Damn, some of you thought Ana's into drugs, lol. Also, I personally think CG is being a mixture of selfless and selfish. He's still very scared and afraid of letting down the people he loves, still, as promised CG will get his HEA, fo sho.

I was a heavy heart to carry, my beloved was weighed down and he took me to the river where he slowly let me drown

The physical pain was a welcome distraction from the emotional turmoil she was going through as the needle danced around her skin. Once the buzzing of the machine ended, Ana brought her wrist closer for inspection. The word Steele tattooed in cursive. A reminder of strength, always in her line of sight, whenever she needed it.

"Who's handwriting is that?" Tom asked.

"My dad's," Ana said thickly. "The picture I showed you was from an inscription he wrote on one of his favorite books the day I was born."

"Want to talk about what's on your mind. Tattoo artists are known to moonlight as therapists, I also got some bourbon to go with it which makes me an excellent one." He chuckled.

"I think I'll take the drink." She laughed. Tom was a regular at the neighborhood bar Namesharer worked at. On Ana's 21st birthday she pulled a favor and they both got the words Namesharer tattooed on their hips. Ana on her left and Anabelle on her right.

Once Belle stopped breastfeeding right before Christmas, Ana came back to Tom and got five more tattoos of significance. This evening would mark her 6th one.

"I kind of got broken up with." She confessed. "I tried to take a chance and it backfired on me. As mad as I am at him, I am furious at myself for making the same mistake again."

"A repeat offender?"

Ana exhaled roughly and closed her eyes before gulping down the last of the bourbon. Shit, this burns. "Yeah."

"Those are the worst. He didn't love you?"

"He says he does but doesn't want to be with me. It's complicated, like Facebook." She shrugged.

"Ah, one of those. They're a special kind."

"Yeah." Ana rolled her eyes and looked at him. "Did you love Anabelle?" She knew the answer to this but asked anyway.

"I think any guy who spent five minutes with her loved her and wanted to be with her." He smiled. "I just wish she would've allowed herself to love back."

At this moment she had begun to see some similarities between Namesharer and Chris.

"Yeah, me too. I told her often enough but Anabelle Spencer was too much of a free spirit." Ana said wistfully and then laughed. "She did say you were one of the good ones and spectacular in bed."

"Well, thank God for that. I was worried that's why she dumped me."

Ana's eyes roamed around the studio and landed on his picture wall of his favorite tattoos to date. She walked up to it and found a closeup picture of herself and Anabelle's matching tattoos—she had a copy of that same one in her little box of keepsakes at the Glen Cove house—followed by another selfie style polaroid of Tom and Anabelle laughing and embracing each other, in the far corner of the wall. Memories of that night came to mind but she couldn't dwell on it. Not right now.

"I gotta go Tom, I just remembered I'm a mother and I got a kid." She shook her head, giggling. "How much do I owe you?"

"It's on the house." He waved his hand.

"No it's not. Tell me how much I owe you, dammit." She growled but failed to scare him.

"This took me less than five minutes. How about an instagram shout out? Business has been slow the past two weeks."

Ana rolled her eyes and took out $200 and threw it in the tip jar before taking a few pictures of his store signage with her phone. "I'll post something tomorrow with a picture of my wrist, the other ones are too personal to share."

He smiled and pulled her in for a hug before sending her on her way and closing up shop for the night.

Three hours earlier

"Ana, what are your thoughts about what Christian has shared?" Dr. Vassar asked. It'd been several minutes since she put the phone down after viewing the photograph of Christian's birth mother and she seemed a little lost in herself.

"You know, as pissed as I am at Alice and Jose, maybe I should've let her take a crack at you in the beginning. We could've avoided this song and dance." Ana turned to look at him.

"Ana, this was not my––" Chris tried to reason with her before being cut off.

"No. You don't get to talk, I was silent before, I let you speak but it's my turn now." She glared at him. "Alice brought this up right in the beginning and I kept asking you but you never gave me a real answer… and she wasn't convinced but I chose to believe you. I figured maybe you really were dealing with some major shit and that the grief was real––that maybe I really did matter to have made such an impact on you, I don't know... I told her you couldn't have been that cruel. Jokes on me, I guess." She laughed humorlessly and looked away.

Chris swallowed. At least she wasn't screaming at him, she was calm and not crying and for some reason that seemed to keep him further on edge.

"What assurances do I have that you won't come back a month later telling me you can't hack it as a father? Then what?"

"Ana I promise you, I won't––"

"STOP USING THAT WORD." She roared. "You don't know what the fuck that word means. A simple yes or no will suffice." Taking a moment to compose herself, Ana began again. "You have been promising me shit this past month and yet here we are. You knew you were going to do this when I was making a fool of myself in LA didn't you?"

Chris closed his eyes briefly and nodded.

"What happened in LA?" Dr. Vassar asked.

"What we talked about." Ana looked back at her. "I was going to be brave and say what I wanted for myself and tell him positive things about us being together." She continued with teary eyes but looked up and sharply inhaled to keep them from falling. "I told him I wanted him in my life that I was trying to be better. I tried to initiate sex and he rejected me. He lied to me, as usual."

"I didn't lie, Ana… I didn't want to–" Ana looked back at him and he went silent for a few moments. "I didn't want to hurt you." He offered weakly.

"I kept asking you what was wrong. You treated me and Belle like complete shit the entirety of last week. You have NO IDEA how many times she asked for you while you were being so cold and distant towards us but you lied and said it was work." Ana choked back a sob and took a deep breath to shake off the emotion and calm down again. "At least I tell you what's going on with me. I have always told you the truth no matter how ugly it was. Why the hell did you even come out there?"

"It was Mother's Day, I wanted to do something nice, I read all the journals and–" his voice caught in this throat. "I wanted it to be a good memory."

"I've already spent two Mother's Day holidays without you. A third one wouldn't have killed me. I told you I didn't have expectations and now it's just a tainted memory like everything else. Every good thing that I have held on to and tried to create with you and keep pure is now fucking tainted."

"I don't know how to tell you shit okay. I was already on such shaky ground with you. You don't think I wanted to sleep with you, of course I did but I am trying not to hurt you more than I already have. I am trying to do the right thing, Ana." He pleaded, trying to somehow make her understand.

"He's been your patient for 11 years give or take, right?" Ana shot a look at Dr. Flynn and he nodded. "Would you agree that his major life breakthroughs have been the expense of me and now my daughters? That Belle is now in equal danger of getting hurt because he has refused to learn anything?"

"It's not that simple, Ana." Dr. Flynn began. "While yes, you have been the catalyst of his breakthroughs, he also hasn't had any motivation to really change himself but with these revelations, he's willing to put in the work and become better."

Well aren't I just the luckiest girl in the world?

"Christian," Flynn began, "Can you please explain why you feel this is the best decision?" Please walk back from this, you do not have to self-sabotage, he internally pleaded, wishing his patient would just get out of his own way and not try to control every situation.

Glaring at his therapist, he ground his teeth and swallowed the lump lodged in his throat. "This is the right course of action. Anastasia has waited for so long and deserves better, I don't want her to wait till my issues are resolved when they already feel insurmountable to me at times. This is my final decision. I will be there for Belle and fulfill my role and duties as her father, the kind she deserves and no less."

Flynn shook his head, this man was too stubborn for his own good. It would be impossible to get him to reason right now. He had dealt with this version of Christian many times before and this was his fear talking, undoubtedly.

"So tell me, what do I get this time? A special exhibition in the Christian Grey Hall of Fame for getting duped twice?" She sneered, turning to face Christian again. "I told you in the very beginning that I only wanted you to be Belle's father but you kept pushing and steamrolling me in an attempt to get close to me. You put me through the fucking wringer, promising me you wouldn't leave, begging me to give you a chance and now here we are but you know what… I'm going to give you what you didn't give me. I'm going to respect your decision for Belle's sake."

She scoffed. "I guess in a way you did end up keeping one promise. I asked you to talk to me before you left and here you are, two and half years later. So thank you Christian. Thank you for finally keeping your promise."

Christian ran his hands through his hair and tried to search for his next words. She was using his first name now and it felt alien hearing it from her mouth.

"If there is nothing else to talk about then can we call it a night?" Ana said. "I am tired and would like to be alone."

Dr. Flynn and Christian exchanged a look and got up, Christian walked him to the door and turned back to see Dr. Vassar and Ana head towards the kitchen.

"Ana." He called out, waiting for her to finally face him. "Please don't hate me. I am trying to do the right thing."

"It doesn't matter anymore and I am done. I'll facilitate your bonding with Belle and help as much as I can– so you can see that she is so much more than what she looks like." She said evenly. "Our personal lives beyond that don't require any intersection or discussion."

"Please try to understand that this is what is best and that I will always love––""

"Sure, whatever you say." She cut him off and turned, beckoning Dr. Vassar to follow her into her office for a few minutes.

Ana knocked on the door to Jose's apartment and stormed past him without a greeting when he opened it, zeroing in on Alice who was seated on the couch with a glass of wine watching reruns of Law & Order SVU.

"Why didn't you tell me about the dinner with Chris before we flew out to LA?" she asked, turning off the TV.

Alice and Jose shared a loaded glance. Great, cat's out of the bag.

"Annie–" Jose began.

"Don't Annie me. You should've told me the minute this shit happened." She glared at him, raising her voice.

"He wanted to tell you himself." Jose replied. "He wanted to know about the girl's birth and everything you went through since it was hard for you to talk about it."

"Fine, I get that but Alice, we talked about this. I told you to let it go, that I believed him and now he–" Her voice broke and she finally sat down on the couch and began to sob. "He treated me like trash back then and now he admits to it. He kept his security from looking into me. He lied to everyone. I was just a piece of trash to him."

She told them that he broke up with her and his trouble bonding with Belle over the resemblance with his birth mother.

"Ana, when I said that shit, I sincerely hoped he'd prove me wrong. I was just angry because we saw how bad it was for you. I hoped he'd get his shit together and be there for the both of you in the way he's supposed to. Not this." Alice said, kneeling before her and holding her hands. "I know how much you love him and it's scary sometimes. I didn't want him to take advantage of you again. I swear, I hoped I was wrong for your sake. I wished to be wrong so badly, I swear."

"He doesn't love me Alice. He says he does but I think I was just some idea to him. Maybe everything was just too much in the end."

"He loves you even if what he did tonight doesn't make any fucking sense to me and in some way he loves Bellie too, even if it's because she's half of you. It's a starting point, not all is lost." Jose tried to lift her spirits as hard as it was.

"Jose, what if she continues to look like his birth mom as she grows older? When she rebels against him, what if he hurts her out of anger? What if I'm not here to protect her? I can't… I-I.." She began to hyperventilate at the thought. Imagining Belle going through a physical beating like she had over the years in foster care. The punishments, threats, the hunger; bile rose in her thought and made her heave from the onslaught of emotion and fear.

"He won't Ana." Jose replied with conviction and held her close to his chest as she cried.

"How c-can you say that? After what your own parents did to you?" She hiccuped. "And all the shit they did to us. We were just children." Images of everything they went through flashed through her mind again.

"Because, we're stronger. We won't let anything bad happen to her. She is not alone, you are not alone." He replied with a heavy voice. "We know what to look for, we will not drop the ball especially now that we know what's at stake. And Belle's look can very well change as she grows up. Who knows she may end up looking like you?"

"I can't lose Belle, she's all I have." Ana shook her head. "When will it stop being so difficult?"

Truth is, Jose was just as concerned as Ana, along with Alice but this wasn't at all what they thought would have happened tonight. Why pull her back in only to ice her out?

"He won't hurt her that way, Ana. There are eyes on him now. It's not just us. You don't think his family won't step in? His siblings and grandparents especially? Fuck, I think Mia might string him up and gut him if he ever made Belle cry by mistake."

Ana didn't respond but just stared at nothing in particular as she sat back up.

"I was supposed to be the fucked up one with all the problems. I dreamed of him, loved him—put him on a fucking pedestal. I know I said I didn't regret anything but now I do." She cried.

"Don't say that Ana, you wouldn't have Belle or Spencer." Alice squeezed her hands while Jose rubbed her shoulder.

"But they deserved so much better Alice. They don't deserve any of this. She didn't deserve to die." Ana closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands. "I'm such a fool. I believed him again. Every woman he has slept with has ended up a throwaway. Why would I be any different?" She laughed, wiping her eyes.

"Would you rather him stay with you and this become a bigger problem down the line?" Jose asked.

"I would have rather have him fucking learned from his years of therapy." She muttered. "His biggest life breakthroughs have been at the expense of the complete devastation of my heart."

"Maybe he needs time to figure this out?" Alice offered. "You said he's trying to be selfless. Judging by how dealt with the whole Jack thing, that's a huge statement coming from him. Maybe it's his way to really work on himself to try and deserve you? "

"The only thing he knows how to do is crush people and take away their choices, Alice." Ana said brokenly. "And now I have to act like everything is just like it was before and help him bond with his child so that she can be more than what she looks like to him. I have to play house and act like it's all alright in front of Belle." Exhaling with a shudder she got up and went to wash her face and get herself a glass of water.

"This wasn't supposed to happen." Alice looked up Jose. "How does breaking up with her make any of the shit he pulled okay? Selfless? Fucking bullshit. All that fucking talk, telling us he was going to do whatever it took to be in their lives and never leave them again?"

Jose shook his head in defeat, clenching his fists. He was pissed as hell. "I don't know Alice, I don't fucking know but like I told you before, we're backup. Whatever she says, goes."

Ana walked back into the room and curled into the couch.

"What tattoo did you get this time?" Alice asked, still sitting on the floor. Ana shrugged with a small smile and lifted the sleeve of her hooding to take off the bandage of her wrist. They both leaned over to see it and smiled. "You know, usually they say getting tattoos when you're emotional are a bad idea but I think you're the only person I know who's gotten some solid ones."

Ana scoffed. "I definitely regret two I think… but the emotion and intention behind them was true so I will cherish them. At least I was able to experience that feeling even if it ended up crushing me in the end."

"Annie, I know you're hurting and it will be difficult to act as if all is well but like everything that we have endured, you will come out of this."

Ana nodded giving him a small woeful smile.

Alice lay awake in her bed, it'd been an hour of tossing and turning and her eyes were wide open. She got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen when the open door to the terrace caught her eye. She could see Ana sitting on the chair, curled up into a ball. She'd often sit there in the weeks leading up to the girls' birth when she couldn't sleep at night which was often.

"The edible didn't work?" Alice asked, taking a seat on the empty chair next to Ana.

"I think I'm too wound up." She let out a wry chuckle, shaking her head. For a few minutes, the both stared out into the distance past the apartment buildings in front of them towards the modest skyline of New Jersey. In the distance an ambulance siren blared while the smell of summer carried through the air, just another blooming spring night in New York.

"I swear to you Ana, I didn't think he'd react like this." Alice began, choking on her words. "I was just so angry and pissed at everything that happened. Having to tell him all that shit. I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry. I really thought he'd just get his shit together."

"I know Alice." She looked back at her as her eyes glistened and gave her a tight smile. "I would've done the same for you. Hell, Anabelle would've probably shot him with Prescott's gun." She laughed.

"And I'd help her bury the body. We know Jose would've been bitching about his nails and hair the whole time." She smiled, wiping her eyes. "I hated keeping it from you. Even when shit happened back at Glen Cove."

"I know, it's okay. It's happened now and we gotta move forward, or at least I have to pick myself up and just figure it out."

"You deserve better."

"So do you." She held out her hand for Alice to hold. "You told him about Mark?"

"Not by name but it just felt so… it felt visceral. I know I conflated my feelings but he was the one with power and now we can see, so much power." She said tightly. "I know he didn't rape you but he took advantage of your kindness. Not even a fucking thank you. You deserved so at least that, a chance..."

"Let it go, Alice. It's no use." She replied flatly. "I'm not angry anymore, I'm just done, tired I think. I gave him the journals and I've shared the most intimate and raw moments of myself with someone who couldn't handle it. I guess it's not meant to be and that's okay. I can't keep holding on to someone who keeps letting me go so maybe I should just stop. I'm always going to love him, as much as it hurts it's a truth that I can't deny." She went silent for a few moments and swallowed. "I've been through a lot of hard things, a child should never see, hear or feel. If all that and losing everyone didn't break me then I can't let this break me either. I'd like to believe in the future I will find someone who will really love me and won't let me go, that they'll choose me and stick by me no matter what."

"You will, Ana. Who knows, maybe when things cool down, he'll come to his senses. Maybe once he is on solid ground with Belle and has worked through his issues. I know you love him and–"

"It doesn't matter, like before he gave me no choice in the matter and based on what he's told me and how he's treated his family over the years, he doesn't know how to cherish anyone—he's cavalier. I can't be with someone like that, especially after a second time. Maybe and I hope to God this will be true, that Belle will fare better despite tonight's revelations because she deserves the best and I will do whatever it takes to make sure she gets that and if this fails then..." She shrugged and Alice squeezed her hand for support. "I've failed at a lot of things Alice but I can't fail her."

I failed myself, I failed Anabelle, I failed Spencer… I have to get it right for Belle.

"Tell me, what do you need us to do?

"Going forward, I don't want you to tell him anything personal about me if he asks, though I doubt he will. If it's something medical or behavioral pertaining to Belle, then of course, be as forthcoming as you can but anything that's solely me, is off limits. The child psychologist Sylvia recommended said that it was going to take all of us to show Belle that he is a member of the trusted circle so we're going to put all this shit aside and focus solely on making her see that he is safe. I want you and Jose to try and have a good relationship with him for her sake, please." She pleaded, looking at her with teary eyes. "Belle is the only person that matters."

Alice lips pressed into a hard line. Can I have a good relationship with him after I punch him in the balls for being a dick? "Do you want to eventually include his siblings into that circle?"

"Eventually yes, but right now we need to focus on him. I don't know if I'll ever leave her alone with his family. Mia, I guess at some point, she's responsible enough given she's Ava's godmother and has done so much since she was born but I too, need time with all this. He said he's gonna take time off from his empire to be there. He needs to put in the time himself before roping in his family for reprieve."

Alice nodded slowly. "I guess I should tell Tameka to rescind her rescinded invite. The lesbians need to know you're on the market again. She's gonna curse up a storm at this new turn of events and then throw you a 'Bitches, she's single and really to diddle' party. All aboard the hot pink Hummer limo to Wonderland."

Ana laughed out loud. "God, we need a girls night asap. Just us."

A/N: What would you have done in Ana's situation? She's allowing CG in Belle's life after this revelation, is she wrong or right? I think she's handling as well as she can given the circumstances.

For those of you who do not believe that this happens, you've probably never been through complex family situations. There are people out there who have trouble bonding with their kids because they look like the ex they hate or the parent they can't stand. Hell, even grandparents who prefer one grandchild over another because of who they resemble. And let's not forget, canon CG in Fifty Shades Darker admitted that he whipped and fucked brown haired girls because he wanted to punish his birth mom. Since the beginning of this story it's been established that Belle looks like CG and as of recent that CG looks like his mother. DNA can be a powerful thing–not to mention the similar sounding names.

I don't think CG is a bad guy, for those of you who love him and then call him a villain in the same breath are sure quick to write off and lose faith in your boy. He's just human and he made some mistakes. Now he realizes the power of his inaction over action and these difficult conversations and realizations for him to have. Had he really, truly, learned from therapy instead of not coasting by to just please everyone these past two years, things would be so different. But our boy will find his way!

Anyway, now some fun can begin... you know, with Belle throwing some level 10 tantrums and my personal favorite, learning the song of "WHY? and NO!"

Who misses Master and co? Should I bring them back?

Heavy in your arms - Florence + The Machine