CHRISTIAN

Christian had been going nuts since the emotionally charged conversation he'd had with Ana in his office. He'd really expected to hear from her, to hear that she'd made an appointment with John Flynn, or maybe even that she'd left Kennedy. Something. Anything to show she was getting out and getting help. He was slightly affronted that she wasn't confiding in him, that after opening up to him, first about what her relationship with Kennedy actually entailed, and now about the night he has spent tormenting her. And now? Nothing. Not a word.

The truth was, he wanted to be the one to help her through this. He wanted to be the one she turned to for support. He felt like she needed that in her life, and, selfish as he sometimes felt for worrying about himself in relation to her deep set emotional trauma, he knew he wanted to be the one she turned to. He felt guilt about it late at night, sometimes, when he allowed himself to self-obsess about what place he held and could possibly hold in her life. First and foremost he wanted to get her the help she needed, because he wanted her to be able to lead a happy and healthy life from this point on, but he also could admit to himself, and only himself, that there was something else there. A fire that burned inside of his gut where she was concerned. And once she was able to conquer all the demons in her life, he knew what he really hoped for was the chance to explore that newfound happiness with her. He wanted her to be a part of his life, and vice versa. He knew that, reasonably, all of that was such a long way off, but he couldn't help but try and grasp onto it.

If only she would call.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thoughts that seemed to plague him almost constantly. She would call. She had a lot going on, and she would call when she was ready. After the other day when he'd learned that Taylor had had the pleasure of smashing his fist against Kennedy's face, Christian had had a long discussion with his CPO about what had led to the event. That was when he'd learned about Taylor's hiring of Luke Sawyer to covertly watch over Ana. He'd actually come within an inch of firing the man who had protected him the last 6 years, as he'd refused to divulge much of what Sawyer had witnessed between them, claiming that it wasn't his information to tell, and that it was stuff that Christian wouldn't want to know anyway. Stuff that would keep him up obsessing late at night. "Trust me sir, you don't want to know. Sawyer has had the displeasure of witnessing a lot of sexual acts between Kennedy and Miss Steele, and you don't want that shit in your head."

Christian's gut roiled again even now at the thought. Obviously some of it was jarring enough to cause the normally stoic Taylor to hit Kennedy in the face. So at the end of the day, Christian agreed to let his CPO make the call that it was something he didn't want in his own head. Plus, any details should come from Ana. He liked that Taylor and Sawyer were there to try and ensure her safety, but if he wanted a future with her, it was best that he not be privy to things she didn't explicitly share with him herself. He'd already crossed a line where her trust was concerned by informing Taylor of her relationship with Kennedy. And she wasn't even aware of Sawyer… He swallowed hard. Ana had gone 6 years without anyone knowing she was with Kennedy. Then she tells Christian, and suddenly two more people know within a week. True, he hadn't hired Sawyer, but it was because he told Taylor that Sawyer was brought into the fold. He could only hope that once Ana found out, she would understand that this was all done with her best interests at heart.

Taking in a determined breath, Christian snapped his attention back to the papers that lay sprawled out across his desk, making a greater effort to submerge himself in work. He'd been trying desperately to outrun the line of thought his brain always seemed to end up at: Ana. And he managed it for about forty minutes or so, until Taylor showed up at his door.

"A moment, sir?"

"Of course," he said, nodding toward the chair in front of his desk while he rapidly finished typing out a response to an email.

"There has been a turn of events of which I believe you would want to be privy."

"Is everything okay with my family, with GEH?" Christian asked, closing his laptop and immediately giving Taylor is undivided attention.

"It's regarding Miss Steele, sir," Taylor said, looking Christian straight in the eye.

Christian fell back in his chair, letting out a long, loud breath. "What it is?" he asked, almost dejectedly, knowing from years of experience with his CPO's body language that Taylor was about to deliver bad news.

"Scott Kennedy returned from his business trip late this evening. He went directly to Miss Steele's apartment, and he's been in there for the last seventy five minutes."

Christian's eyes squeezed shut as his hand immediately yanked through his hair. "Goddamnit," he muttered, slamming his fists down on the desk. "God fucking damnit!" Abruptly, he stood, his chair shooting back and bouncing off the floorlength glass window behind him. "Why? Why is it that every fucking time-" he cut himself off, Then before he gave himself any time to think about it, he was rounding his desk. "I'm going to her apartment."

"Sir…" Taylor tried to cut in, but Christian was a man on a mission.

"Now Taylor," he spat, traversing his office in a few strides, diverting to his room to quickly throw on some jeans, a t-shirt and the first pair of running shoes he saw.

Taylor was already waiting by the elevator door, car keys in hand when Christian was done.

"I've got this, Taylor," he said holding out his hand for the keys.

"Sorry, sir. But I cannot allow that," he said, adding an additional, "Sir," when he saw the fire flickering in his boss' gaze.

Christian grunted, but nodded as the elevator doors slid silently open and both men stepped into the car. The tension was permeating the small space, and continued to do so in the SUV once they were out of the Escala parking garage and on their way to imminent confrontation.

Christian was seething, his muscles tight and loose at the same time, aching to be used in some sort of forceful action. He could feel the adrenaline running through his veins, and he wasn't sure he'd ever been this overwhelmed with pure frustration before. His brain wasn't evening thinking coherent thoughts at the moment, it was all just a jumbled mess of total vexation. He didn't once consider what this could do to his and Ana's relationship, if he showed up and confronted Kennedy about all of this in her apartment. All he knew was that he was told that Kennedy was in there with her, and he was going to do whatever he needed to get him out.

His heart thrummed wildly in his chest, his jaw and his fists tightening and loosening over and over as he primed his body for a confrontation. He hadn't had this type of physical desire to fight since he was a teenager, before therapy helped him sort out all of his touch issues and frustrations. But everything he'd learned in therapy was out the window right now. Right now he was dying to give in to the itch, the impulse to fight.

As soon as Taylor pulled into her parking lot, the back door shot open and Christian's body hurled out of the vehicle.

But he was stopped short by someone calling his name.

"Mr Grey!"

He turned, looking around, realizing it was coming from a person stepping out of another black Audi SUV. "Mr. Grey," the man said again, but now Taylor was standing next to him.

"That's Luke Sawyer, sir," Taylor informed him.

"Mr. Kennedy just left about five minutes ago, sir," Luke informed Christian.

Christian felt his body scream with displeasure at the fact that it wouldn't get to exert itself physically. He was so fucking ready, needing this like he'd never needed a fight before.

And what that translated to, what could be fulfilled, was his need for a confrontation.

And so, without stopping to consider what he was doing, he took off for Ana's apartment. He heard Taylor calling for him, trying to urge him not to reconsider, but he didn't listen, leaving him behind in the parking lot while he went to confront Ana.

He skipped the elevator, too impatient to wait, taking the stairs two at a time.

He knocked on her door, loudly and aggressively, the sting of his knuckles rapping on the hard wood a welcome feeling to his over anxious hands. He gave little time between bouts of knocks, impatient for Ana to open the door.

After what felt like forever, the door opened in front of him, revealing Ana. A disheveled, mussed up Ana, blinking back sleep and confusion. He cringed, already knowing exactly why she looked the way she did, and it only served to further heighten the already astronomic amounts of tension coursing through his mind and body.

"Mr. Grey," she replied, uneasily, tugging at her robe over her chest to pull it tighter against her skin. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk, Ana," he said, pushing past her and walking into her apartment without invitation.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Mr. Grey. I think you should leave," she said meekly, her voice wavering slightly with uncertainty.

"Have you called John Flynn?" he asked, looking around her apartment, not sure what he was looking for, but looking nonetheless.

"I haven't," she said, not looking him in the eye.

"If you're having trouble getting an appointment, I could call for you. I know he'll take you right away if I tell him-"

"I'm not having trouble getting an appointment, Mr. Grey. I just have decided not to call." Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He run his fingers through his hair, grabbing handfuls and tugging painfully.

"Why?" he asked, his tone dark.

Ana took in a deep breath, and he watched her straighten up, taking on a look of confidence as she raised her chin and said, "Scott and I sat down and had a discussion about what happened. We resolved the issue."

"How? How did you resolve the fact that he choked you?"

She winced.

In the back of his mind he heard the first warning bells that he needed to stop what he was doing, that this wasn't going to help anything, but he dismissed them as the anger rolled back around to the forefront of his thoughts.

"Go on. Tell me. Tell me how you resolved the fact that he fucking choked you Anastasia. I'll all fucking ears," he said, his tone bleeding condescension and derision.

He saw her eyes narrow at him as he sat down on her couch, resting back, placing his right ankle on his left knee and sweeping his arms out in a grandiose display, like he was giving her the floor.

And she took it, with a gentle dignity. "I was honest with him about what I was feeling and he helped explain what happened from his perspective. He wasn't trying to be malicious that night. And I didn't use my safewords, so he really had no way of knowing I was uncomfortable with what was happening. He helped me realize what I was really feeling."

Christian let out a scoffing laugh, immediately jumping up from his position on the couch, not looking at her as he shouted, pacing, throwing his hands around in exaggerated movements. "He helped you realize what you were really feeling. He helped you realize what you were really feeling. Wow. Just… wow. Ana. Are you being intentionally obtuse? Because I can't believe you're being so naive about this. He manipulated you into feeling what he wanted you to feel. That's what he did. He doesn't allow you to have your own fucking feelings. He tells you what to see, think, feel, do, and you do without hesitation. He owns you. You are his little toy. His little marionette to pull the strings on as he pleases so he can watch you dance and bend to his will."

But as soon as he finished his diatribe, he felt his mood shifting from anger to angst, from frustration to concern, from irritation to desperation. His tone shifted with it, the volume of his voice lowering, the aggressive edge gone.

This poor girl was so lost.

He looked up at her, finding her completely drawn into herself. Her eyes were empty, staring straight ahead, straight through him, and it felt like a punch to the gut. Her arms were crossed at her waist, hugging herself, her face void of any emotion.

Shit.

"Ana," he went to her, reaching to touch her arms, but she drew them more tightly around herself, so he froze and instead attempted to plead his case more gently. "Ana, he will say anything to you to get you to stay under his thumb, don't you see that? He's lying to you. Your best bet is not honesty with him, it's honestly with yourself and with a therapist- someone who has your best interests at heart! Talking to him won't help you see clearly. It will only allow him to cloud your judgement further and find new ways to warp what you're thinking. Your initial reaction was distrust, that you felt unsafe. Those are your true feelings. Don't let him take them away from you."

But she said nothing, just continued to stare past him.

"Ana…" he tried, desperate to backpedal and reverse the damage he'd caused, but he could tell she had completely shut down on him. And he knew it was all his fault.

"I would like you to leave, Mr. Grey," she said, her tone soft and flat.

"Ana, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have- I just wanted to-"

"I think you've done and said enough, Mr. Grey." He tried desperately to identify any hurt in her tone, anything that showed she was just in self-preservation mode, something he could feed off of and use as an excuse to stick around and try and pull her back out. But he found nothing. Only coldness, emptiness. And it slice through him. "Go," she said with such finality he felt sick.

But still, he listened, ambling slowly toward the door, looking back at her. But she gave him nothing.

He was reeling as he aimlessly trekked back to the car. He saw Taylor and Sawyer still standing next to each other, talking, but both stopped as he approached. Taylor gave him a curious look, which Christian ignored as he walked right past them and went straight to the back seat of the idling Audi.

Taylor took his seat behind the wheel, knowing better than to ask questions, or even talk at all. He just kept his eyes on the road as he began the drive back to Escala, and Christian sat silently in the backseat, replaying the disastrous chain of events over and over in his head.

How could he have allowed himself to fuck things up so badly?

He'd told himself that he needed to give her time, to be patient and allow her to work through these things at her own pace, and even then, hopefully, with a professional. But knowing Kennedy was at her place had sent him him a frenzy. And now he was paying the cost of flying off the handle about it. Now he would suffer the repercussions of not remaining calm and pushing her too hard.

His gut ate away at itself in the backseat of the SUV as he traveled through the streets of Seattle. He was worried that he'd blown his chance at helping her escape from this situation, that she would be dragged back down by Kennedy and never get out. He should have known from the start that her newfound hesitance might not be strong enough to break her free, that she would need continuous encouragement over these last days to keep her on the right path. He should have gently urged her to call Flynn, kept on her about getting out. Her not contacting him was a red flag in itself. He should have followed up sooner, when he would have had a chance, and when he could have been calmer.

So what now? Should he walk away? But how could he? How could he leave her to the wolves when he knew she has no one else to help her? What kind of person would that make him? No matter how hard it was to watch her turn back to Kennedy over and over again, he knew that the truth was, if he didn't help her, who would?