A/N: Thank you for following my story
Yes, the talk. Didn't have time to properly edit so I hope there is not too many mistakes.
Important: I do not own the Fifty Shades Trilogy or the characters. They belong to the very talented E.L. James.
Christian POV:
As I open my mouth to start my sordid little tale, I get an idea and grab the remote to put on a song. Ana sits quietly next to me, probably a ball of nerves, waiting for the bomb she know is coming. When I find the right song, I play it softly throughout the great room.
Oh oh oh, there's a place that I know
It's not pretty there and few have ever gone
If I show it to you now
Will it make you run away?
Or will you stay
Even if it hurts
Even if I try to push you out
Will you return?
And remind me who I really am
Please remind me who I really am
Everybody's got a dark side
Do you love me?
Can you love mine?
Nobody's a picture perfect
But we're worth it
You know that we're worth it
Will you love me?
Even with my dark side?
Like a diamond
From black dust
It's hard to know
What can become
If you give up
So don't give up on me
Please remind me who I really am
Everybody's got a dark side
Do you love me?
Can you love mine?
Nobody's a picture perfect
But we're worth it
You know that we're worth it
Will you love me?
Even with my dark side?
Don't run away
Don't run away
Just tell me that you will stay
Promise me you will stay
Don't run away
Don't run away
Just promise me you will stay
Promise me you will stay
Will you love me? ohh
Everybody's got a dark side
Do you love me?
Can you love mine?
Nobody's a picture perfect
But we're worth it
You know that we're worth it
Will you love me?
Even with my dark side?
Don't run away
Don't run away
Don't run away
Promise you'll stay
"It's a nice song, but you don't do anything 'just because', so if the song was meant to calm me down, it didn't work. If anything, I'm scared. I told myself that I will try to remember that whatever you tell me is part of your past, but honestly, I'm scared that I won't be able to see beyond what you have to tell me." She's not the only one. I pull away and turn to face her.
"Ana, that is just it. What I have to tell you is my past, but it also formed who I am now and yes, it is difficult to simply turn my back on it, but it's worth it if I get to keep you. You know me, the real me. You're the only one except for Taylor that know and understand me. Please, baby, don't run."
"Maybe you should just start to get this over with. Start with the woman from Monday night." She has a point, dragging this out is only making it harder on both of us. I sit back and put an arm around her shoulder to keep her close to me.
"Her name is Leila. Leila Williams. She was my sub a while ago." I want to stop when I feel her stiffen in my arms, but decide to just push through and get this behind us. "Things were fine at first, but then she started to get to comfortable in my apartment and in my life. I don't like anyone being in my personal space… with the exception of you. When I sat her down to discuss it with her, she told me that she fell in love with me. I immediately ended the contract and asked her to leave after explaining to her that I said, from the beginning, that there will never be anything more than a sub-dom relationship. I just wasn't interested in anything more. She went on with her life, got married, broke up with her husband and met someone else. We found out recently that he died in a tragic car accident couple of weeks ago. This must have been too much for her and she started to… well, stalk me, for lack of a better word. She got into Escala and went through my things. She left some of her things in my bedroom, where the subs were never allowed to enter. The problem is that she knows the apartment well and knew how to avoid detection. Taylor increased security because Welch was unable to track her down. When she left the article with a picture of the two of us on the windscreen of my R8, John warned me that she was getting more unstable and that I should increase security around you. She changed her name to Ms. Christianson and got the assistant manager at the hotel to make an appointment with me. He gave her an access card to the penthouse. She let herself in while I was in the shower, wishing you were there with me. When I came out of the bedroom with the towel wrapped around me to get my phone in order to cancel the appointment, I saw her and told her to get out. I wanted to throw her out myself when she didn't move and that's when she tugged on the towel at the same time that you and Taylor walked in." I tell her, proud of her that she didn't stop me once to ask a question.
"But you didn't come after me. That somehow hurt much more than the fact that I thought you betrayed me," she says softly, the hurt of that damn day still in her voice.
"Ana, I wanted you from the moment I saw you. That want, quickly turned into need. Somewhere in between, I started to care about you. With that care, came the knowledge that one day, I will hurt you. I told you a couple of times that when everything was out in the open, you would get hurt and leave. I guess I waited for that day. Granted, it came a hell of a lot sooner than I thought and not by anything I did wrong." I reach for my glass and take a sip of water, my throat suddenly feeling dry. "It took five seconds for your face to go from smiling to so much pain that I froze. That look, Ana, is one that I never want to see again. Even in my frozen state, I just knew that if I go after you that eventually, I will cause that much pain again and I couldn't. I genuinely thought that it was better to let you go and not be responsible for hurting you again."
"Yes, I can see your reasoning, hurt me in order to not hurt me again." She says, pulling away from me a bit, and we haven't even gotten to the worst part.
"I know it was stupid and believe me, I've even heard it a couple of times this week. I can't tell you how unbelievably sorry I am that you got hurt in this mess." One that's not over yet since we again have no fucking idea where Leila is.
"Did you want me because I look like her?" And there it is... the worst of it. How do you tell the most important person in your life that you are sick and perverted? With a sigh, I get up and go to my office, retrieving the fifteen files I kept of my previous subs.
When I get back to the great room, Ana pulled her legs up, hugging it with both arms and staring at the fire. Her hair a mess after our love making and the fire illuminating the room. I truly hope that we will survive through this night. I sit down next to her and put the stack of files in front of her on the floor.
"What's this?" she asks, pointing to the files.
"My previous subs."
"You have a file for each of the woman that subbed for you?" She sounds horrified.
"I don't get involved with anyone without doing my homework first, Ana. It is for my protection and trust me, I need it." I explain and she shrugs.
"Clearly your homework does not include psychiatric evaluations or mental health checks." She says bitterly, but it makes me smile nonetheless.
She opens the first file, looks at the photo, which is on top of all background information, closes it again and puts it to one side, not bothering to read any of the information below the picture. When she gets to the eighth file, she pushes the entire stack away from her like its on fire with wide eyes. She's clever, I don't think it will take much more for her to put two and two together, so I wait anxiously for the penny to drop.
When she gets up and starts pacing, something I've never seen her do before, I prepare myself for one hell of a fallout. Holding my breath and praying for divine intervention to calm her down, I wait for her to stop. When she eventually does, after fifteen agonising minutes, she turns to look at me, a hand on each hip and she does not look happy.
"Who is she?" She asks and I try to remember the name of the file she stopped at, coming up empty.
"Uh… I'm not quite sure." I say, reaching for the top file.
"Not the sub, the woman they all look like. Sorry, the woman WE all look like. Who is she?" This Ana is damn scary.
"My… birth… mother." I say softly and quickly, hoping she didn't hear but not wanting to ever repeat it again. It took years for me to figure it out and when I finally did, it just pissed me off more. The thought that her actions still haunted and affected me when I was a grown up, successful businessman. Clearly, this was not the answer she was expecting and judging by her expression, she is trying to put everything together… and succeeding.
"You punished these woman because of what she did to you? Because she was a lousy mother? Because she neglected you and allowed her pimp to abuse you? You took your anger out on them?" She practically screams, pacing again and I just had to pick this moment to lose my ability to speak. "You wanted to do the same to me, didn't you? You didn't want me because I was attractive, or smart or anything. You wanted me because you wanted to punish me for what she did to you. This wasn't about me at all, was it? From the start your attraction to me was based on your hatred for the woman who gave birth to you. I simply fit the picture in your head you have of her." I look up, not sure if there is anything I can say to make this better. I mean, what the fuck do I say to that? If I'm completely honest to myself, digging down to motives and what was behind them, what drove me, she's right. I can defend myself when I'm innocent, but I refuse to make excuses for something that I know I did and I even knew that it was wrong when I did it. "Tell me something, you obviously thought of her when you beat the crap out of those women," she says, pointing to the files, but the tone in her voice tells me that it would be better if I just keep my mouth shut, mainly because I'm unsure of where she is going with this, "did you think of her as you fucked them too?" And then my heart stops and I blink twice to make sure this is not a horrible dream. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out, the tears running down her cheeks stopping the words before they could escape. "More importantly, do you think of her when you fuck me?" Oh God, please just let this stop.
I imagined the worse for this conversation, ran over every possible scenario, but nothing I imagined, even comes close to what is happing in this room right now. I watch, defeated and helpless, tears streaming down my face, how the woman that holds my heart, puts on her dress and takes her shoes in her hands. Her beautiful face ruined by tears of her own.
Think Christian. If she walks out that door right now, she's gone for good. She will never come back.
"Ana, please… stop. Please… don't go. Don't run." I'm sobbing. Christian fucking Grey, master of his universe, is on his knees… sobbing.
"I need to leave. Not run… leave." She says, reaching for her clutch.
"Ana," is all I get out. I swallow and try again, "Ana, please…"
"What do you want me to do, Christian? What the fuck do you want from me?" She screams and I try my best to take control of the situation.
"Don't leave. Just let me…"
"Explain? Explain what? How can you possibly make this better? Do you even realize how completely and utterly fucked up this is?" She screams and sits down on the edge of the couch. "For the life of me, Christian, I can't figure out what you thought my reaction would be. Clearly, this was not what you anticipated. Knowing you, you probably thought of every reaction and then the perfect words to make it all go away. I want to leave… and I want to stay… how fucked up does that make me?" She says, crying softly again. She should not be talking about herself like that.
Shit Christian Grey, pull yourself together and take control before she leaves for good this time.
"Ana,"
"Oh, will you please just stop with the fucking 'Ana'?" She shouts, getting up and walking to stand in front of me. "John should be fucking fired as your therapist as he clearly did not address the root cause of all your problems."
"It's not… it's not that he didn't address it, it's that I didn't want to listen and he… well… he didn't put it quite like that." Hallelujah, my brain and mouth finally connected again. I wipe the tears from my face and get up just as Taylor runs into the room.
"Is everything in order, Sir? We heard screaming and…" He asks, still half asleep, but somewhat alert. When he suddenly stops, Sawyer is not prepared and runs into Taylor from behind, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Who could blame them? It's after two in the morning and I'm sure people could hear Ana in a two mile radius.
"Shit T, sorry." Sawyer apologizes, but Taylor is not looking happy about this at all.
"Yes, Taylor, everything's fine," I say, trying not to laugh at the two trying to get back up and taking advantage of the distraction to pull myself together. Control… that's what this situation needs now.
"Oh yes, Taylor, everything is just peachy." Ana says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Very well, we will leave you to it. See you in the morning, Sir. Ms Steele." And then they are gone and I'm left alone with Ana again. The look in Taylor's eyes might have said "Fix this" but I don't know him well enough to be sure.
"I don't know what to do. I honestly don't know what to do. I don't know what I expected you to tell me, but I sure as hell did not imagine this." Ana says softly, sitting down on the couch again, the one where this whole conversation started. This might work in my favour.
"Please don't leave me," I beg, but she just stares down at her hands.
"Why not? Tell me why not? How can I stay, knowing what I know now? How can I even let you touch me?" I pretend that those words didn't just hurt me, but fuck it sliced right through my dark soul and into my heart. In seconds it becomes crystal clear that it's now or never. Funny how those words never seemed to make as much sense to me as they do right now.
"Because… I love you," I declare with conviction and will her with my eyes to believe me. Pleased with myself that I managed to say it for the first time in my life. But when those words were finally out, I couldn't stop and just kept on saying all the things I want her to know, just in case this is the first and last time. Getting on my knees in front of her and taking her hands in mine, the words spill out of me.
"Every word of that song we danced to tonight, was how my make me feel. You do make me feel strong, but at the same time you make me feel weak. For the first time in my life I have hope. Hope of a normal life. One filled with love, happiness and friendship. A life where I come home from work to look at your beautiful face, the face I want to see before I fall asleep and the first thing I want to see when I wake up. I never wanted that until I got to know you. You made me need you. You made me fall in love with you. You keep the nightmares away. You make me forget about all the fucked up things in my life. You make all the pain somehow disappear. I'm a better man because of you. You set me free, Ana. Don't you see that?" I ask, begging her with my eyes to believe me.
"I'm not them, Christian." She whispers, pointing to the files. "I can never be them." And after everything I just told her, we're right back to that. Pushing my annoyance aside… for now, I go for reassurance. If I say it enough, she has to start believing it, at least I fucking hope so.
"Ana, baby, I don't want them and I don't want you to be them. I don't want you to be anything except yourself. I don't want anyone else. I just want you. I only love you." I say again, sort of hurt that she did not say it back to me, but not blaming her, considering what happened a short while ago. How much can a twenty two year old woman take before she can't take anymore?
"I love you too and that scares the living daylights out of me. I shouldn't love you this much. It can't be normal." Well fuck if that doesn't make me feel a whole lot better, but I hide my triumphant smile for now. I will thoroughly gloat when we've passed this storm.
"It scares me too, but we can be scared together. I've felt what it's like to be without you and I don't want to lose you. I simply can't see myself going back to living without you again. Please, don't leave me. Please stay." I take my hands away from her face and answer the question I should have earlier. "Earlier you wanted to know what I want from you. What I want you to do? Do you still want to know?" I ask her to give myself time to find the right words.
"Yes," she says and I go for gold. She can only say no, but somehow, looking into those beautiful blue eyes, I highly doubt that she will.
"I want you to love me. I want you to take care of me. I want you to need me like you need air to breathe. I want you to make my shitty days better. I want you to surprise me at the office. I want you to be mine. I want you in my bed every night. I want you to move in with me." I say and see her eyes almost pop out of her head. I put my finger on her mouth for my big finale. "In return, I will love you like no man has ever loved a woman. I will take care of you and protect you and keep you safe. I will share my house with you and turn it into a home." I smile and finish big, "Besides, it only seems fair since I'm going to marry you someday." Someday soon, but I will leave that discussion for another time… baby steps... When she smiles, I know I've got this. I'm once again master of my universe and everything in my universe revolves around this tiny woman.
"I think we need to take a step back," she finally says, I'm sure even to her own ears she doesn't sound convincing.
Ana POV:
Holy cow! What the fuck just happened? Where the hell did this all come from?
My inner goddess is straightening her Vera Wang wedding gown and preparing to walk down the aisle while my voice of reason stretches out in gym gear in preparation to tackle her to the ground.
Oh. Come. Oooon. Like you didn't fantasize about becoming Mrs. Christian Grey?
While I'm debating with myself, shocked by his words, Christian is sitting at my feet, hopeful for a future together. Okay, Ana, you can do this. One step at a time.
"Christian, after everything said here tonight…" I start, but he interrupts me with that smile that should come with a warning label.
"Well, you were actually screaming baby," he points out, earning a glare. When he puts a finger over his mouth, I swallow and try to remember where I decided to start.
"You want me to love you? Done, I already do. Shocking, I know, but you are so easy to love, I don't know why you don't see that. You want me to take care of you? Well, you will have to let me and I will. I already need you, this week proved that. I want to make your shitty days better. I want to be yours and I want you to be mine too." I stop and take a deep breath. Okay, here's the big one. "As for me moving in with you, maybe it's best if we don't do that right now." Shockingly, he smiles, a devastatingly beautiful smile. Oh my, well, that was just… wow!
"Yes, that would probably be best. It's almost three in the morning. I was more thinking about tomorrow than right now." He says smugly.
"Christian," I start to argue, but he hold up his hand.
"Do you want to be with me? Really be with me?"
"Yes." My answer came quickly, barely a whisper.
"Good, then it's settled. We can arrange the move in the morning." And I guess it is. Seems that Kate will come back to find one less roommate. I'm way too tired to get into another argument with him right now. He is always poised and ready for a fight and this constant arguing is new to me, not to mention exhausting.
"Christian, do you mind if we don't talk anymore tonight? I'm really tired and just want to get some sleep." I say and he gets up. If you think about it, how much more can there be that he needs to share with me? There can definitely not be anything worse.
When he picks me up bridal style, I laugh and put my arms around his neck. In his, sorry, our room, he puts me on my feet then walks to his drawers. He takes out a t-shirt and then takes off my dress, again. Dressed in only his shirt and panties, he helps me into bed. With a kiss to my head, he turns around and walk towards the door.
"Where are you going?" I ask, half asleep already.
"To switch the camera's back on. Thankfully I switched them off when we came in. Sleep baby, I will be back soon." He says and then his gone.
This day was exhausting and damn long. When he said that I would run for the hills when I know the truth about him, I never thought it would be this bad. But I love him and now I know that he loves me too. They don't say 'love conquers all' for no reason. Sure this is a huge thing to conquer, but it is not insurmountable. With that knowledge, I fall asleep.
My peaceful and much needed sleep is disturbed when I wake up at five in the morning to the sound of a piano. At first, I lie there and listen to the peaceful tune, until it turns dark and depressing. It seems it's time for me to step in and save him from whatever depressing thoughts are running through his head at the moment.
I walk towards the piano and the only light in the room is the moon shining through the floor to ceiling windows. He is so distracted that he only notice my presence when I sit down next to him, but he doesn't stop playing. The depressing tune continues and if I don't pull him out of his funk quickly, I might start to get depressed myself. Just as I was about to ask him to change the tune to something a little lighter in order to have a discussion and not a possible suicide, his words came softly.
"I couldn't sleep. You would think that I would fall asleep easily with you next to me, but I couldn't." He says, staring into the dark in front of him.
"You've had an extremely emotional night, Christian, not to mention the stress of the past week. You've avoided showing emotion your entire life. It's to be expected that you would feel overwhelmed." Space, when I'm overwhelmed I always want some space to clear my head. "If you need some space… some time alone…" And then the music stops and my words with it.
"I've told you, I just need you." His eyes are narrowed and his tone tells me it's best to just stay put and change the subject…quickly. Damn talk about intense. From down and depressed to pissed and annoyed in less than three seconds...
"Okay, can you tell me why your music turned so dark and depressing? I woke up to a nice, peaceful melody and then… well, what's bothering you?" I ask and he starts to play again, a different song thankfully.
"At first, I was thinking that we are starting to move into a good place. One without secrets and insecurities. One were we love each other and everything is perfect. You know, like a normal couple?" Then after a snort, which you would not expect from the Christian Grey, "Fuck, like I would know what a normal couple is like, but you know what I mean." I nod and with a small shake of his head, he continues, "Anyway, then it hit me what a huge chance I took tonight. You could have so easily walked out of here and never looked back, I wouldn't have blamed you given the circumstances. But now that I know I love you, I will not survive losing you. What if…" I sigh, too tired to think about what if when we have right now. If you live too much in the future, the present seems to pass you buy and I love life too much to let that happen.
"Stop this. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. What must I do to make you see that? Shit, I'm moving in with you. That should at least count for something." Okay, that was a bit harsher than intended, but I'm exhausted and the lack of sleep is making me bitchy.
"You already left me once and I don't want to feel like that again…EVER." Oh no he did not. The look on my face must have given him an indication that he just said the wrong thing as he looks kind of nervous. Well good, he damn well should be.
"I didn't leave you Christian, you let me leave. Your actions caused the pain. I simply asked for time to think things through when I learned the truth, but your actions put that in motion." Fuck, I don't have strength for another argument.
"I know, but I can't help feeling that you left me." Two exhausted people should not try to have a conversation as shit like this gets said without thinking.
"What did you expect? I throw the naked woman out, dragging her out by her hair then punish you for being in that situation to start with." The fight leaves me when he starts to laugh.
"Baby, you really shouldn't put images like that in my head." Oh yes, the multiple personalities is back in full force.
"Let me take care of you. Come to bed with me." I get up and hold out my hand to him. When he turns to look at me, I see the exhaustion in his face. I make a note to call John during the day as Christian will need to talk to a professional and this is way, waaay, out of my field of expertise.
Without protesting, Christian lets me tug him into bed and then turns to pull me close to him, holding onto me like his life is depending on it.
"I really do love you, Anastasia. Don't ever leave me again." He whispers into my hair. I don't think he is ever going to get over that or accept that his actions caused me to leave.
"I love you too, Christian."
When I finally open my eyes, I glance at the clock and see that it's ten to eleven. Crap, we slept the entire morning. Turning, I see the empty bed. Nope, it's just me that slept until eleven in the morning. Then I smell bacon… and coffee. Nothing gets a girl out of bed like breakfast… well, actually brunch, but who gives a damn. I'm starving.
I get out of bed and force myself to shower, brush my teeth and do my hair and make-up. When I open Christian's closet to look for something to wear, even though it will be far too big, I find all of my clothes in there. How many minions does this man have and do they ever sleep? I should be pissed, but right now, I'm grateful to have something of mine to put on.
"Morning Ms. Steele." Gail greets me as I walk into the kitchen.
"Morning Gail. It's Ana, please. And I thought you were off on weekends, not that I'm complaining." I tell her and sit down at the breakfast bar.
"I hope I'm not overstepping, but well, we sort of figured you would be sleeping in and be hungry when you wake up. Sorry, but you were… well… never mind. It's all behind you now so let's get you fed. Mr. Grey will be a while." Yes, I can just imagine what they must have heard with me behaving like a maniac.
"I'm sorry if I disturbed you last night." I say softly and tug into the plate she puts in front of me.
"Ana, it was refreshing. Things like that don't happen often around here. Usually it's Mr. Grey doing the screaming. But I'm glad you guys sorted it out. You are good for him and you guys are meant to be." She whispers.
"Where is Christian?" No way in hell will I be calling him Mr. Grey in front of his staff.
"Uhm… Jason thought it would be best to ask Dr. Flynn to stop by." She whispers as if it is a secret she is sharing, cleaning up the kitchen and making me a cup of tea. I love the smell of coffee, but the taste is a whole different story.
A/N: Please remember to take a minute to review.
Song: "Dark Side"- Kelly Clarkson