've got to be kidding me. You've got to be fucking kidding me.

I stay put in my place, glaring at Ana for me to stay. It's an intense stare that pleads for me to not go, but she doesn't meet my eyes, simply staring out the window.

"You don't have to leave this hospital, but you will get out of this room," Dr. Shepherd says again, irritation filling his voice. "Now."

I'm being forced out of here, but I'm not afraid of him. I open my mouth to say something, but he beats me to it.

"Don't force me to call security on you…" he threatens quietly.

I continue ignoring the doctor, turning fully to Ana.

"You're acting just like your father right now, Anastasia," I seethe, grinding my nails into my palm. I get the reaction I want from her when I see her eyes widen to my words, a heat reflecting back at me when I get a reaction out of her. "He wouldn't have approved of this. He wouldn't have wanted this for you."

Ana looks directly in my eye, a cold glare challenging me. "Well…Ray isn't here now, is he?"

At this point, Dr. Shepherd is by my side. "Time to go, Grey," he says lowly, grabbing hold of my forearm.

I immediately flinch from his grasp and nudge him out of arm's reach, making my way slowly to the door. I hear Ana's footsteps follow me from behind, and I believe it's for her to apologize or run after me like I want her to, but when I turn around, her hand is already at the door handle, waiting for me to leave.

To shut me out.

I bend my head down slightly, speaking lowly enough for only us to hear. "For fuck's sake, Ana, what are you doing?" I hiss. My rage hasn't left me, and I feel a storm approaching the dark waters of my mood.

"I'm facing my reality," she murmurs quietly, her eyes casting down at the door.

I can't help but embrace the wave of betrayal and hurt, letting it swallow me whole like the darkness in the abyss of my body. I don't know if she means she's going to fight or if she's going to let herself die, but I'm positive it's the latter with how things are going.

This isn't going as well as I intended, and I am pained by all of this. I want to tell her I'm sorry. To ask her what I should do to take her away from this. To hold her and kiss her. But the angry, hurt part of my being doesn't do any of this. I don't do anything to fix this situation, especially when I feel her tearing herself away from me, just as she breaks me after having me whole.

The thing is—I know how the world is a terribly cruel place.

It's horrible, ugly, and incredibly dark. I know this. I know it all too well. In fact, I'd call myself quite the expert in learning to live with what life throws at me, as well as the demons that follow closely behind.

However, for what's been a long while for me, I'm rediscovering myself. I have found a good reason to keep living. And, crazily enough, be happy with what I have.

But how do I convince someone—who is my selfish reason to keep going—to stay with me a little longer.

Even when they're ready to give in.

"I'm not going to stand by while you allow yourself to waste away," I threaten, praying by a long shot that she'd turn this situation around. "I won't watch you kill yourself. I won't do it."

Ana lifts her head up at me to meet my gaze, and I am frozen in her beauty, despite the sorrow I can glimpse through her. Her eyes are filled up with welling tears, and I am left in breathless shock. I've never seen her like this, and I wish that I didn't. I can see her pain now, and this image will forever be scarred in my mind.

"Then leave, Christian," she whispers finally.

And to that, Ana closes the door on me, leaving me stunned and broken like never before, as the darkness happily takes a hold of me.

Present day

I am walking Dr. Bailey out of my apartment, glum in my thoughts with a panic to my plans.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Grey. There's not much I can do," she says, walking with me to the elevator as she slips her purse over her shoulder.

"There has to be a way," I beg, quickly stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. "Please, Miranda. I'm not sure what else I can do at this point… You're my last hope."

"There isn't anything either of us can do until she accepts help," she replies, frowning gravely at me. "Know that I would put in all my efforts to helping your girlfriend…but I can't do that if she doesn't want it to begin with."

My expression drops and I am staring down in quiet thought, doing my best to devise a new plan. Dr. Bailey doesn't leave until Sunday, which means I only have four days to make her stay until I lose the person who can help fix my girl.

"Again, Christian, I'm very sorry. Truly. For you and for her. But, if you can convince her…" she sighs heavily. "If you can convince her to keep going, long enough to allow me to handle her case, we can start working together. It's not that I don't want to. I have all the time in the world but Ana—" She immediately cuts herself off, and the frown on her face deepens as she looks away from me, almost scolding herself for saying her last bit.

It doesn't matter; I already knew what she was going to say. Dr. Bailey and I can spend all our time together figuring out how to stop skin cancer, but Ana isn't so fortunate in this case.

The elevator doors open, and Dr. Bailey obligingly steps into the platform. I feel like I am losing my only chance of getting Ana the help she deserves, as I watch the good doctor step away from me.

Nothing ever goes as planned, and I am starting to do more damage control than actually fixing the problem. Ana is circling the drain just as I am drowning in all that surrounds me. And the one person that makes my life remotely bearable is starting to fade from my life.

"If anything changes, please, Mr. Grey…" Miranda adds quickly as the double doors begin close. "Call me…"

I stand still, staring into open space as the hum of the elevator fills my ears. My gaze turns to the sign above the doors, watching the good doctor descend from me with each floor.

I back myself against the wall, void of emotion and numb from my pain. I sink to the floor, letting my legs crumble with me as I bury my hands into my face.

When Ana came into my life, I've learned to become and do so many things, but the one thing I've learned from her is something I already knew. She's living proof of it.

The human body is a terrible liar.

Whatever secrets it's keeping, it will tell them all. Eventually. Sooner or later, when the body reveals its secrets, there's no turning back.

The good news is, when the truth comes out, we'll know what we're dealing with. The bad news is…it might be too late to do anything about it.

At this point, all I can do is hope that I'm ready for what comes next. Hope that it isn't over. Hope to be saved from the pain, and the loss, and the despair.

But most of all…

Hope that there is someone left to save.