I wake up from yet another nightmare about Gideon and find that Christian is still fast asleep beside me. I kiss him softly and lay my head back on his chest and attempt to go back to sleep, to no avail.

I decide to get up and go drink some more wine and hope it puts me back to sleep. I go to the family room and I drink a few glasses of wine before going back to bed. Christian is still asleep so I cuddle up into his side and lay my head on his chest and drift back off to sleep.

I wake up in the morning and roll back over towards my husband to find him staring at me. I smile at him. "How long have you been staring at me, Mr. Grey?"

He grins. "A while now. You are so beautiful, even in your sleep."

"I forgive you for the things that you said to me, but we need to figure out what to do about Mia? I no longer trust her around the children."

"Ana, first of all, thank you for your forgiveness, however, I will prove to you everything that I said was untrue. Mia got in my head and I was upset by the whole situation. About Mia, she's my sister. Liam and Teddy are her nephews and Phoebe is her niece. We can't just cut her out of their lives."

I scoff and sit up. "Are you fucking kidding me?! She took the kids ACROSS the country with the intention of GIVING THEM to Gideon fucking Cross. How are you even saying that? I don't want her around them and that is final. I will stay home from family dinners WITH the kids if necessary, but they will NOT be around her."

"Ana… Be reasonable." I stand up and get out of the bed without saying another word and walk into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. He cannot be fucking serious! I strip out of my clothes after turning on the water and I stand under the hot stream of water and start crying again. The next thing I know there are arms wrapping around my waist. I take his hands off of me and turn around and look up into his eyes.

"Christian, let me ask you this. If it had been Ethan that took the kids to Gideon Cross's penthouse in New York, how would you feel about that? Would you still allow him to be around the children?"

"Fuck no! But Ana, that is different. He isn't related to either of us."

"Stop right there! Are you saying that only relatives are ALLOWED to kidnap our children? That's fucking ridiculous!" I push past him and get out of the shower without even getting clean. I dry off and leave the restroom. He doesn't even attempt to stop me.

I put clothes on and go in search of our children. I find them playing in their toy room. "Hey, guys. Do you want to go out back and play?"

"YES!!" Liam shouts. I giggle at his excitement.

"Well, let's go then." I pick up Teddy and we all go out into the back meadow. We spend time on the playground and the kids get to ride on Peter. Christian doesn't even come out. We spend the entire day, with the exception of meals, playing out in the meadow. Christian isn't seen all day. I am too mad at him to care right now.

Whenever it's bedtime, I put the kids down and Liam and Phoebe want to know why Daddy isn't here and I just tell them that he had to go to work. Maybe he really did or maybe he is out there brooding somewhere. I go back downstairs once they are all 3 tucked in and fetch some wine and drink on the couch in the family room. After a couple of glasses, I go up to our bedroom and change into a nightie and cuddle up with my husband's pillow and cry myself to sleep because he doesn't want to acknowledge that what Mia did was wrong.

When I wake up in the morning, there is no sign of Christian yet. I spend the day editing manuscripts and spending time with the children. It's a good day, but I miss my husband. I won't go looking for him because he needs to figure this out for himself. If he's not back tomorrow, I'm taking the kids to spend a few days with my dad.

Once the kids are in bed, I follow the same routine as the night before.

Whenever I get up in the morning band my husband still isn't home, I decide to take the kids to visit dad. Maybe I should talk to him about all of this. He always knows all the right words to say to help me through whatever I'm going through. I pack us up enough to last a couple of days and Gibson takes us to my dad's home in Montesano.

Whenever we arrive, I get the kids out and Liam and Phoebe run right up to the door. I bring Teddy up and my dad looks surprised but happy to see us. "What brings you wonderful people here today?"

I put on a smile. "We just wanted to visit you. I NEEDED to visit you. I could use some advice after the kids are down tonight."

He wraps his arms around Teddy and I. "Anything for you, Annie."

When we get inside, I put Teddy down and he practically runs to play with his brother and sister. I go and cook us lunch and we all spend the day together.

We put the kids to bed in my room and I'm going to sleep on the couch tonight. Once the kids are down, Dad grabs us both a beer and sits next to me on the couch. "So, what's going on, Annie?"

"Well, it all started the day of the birthday party…" I tell him about everything with Gideon, aside from the sex. He doesn't want to know that. I tell him about Mia taking the kids to Gideon's penthouse and why she took them there. I tell him about what Christian said to me whenever he was drunk on whiskey. Lastly, I tell him about our fight regarding letting Mia be around the kids and how I haven't seen him in nearly 3 days. He held me as I cried throughout reliving all of this in my head.

"Wow. Well, Annie, I cannot tell you what to do, but can I make a suggestion?"

I look up at him. "Yes."

"Give Christian the time and space to work this over in his head. You just focus on yourself and the kids and if he comes back, I hope you can work it out. If he doesn't, I will be here for you no matter what. You know that. You just have to decide if this fight is worth losing your marriage."

"I can't have her around the kids after what she did and all of the cruel things that she said about me. I just can't. If Christian doesn't want to work through this, I will be just fine without him. I love him to death and don't want to lose him, but he needs to see this shit for what it is. I don't care if she's family. What she's done is unforgiveable and if it were anyone else, Christian would've had them thrown in jail. That's where I believe Mia should be after this shit, but he just doesn't see it that way. If it's a divorce he wants, I'll gladly give it to him but I will NOT give up the children without putting up the fight of my life. They are my everything."

"That sounds like a plan. You may want to still see a therapist regarding the whole traumatic ordeal. Maybe he can give you more sound advice because he's a professional."

I nod. "I'll go next week. I have an appointment Tuesday."

"Great. Now, enough of this heavy shit. Let's get drunk."

I giggle. "That sounds wonderful, Daddy."

We drink our beers and have casual conversation. We drink a lot until we're both really feeling it and he leaves me on the couch and covers me up before going to bed himself. Thanks to the alcohol, it's pretty easy for me to fall asleep.

We stay at my dad's until Monday evening and then we have Gibson take us back home. I still hadn't heard anything from my husband. I have my phone with me so he has no excuse. I'm going to see Flynn tomorrow so that's the only reason I'm going home now. We have enjoyed living a simple, uncomplicated life for the past 6 days out here. It was just like whenever I was just a teenager and I'm glad that I got to share the experience with my own children.

Whenever we arrive home, it's past the kids' bedtime to I put them all to bed and go straight to bed myself. I will take a bath in the morning.

Whenever I get to our room, I find my husband in our bed. I sigh and take a deep breath before going into the closet and changing into my nightie. It's no telling where his head is or if he's been drinking tonight so I'm not going to touch him. I crawl under the blankets on my side of the bed and roll over facing away from him. I drift off to sleep pretty quickly. I wake up in the morning and roll over to find my husband staring at me again with an unreadable expression on his face. "Hi, stranger." I say.

"Hi. Where have you been all week?" he asks me.

I furrow my brow. "You tell me where you've been and I will tell you."

He sighs and looks away. "I've been at the penthouse thinking and working."

"I've been at Daddy's house. I was starting to think you didn't plan to come home."

"I could say the same about you." He replies.

"So, did you figure anything out while you were thinking?" I ask curiously.

He rolls back over to face me and puts his hand gently on the side of my face and I watch him wondering if he's going to ask for a divorce or say that he finally came to his senses about Mia. "I did. I thought about everything that you've said about Mia not being in the kids' lives and thinking about the things that she did and said to and about us." I nod. "I love you and our family more than anyone and anything else in my life, Ana."

"I love you more than anything or anyone in my life as well, Christian. Why do I get the feeling that there's a but coming?" He gives me a sad smile and my stomach drops. I don't like where this is going.

"BUT, I think it would be best if we get a divorce." I gasp and suddenly I can't breathe and the tears begin to fall. I can't hear anything else coming out of his mouth right now. He wraps his arm around me and rubs my back and I finally regain my ability to breathe, but my sobs cannot be stopped.

"Marriage counseling?" I ask between sobs.

"I don't think that will help us at this point. I think we need time to find ourselves again without each other. We sort of just drowned in each other from the moment that we got back together."

"Christian… what about the kids?"

"We can arrange visitations for me. We will work it out."

"I don't like this, Christian."

"Honestly, I don't either. I don't WANT to lose you, but at this point, we need to separate. Does a legal separation sound more appealing to you? That way, if we end up finding our ways back to one another, we don't have to go through all the legal junk to be us again."

I've prepared for this fucking conversation since he first asked me for a divorce in New York. I know what I need to do. No matter how much I don't want to. I pull back from the hug and look into his eyes. I put my hand on his cheek, silent tears still flowing down my cheeks. "A divorce would probably be best. If you don't want to be with me now, there's no sense in delaying the inevitable. I stand by the fact that I don't want Mia around the kids though."

Silent tears start to run from his eyes as well. "Okay, then. I don't want you to ever EVER forget how much I love you, Ana. I will ALWAYS love you. I won't be with anyone else like I have been with you. I can never love anyone the way I love you. I will stay at the penthouse and you can keep the houses both here and in New York. I will also pay alimony and child support."

"Christian, I don't want your fucking money. How many times do I have to tell you that? I just want GP and the 2 houses. That's all I want or need. I have money saved up. We will be fine."

"Fine. Child support, I will NOT back down on, though. It's for our children."

I roll my eyes and sigh in exasperation. "Fine." I give him a sweet, lingering kiss on his lips. I hate that this will probably be the last time that this will ever happen. "I will ALWAYS love you as well, Christian. Please take care of yourself. I've got to go have breakfast because I have an appointment with Flynn."

He nods, silent tears still falling and I roll out of bed and go into my closet and pick out clothes to wear. I lay my dress and bra and panties out on the bed where Christian is still laying with his face in his hands. I go to the bathroom and run myself a bath. Once I'm done in the tub, I get out and wipe away my tears while drying off and I vow to remain strong for our children. They're going to need me to be strong through this.

Once I'm dry, I go back into the bedroom to discover that Christian is gone. I hold back my tears and get dressed for the day. I go downstairs and have breakfast with the kids. Once we're done, I let them know that I have an appointment, but that I will be back right afterwards.

At my appointment with Flynn, I filled him in on everything that has happened in the last 2 weeks and about the divorce. He agrees that it's probably for the best right now, but expresses that he hopes we work it out eventually. Me, too, Flynn. Me, too.

Over the last 2 months, we had a difficult divorce only at one point. Christian changed his mind again and insisted that I take alimony. I begrudgingly accepted because I didn't want to keep dragging this on. I've only seen or heard from Christian with our lawyers present. After we signed divorce papers, I took off my wedding and engagement rings with tears in my eyes and I put them into Christian's palm and closed his fingers around them while looking into his eyes. We both immediately started to cry silent tears at that point. I quickly turned around and left the room. That was one of the hardest things that I've ever done.

Our divorce was finalized 2 weeks ago. I sat the children down and informed them that Daddy was going to be living somewhere else, but that he loves them very much and they will be able to visit with him. We cried together and I held them close. Things have started to slowly get better and they cheered up significantly whenever I used my alimony and bought them another pony.