Disclaimer: All characters belong to EL James

Christian

"Sir, I have looked at Miss Steele's list, these are the things you will need to buy." Gail says as I step into the kitchen.

Ana has agreed that we should have the family dinner at my place. I had no idea she is such a perfectionist, but she called everyone who is invited to ask for their food preferences, what they don't like and if anyone has some kind of food allergy. Once she had all the information she needed, she sent me an e-mail with the menu for tonight and the shopping list with all the ingredients, so I could give it to Gail and ask her to make a list with all the stuff we need to buy.

I told her Gail would buy it, but Ana informed me that that's not how it works and that we would meet at Pike Place Market to buy all the ingredients together. I don't even remember when the last time was I went food shopping, but for some reason, I can't figure out I'm actually excited about it. It just seems so normal to go out to buy food to prepare a meal. Well, Ana is going to cook, since I'm worthless when it comes to cooking, but at least I can help her buy the groceries we need to cook dinner for our family.

To make this experience even more normal, I have asked Sawyer and Taylor to follow us from a distance. No need for us to be constantly reminded that we are not like all the other people who are there to buy food. I would have considered to just tell them to stay at Escala, but that fucker José has decided to embrace his inner creep and is now stalking Ana. My Dad is already trying to get a restraining order against him in place, but so far he hasn't done anything to legally justify it, so I'm not taking any chances, if that fucker even breathes too close to Ana he will wish he was never born.

"Thank you, Gail. I'm heading out now to meet with Anastasia, you can take the rest of the day off." I let her know and leave the apartment after sending Taylor a text to meet me outside. Because it is a rather nice day for it being late October now I decide to walk and arrive outside of Pike Place Market just as Ana does.

She looks amazing her hair is open and falls in soft curls all the way down to her hips, she is wearing a white oversized wool sweater, black leggings and black boots. When I look at her face I can't help but smile. She is perfect, even now without any makeup she looks radiant, but what makes me smile like an idiot is her tiny bump, which even with her sweater is showing.

"Hey, how's my son doing?" I ask as I pull her in for a quick hug. I was never one who liked hugging and actually would go a long way to avoid any form of physical contact other than a handshake if it wasn't in a sexual context, but I know Ana likes it and I have discovered that I enjoy it a lot too.

"He is doing crazy things to me, I woke up at a quarter to six this morning and was craving broccoli with lots of melted cheese. My mom couldn't stop laughing when she found my eating it while drinking a strawberry milkshake." She giggles.

"Well, that sounds like an interesting choice." I chuckle.

"Must be genetic, my Mom told me she was constantly craving custard donuts with hot sauce when she was pregnant with me." Ana continues and for a second I'm a little upset, because I can't ask Ella stuff like that.

"You okay?" Ana asks and I smile.

"Yes, here Gail compiled the shopping list for us."

"Great, oh but please you have to stop me when we have to pass the ice cream stand, I need to watch my sugar intake a little or I might end up giving myself gestational diabetes." She says and I frown.

"It's a special form of diabetes women can get during pregnancy, it usually goes away after the baby is born, but it often results in very heavy babies and can cause many other complications during pregnancy. That's why I really need to keep an eye of my sugar intake, which isn't easy right now, because I'm constantly craving sugary foods." Ana explains and I make a mental note to do more research on it.

"Okay, no sugar for you. Come on, let's go shopping."

I have to say, watching Ana select each item and explaining what she is going to do with it was kind of fun and for most parts we had a lot of fun, even though some people couldn't help but stare at us or even snap pictures with their phones, but Taylor and Sawyer were quick to take care of it.

"I think we have everything, do you want to go to Escala now?" I ask, but she shakes her head.

"There is one more thing I want to do first." She says and to my surprise she takes my hand and leads me out of the market and after walking for about fifteen minutes we stop in front of a baby boutique. Ana looks at me and she looks kind of unsure.

"I never apologized… you know for the way I reacted after I woke up from the coma and that I didn't even give you a chance to explain things to me. I'm really sorry about that… so I thought maybe you like to pick the first outfit for our son." She says and I hug her again.

"It's okay, you don't need to apologize Ana, but with that being said, I would love to pick his first outfit."

"Okay, let's do this."

We enter the store and Ana shows me to the newborn section.

"Are you sure that's going to fit him? I mean look at this, it's tiny." I mutter and hold a onesie up.

"Well, I haven't been around newborns a lot, but I've read that the average newborn baby is about twenty inches long, so this seems fitting."

"That's really tiny… Christ, where are the manly clothes, this stuff has sheep, clouds and hearts on it." I murmur and Ana laughs.

"I don't think they are making flannel shirts or suits for newborns." She giggles and I find a soft blue onesie with white stripes that looks nice and won't humiliate my son.

"I like this one."

"That's cute. Okay, let's take it."

After selecting some more outfits, we leave the store and two things happen at the same time. I see Taylor and Sawyer approaching us and at the same time Ana exclaims: "You have got to be kidding me!"

I follow her gaze and sure enough, there is the fucking photographer snapping pictures of us. It all happens so fucking fast that I don't have the time to stop Ana who runs straight up to him and slaps the camera right out of his hands.

"What is wrong with you, Ana?" Rodriguez hisses at her, but Taylor, Sawyer and I have already reached them and get between them to shield Ana from him.

"Wrong with me? Are you kidding? Why are you stalking us?" She hisses and tries to push herself between Taylor and me to look at the bastard.

"You know what my boss pays for a good photo of him with you?" He says arrogantly.

"You are pathetic, following us around like a creep just to make some cash. I'm telling you one thing, Jose, you will stop following us right now or I'm going to call your Dad, I bet he will be delighted to find out that his son is neglecting his studies to become a paparazzo!" Ana snaps at him and the fucker actually looks nervous.

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Try me!" She hisses, grabs my hand and takes off into the direction of Escala.

"Ana, stop… look at me." I stop, so she has to stop too and when she looks at up at me, I can see that she is fighting back tears.

"Hey, he is not worth your tears, Ana."

"I'm sorry, Christian… I mean, I thought he was my friend and now he has turned into a creepy stalker and you have to deal with this shit too and…"

"It's ok, you didn't ask him to become that way, now, let's not allow that fucker to ruin the day for us, come we have a meal to cook."

Ana

When we arrive at Escala and enter the great room, I notice that something is different and that's when I see the picture frames on the wall and placed on some other spots throughout the room. I step closer to the one on the coffee table and pick it up. It's a picture of Christian, Elliot and Mia when they are kids.

"Autumn told me that I need to remind myself that I have many people in my life who want me happy and love me… something Elena tried to make me believe is not true… I thought putting up some pictures will help me not to forget or let my self-loathing win." Christian says a little sheepishly and continues to show me the other pictures while he tells me the story behind each of the pictures.

Really, it's heart-breaking to see that a man who grew up with such a loving family fell victim to a child molester who alienated him from them and made him believe he is not worthy of their love. It really makes me think about how much of a hold she must have had over him and deep down I feel terrible, because I only now start to understand what I did when I called her to demand she would make him stop trying to win me back.

By doing so, he was, possibly for the first time, trying to break free of this hold and I tried to use it against him. In this moment, I feel disgusted with myself and I just now understand, that I have a huge part in what happened. If I hadn't called her, she wouldn't have gone to his place and things could have ended very differently.

I know I need to tell Christian, he still believes it is all his fault, but now is not the right time, our family will arrive in less than three hours and this is not something we can casually discuss and then forget to enjoy a family dinner. So, I decide to let it go for today. Tomorrow we will have a Skype session with Autumn and I believe that is a better time to confess my part in this entire mess.

Shit, we won't even be in the same room during the session, because Autumn wants us to each be at our apartments for the joint session. She believes with us being in different places it is easier to talk openly and with her not being in the room with us, she also feels it is better for us all to be in separate places for our sessions.

"There is something I need to show you, it's not the real thing, more like a symbol for what I truly want." He says and looks nervously at me as he holds his hand out for me. I take it and I have to say I'm a bit surprised when he leads me up the stairs and stops in front of the playroom.

"It's not what you think, Ana… I just I …"

"Just open the damn door, Christian." I say and we both have to laugh, because it's the exact same thing I said when we were standing in front of this door the first time.

When he opens the door and flicks the lights on I cannot believe what I am seeing, the playroom… it's gone and instead there is a nursery. It's beautiful, all wooden furniture, soft colors and in the middle of the crib is a huge teddy bear.

"Say something, please."

"It's beautiful… have you done this?" I ask, ready to burst into tears just seeing this room.

"Yes, when I found out that you are pregnant, I just needed to do something, something to show you and myself that I can do this. That I can change and be a good father for our child." He says and with that the tears start to fall. I just can't help it, for him to do this and not just hire someone… and more so in here, in a room that meant so much to him it's kind of overwhelming.

"It's amazing." I reply and hug him, still amazed that he doesn't stop me from doing so.

"I'm glad you like it, though it has been pointed out to me that it might not be appropriate for our son to actually sleep in here." He says it make me giggle.

"I guess that's right, but then again he would never know."

"We'll see, so how about we start to cook?"

"We?" I smirk and he grins.

"Well, I won't actually cook, but I'm sure there are some things I can do to help."

True to his word, Christian helped me with the cooking by measuring the ingredients and chopping some of the veggies for me. During the whole time we spend in the kitchen, I couldn't help but think how normal all of this seemed. Just a few months ago, I would have been the one cooking alone, while he would do his thing and even during most of the meals we shared he didn't give me permission to speak, so we rarely had moments like these, where we shared something as simple as cooking a meal together while talking about everything that came to mind.

I guess even though I knew what happened between Christian and Elena, I never fully understood what kind of hold she truly had over him. Now that he is free of her, he has completely changed and it's a joy to see him like this… acting his age for a change and enjoying himself.

Mia is the first to arrive and while I'm checking that everything is going accordingly with our meal she sits down at the breakfast bar and looks at me.

"Your belly is popping out more and more, do you have any weird pregnancy stuff happening to you? Because my friend Eva had a baby five months ago and the pregnancy did crazy things to her." Mia says and I smile.

"Well, I'm craving weird foods sometimes and I have officially turned into a cry baby, honestly, yesterday I watched TV and there was a commercial for fabric softener with a really cute puppy in it and it made me cry… so yeah, it's kind of weird." I confess, but keep the other weird thing that is happening lately to myself. Because for the last week or so, I'm constantly horny. It's really annoying and doesn't make being around Christian again easier on me. I have only talked to Kate about it and she told me to just get it on with Christian, but I told her there is no way I will use him just because I'm so horny I can see straight. It's not that I think that he would turn me down, but he made it clear that he would jump right into a relationship with me in a heartbeat and I was the one who wanted to take things slow, so I cannot and will not basically ask him to fuck me and at the same tell him it won't make us a couple. I might be horny as hell, but I'm not a cold-hearted bitch.

"I know you are not telling something, you reacted the same way at Dr. Greene's." Christian whispers into my ear and I blush.

"Now, I'm really curious." He smirks and thank God for Mia, because she chimes in: "Hey, stop the whispering, it's rude!"

"Sorry, Mia." We both say at the same time and thankfully first his parents and grandparents arrive and then my parents followed by Kate and Elliot, so we can start with dinner.

I'm glad to see that my parents and Christian's family really get along, because this means I don't have to worry about holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving, because I'm sure starting next year we will most likely all celebrate those occasions together, because of the baby.

"Christian, can you help me to get the dessert?" I ask when we have finished the main course. We thought of many different ways to tell them, everything from giving them each a sonogram picture to figure it out themselves to just blurting it out. In the end, we looked up ways to tell the family online and found an idea we really liked. So for dessert, I have baked cupcakes with a flat top and white and blue icing. We have arranged them on a tray and throughout the tray there are some cupcakes with letters on them spelling the words It's a boy!

"Wow, they turned out great, Ana… wait let me take a picture." He says snaps a picture on his phone and carries the tray to the dining table.

We watch as Elliot grabs a cupcake but Kate stops him. "Wait… oh my god, it's a boy!" She gasps.

"It's a cupcake, Kate." Elliot mutters making me giggle.

"No… don't eat it! Look!" Grace says and we watch as they all read the words.

"Oh a little boy, I'm so happy for you, darling." My mom, of course, is already crying before she reaches me and gives me a hug. After her everyone gets in line to hug me and shake Christian's hand, when it's my Dad's turn he looks at both Christian and me.

"You know, there is still time to do the right thing and get married before my grandson is born."

"Daddy!" I gasp.

"Just saying Annie." He shrugs.

"Don't worry, Mr. Steele, I fully intend to marry your daughter when she is ready to take that step." Christian says and I gape at him.

"Don't look at me like that, I told you I want us to be a family and call me old-fashioned, but to me a family means the parents are married." He says and I don't know what to say to that, but to my own surprise, I find myself imagining how it would be to be his wife… and I like the idea.

"One step at a time… so don't get your jet ready to take us to Vegas yet." I grin and grab a cupcake.

I have to say, that this has been a really nice evening, sadly I know that tomorrow is going to be a much more difficult day, because tomorrow I will have to tell Christian that I had a part in what took place the night Elena tried to murder me.