A/N: Thank you for the reviews on the previous chapter.

My exams are finally over, now just waiting for the results.

I got a PM asking about Ray knowing about Elena's lifestyle, so he should by association know about Christian's. Well, that will be coming in Chapter 26 when Pappa Bear make it clear that he is not as clueless as Christian would have hoped.

I'm still toying with ideas to continue Eight months, although I'm tempted to change it to complete now that everyone found closure.

I don't own any of the characters, they belong to the talented E. L. James.

Christian POV:

"I'm not paying you to sit and stare at me John." I tell him. It took half an hour to tell him the events of the last four days since I last saw him and then an hour to tell him the events of last night. His responses, which I completely ignored, were between 'I see' and 'you're shitting me'. That was what I expected from Elliot, not from my highly paid psychiatrist.

"Can you blame me for being stunned? I mean… that is…" and he finally settles on, "you've been busy." Yes, that's why I started this conversation with "A lot has happened, John". "Christian, Anastasia is right. You are overwhelmed and will feel like that for a while since you've never allowed yourself to feel all these different emotions. I've been telling you that Ella is the root cause of your problems for years, but it seems that a five foot screaming woman at two in the morning is what was needed for you to listen. To answer your question, I never thought that it was perverse of you to select woman that looks like your mother to… be intimate with. I also don't think that you beat them, or were intimate with any of them, thinking of her. The brunette thing, in my opinion, is simply a preference. Some men prefer blonds, some men prefer men. It's just how people are. If you were fixated on your mother, you would have chosen woman who resembled her exactly. You would have chosen woman with the same eye colour, same height and the same build. You simply chose brunettes with a nice body. That's more of a type preference to me than a fixation on a person. I've had a patient before that was fixated on one of his exes and he would even go as far as to colour a woman's hair and make her wear coloured contact lenses when she had the same build as his ex. That's fixation. I can't comment on the other ladies, but I saw the picture of your mother and Ana looks nothing like her. She has striking blue eyes and Ella had your eyes. The only similarity is the long brown hair. Do you know how many women in the world has long brown hair? If you think about it, the main, normal colours are brown, blond, red and black.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your problems are not as a result of what she did to you or allowed to be done to you. I'm simply saying that I think Ana is wrong in that she thinks that you had your mother in mind when you were intimate with any of the woman. You did beat those woman because you could not beat your mother, but again, I don't think you did it because you thought of them as your mother. You punished them because you could not punish your mother, but it was because of something they did wrong. Punishment to you is control. If you inflict pain, they won't repeat whatever they did to make you angry. You liked it because of the high power and control gives you, but also because you are the one inflicting the pain and not the one being punished. If this makes sense to you at all." John says and I simply nod. All this is just too much and I would rather have chosen to not have this conversation for at least a couple of days.

"I thought she would leave me. You should have seen her, John. She was screaming and pacing and crying. Fuck, she was actually kind of scary. Looking at her you would not think that she can get that angry, but believe me when I tell you that there is a tigress underneath that adorable kitten look." Hot as hell, but scary non-the-less.

"Can you blame her? This is her first relationship and in a short period of five days, you sent a lot of shit her way. A woman can take a lot, but eventually they all explode." He says. When he sits forward, I shift to get comfortable as that is usually the sign that you should pay attention and possibly even take notes, "She saw you naked with another woman, and you also happened to be naked, in your hotel room."

"I was not naked," I defend, crossing my arms, my five year old self coming out to play again.

"Sorry, not naked, wearing a towel… well, come to think of it, since Leila tugged on it, Ana didn't actually see you wearing a towel, she saw you covering yourself with a towel." Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me?

"Remind me again why I'm paying you three hundred dollars a fucking hour?"

"Because it's Sunday and to clear up misunderstanding in your life," he says while waving his hand dismissively, "So, to continue with my little list of what Ana went through at your hand, intentionally or not. She was under the impression that you cheated on her. You didn't go after her. You made her feel inadequate. You broke her heart. Sounds like she had a little breakdown, unaware that you were listening in. Through all this, the very person that caused this, kept on attempting to get her to talk to him. Then, when she finally finds it in her heart to forgive you, you drop this unbelievably big bomb on her, something you should have done with a calm professional in the room to control the situation. Then you tell her you love her and finishing off the rollercoaster ride which is your life, with asking her to move in with you because…" he sits back with a hand in the air, "get this, you are going to marry her soon. All this, to a woman you've met less than a month ago. Oh, and don't get me started on what she went through the rest of the month." I think my mouth is hanging open.

"What the fuck, John? You're supposed to be helping me fix the wrongs in my life, not point them out and fucking enjoying it too." I tell him, a bit louder than I meant to.

"Relax, Christian. I'm simply trying to make you realize that a breakdown was to be expected. The problem here is empathy. You are unable to put yourself in her shoes… shit what am I saying? You are unable to put yourself in anyone else's shoes. Luckily for you, you picked a very remarkable woman." Yes I did. Picking her and keeping her is two different things though.

The soft knock on the door stops the conversation and we both turn our heads towards the door to see Ana walking in with coffee and biscuits, just what we need. John first insisted that I make him coffee for pulling him out of bed early on a Sunday morning, but when I started to tell him about last night, he told me to forget about the coffee and rather start at the beginning. I'm starting to think he finds enjoyment in the chaos of my life.

"Hello John, good to see you." She says to John and then place the tray on the table in front of us before turning to me. "Morning, sorry to disturb, but I thought you guys would like something to drink." She says and I get up.

"Hello, baby." I say and kiss her gently on the lips. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you. Although you could have woken me up a bit sooner. It was a shock to see the time when I woke up. But I will go and give you some privacy. Lunch is almost ready. Would you be joining us, John?"

"Thank you, I think I will. I told my wife to go visit with her sister just in case this took longer than I thought. I might as well have lunch before I go." And I hope that time will not be included in my bill.

"Great, see you guys in a bit." She waves and turns towards the door. I naturally follow her until she is out of the room. Okay, my eyes might have been locked on her perfect ass in that tight fitting jeans, but I'm a man and she is mine.

When the door close behind her, I'm smiling like an idiot again.

"It's good to see you happy and in love Christian. But still, please don't jump into things too quickly. You have to crawl…" he starts and I finish for him.

"… before you can walk. I know, but I've crawled for twenty eight years, John, this is me walking." And I'm already gearing up for a sprint, but that's none of his business.

"What did she say about the whole Elena thing? You haven't said anything about that and Ana being Ana, I can't imagine her taking that bit of news too well."

"We didn't get to that part yet." I distract myself with sipping on the coffee my Ana prepared for me.

"How could you not tell her that? That is a big part of your life. In fact, that is probably the biggest part as far as I'm concerned. You can't keep this from her, Christian. If she finds out, and she will find out, both you and Elena might end up in hospital and not in my office."

"I know. I wanted to, but when I told her there's more, she asked me to give her a couple of days to recover from the stress of the last couple of days first. She said she couldn't handle more shit right now. Like the coward I seem to be around her, I happily took that as a reprieve and kept my mouth shut." But I know that I have to get that over with sooner rather than later.

"Christian, she has become friends with Elena. I don't think that this is a break in confidence, but Elena told me that the only person that knows her past is Ana. It won't take long for her to figure this out for herself and then… well, I wouldn't want to be either of you."

"Speaking of which, how is Elena doing? I haven't seen her since last weekend and she looked like she was reliving old ghosts." I would know, I relive enough of that myself. "Apart from a text this week saying 'fix this, Christian', she didn't even make contact with me after the hotel incident."

"She's doing great. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be treating her, but she is trying. I think I understand her a bit better now, but both of you should have rather have received treatment instead of doing what you did. That being said, I'm sure she will be just fine. It will take some time, but she will get there. She's nothing if not determined."

Ana POV:

After a very relaxing lunch, I get onto the couch with a book while Christian catches up on some work. Turns out, he was also unable to focus this past week and I know how much he has to get through in a day. Really, he only have himself to blame. All of that pain could have been avoided if he wasn't such a coward and didn't have such little faith in me, or us. For such a clever man he sure is dumb as fuck when it comes to relationships.

"Christian, now that I think about it, I saw some of my clothes in your closet earlier and..."

"Our closet and its all of your clothes." He says, not taking his eyes of his laptop, but I can see the twitch in the corner of his mouth.

"Right, all of my clothes. I thought that we, well… don't you think that you should have discussed it with me before you had it brought over?" I ask, trying for light and casual.

"I did, last night." He answers, now looking at me and giving me his full attention.

"Yes, we discussed me moving in, but I thought the discussion regarding the timeline and the actual move was still an ongoing discussion." I say carefully, the last thing I want is a fight.

"Nope, nothing left to discuss. I asked you this morning if I could send Taylor and Sawyer over to get your things, and you said yes. The rest will be delivered tomorrow afternoon." He says while I try to figure out exactly when that particular conversation took place.

"When you say that you asked me this morning, does that mean the sun was up?" I ask and he smiles.

"Yes, it was just after eight."

"I see, and was I fully awake?"

"No, you said you didn't want to get up yet. I asked if I can get your things moved in and you said, and I quote, 'yes, sure, whatever you want'. Therefore, I did discuss it with you in advance, just like we agreed. The fact that you were not fully awake is not my fault. You really should get to bed earlier, baby." He says as if it's my fault I went to bed late… or early.

"Thank you for your consideration of my feelings on the matter before you arranged it. Can we amend the agreement of discussions before action to include that the other person must be fully awake at the time of the discussion?" I ask and his smile disappears.

"You are taking away all my fun, you know that? Speaking of mornings, I love waking up next to you. The first couple of minutes when you just start to wake up is usually when you let your guard down."

"It would appear so, but don't worry, I'll make it up to you." I say, batting my eyelashes and biting my lip for extra effect.

"And I can't wait to see how." He says, wiggling his eyebrows and… wait just a minute…first couple of minutes?

"What do you mean the first couple of minutes when I wake up?" Oh please don't let it be something embarrassing.

"Just that. I like the way you speak your mind, unaware that you're doing it. I should record it for you."

"And what do I say during that time?"

"Some of my favourites were that you like sleeping next to me and that you never want to leave." At least it's the truth.

"Surely you know that."

"It was still nice to hear." When he puts his laptop down and turn to face me, I get that twist in my stomach again. This can't be good. "We still have some things to talk about, baby." And just like that, my mood drops along with the temperature in the room.

"Christian, I honestly don't think I can stomach anymore Christian Grey history this weekend. We have to go to your parents' house in a while and I would prefer to go there in a good mood. Maya and Jackson will be stopping by shortly and honestly… I'm just not in the mood for more complications and tension at the moment. Can we leave it for a couple of days at least? Please?" I beg. At this moment I will do almost anything to avoid a repeat of this morning and somehow, I have this feeling that at the end of the discussion, I will either be either severely pissed or depressed. I'm just not willing to go there right now. "We've both had a horrible week and this morning was more than enough tension to last us for a very long time. It's been such a nice day, let's just enjoy the rest of it."

"Okay, we can leave it for now, but Ana, at some point in the very near future, we have to finish the discussion. The worst is over, but I don't want secrets. No more secrets." He says and then he gets that look when the wheels start to turn in his head. "Come to think of it, there is something I would like to ask you."

"Ask away. I, for one, don't keep secrets as it's just prolonging the inevitable and a waste of energy. Ray used to say that a secret will only remain a secret if only two people know it… and one is dead." I try to lighten the mood, but I was not really prepared for his question.

"There is a scar at the bottom of you back." And then I turn white as a ghost. He must have been paying really, really close attention to my back to see what is left of the scar. "Ana, are you okay?" he asks, moving closer to me. "Baby, you are scaring me. What happened that's got you so worked up now?"

"I… I don't want to talk about it." I say softly and the words full disclosure keeps repeating in my head. It should work both ways, but this is different, isn't it?

"Now you really have me worried, baby. Please, tell me how you got the scar. It doesn't look bad and I only saw it because of how the light fell on your back, but it's not somewhere a person would normally have a scar. Shins, arms, hands… sure, but lo…wer…back…" And then his eyes grow wide and the blood drains from his face. "Ana, did someone beat you?" He asks horrified and apart from lying to his face, I don't see a way out so I nod slowly. It is not somewhere a person would normally get hurt, but he must have seen scars there with his previous subs. It's however not something anyone who knows about it talks about, least of all me. "Who? Tell me who beat you, Ana." This is one pissed off Christian Grey in front of me, but shit, this is my secret. I only have one. Surely I'm entitled to one secret. "I don't want secrets. No more secrets." His words spoken minutes ago comes back to me.

"It was long ago. Please just leave it." I tell him, but this is Christian Grey. He never let sleeping dogs lie.

"I will find out, Ana, but I would much rather hear it from you." He warns and I believe him. If he digs hard enough, he will find out. I move away a bit and put the book down.

"When my father died, my mother married Ray. Unfortunately, she is the type that falls in love quickly and out of love even quicker. She left Ray and married Stephen Morton. At first he was kind and caring, but then he started to change barely a month into their marriage. When she was around, he was rude and annoyed with my presence, but when she was not around, he was just plain mean. One day my mother was out with some friends. He started to complain that I was a nuisance and should go back to Ray's. That he shouldn't be sitting at home watching over a disobedient teenager. I got upset and went to my room to start packing my clothes. When he came into my room and saw the suitcase on the bed, he left and came back with a cane from the living room that my mother kept as decoration. He held me down on the bed and started beating me, but some of the blows hit my lower back. I could feel the warm blood after the forth blow and screamed for someone to help me and he stopped. When my mother came home, she was horrified to find me lying on my bed with blood staining my clothes." I stop and wipe away the tears, but stop him when he tries to hold me. "She called Ray and he was there in a couple of hours. He beat the crap out of Stephen and then took me back home. My mother stayed to pack her things and file for divorce. Ray withdrew all of his investments and even sold his boat in order to pay for me to get treated by one of the best plastic surgeons. It was a friend of one of his army buddies and it was done off the books to keep it from appearing on my medical records. He did a great job and there was only a small scar left. Ray naturally blamed my mother and refused to let me go to her for a visit again. If she wanted to see me, she had to come to me, which she did as often as she could afford it. She soon married Bob and they seem to be happy. He's a good guy, but until about a year ago, Ray would still not let me visit them on my own. That's why I wanted to be a social worker, to help children who don't have a Ray to stand up for them." I finish and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. "That's also why I'm opposed to any form of punishment. I honestly don't see how some people would want that." I can see that he is hanging on by a string and start to pray that the string won't break. Not today. Luckily, being the loving man that he is, he changes the subject away from Stephen Morton.

"I for one can tell you that they want it mostly because the pain of the beating takes away a much bigger pain that you can't seem to escape. Some forms of pain haunts you and the beating takes your mind of it. Other times you feel like you deserve it. But, I'm sorry that had to happen to you. You didn't deserve it." I can see the wheels turning again, but I just don't care about Stephen and I also don't want to know what is going on in his head right now, not that he will tell me anyway.

"Sir, Maya and Jackson are on their way up." Taylor announces and then leaves to meet them. Taylor actually started to relax a bit and not be so formal all the time, even though he still struggled with it around Christian. Bad discussion forgotten, we get up to meet the first guest in our home.

"I love you, baby." He says as we walk towards the front door.

I kiss him on the cheek, happy and in love, "I love you too. See, it gets easier every time."

"Holy cow, this place is awesome. I can't believe you will be living here." Maya says, walking past us to look around. Jackson on the other hand, walks in quietly and shakes Christian's hand before he gives me a hug, totally oblivious to the narrowed eyes pinned to his back.

"Hello guys. Good to see you again, especially since Ana looks like herself again." He says, clearly still a bit bitter on my behalf over what happened last week.

"Good to see you too. Ana, why don't you show Maya around and I will get us something to drink."

"Behave," I whisper in his ear and leave the two to do what boys do.

Maya is halfway down the hall when I eventually catch up with her.

"Want a tour?" I ask, taking her hand and dragging her through the apartment. Instead of asking or even commenting on the apartment, she takes this time to fish for details.

"Don't hold out on me, Ana. Two days ago I got home and found you drunk… and singing, not a good combination for anyone, and now you are all smiles and happiness with the man that caused all the heartache last week. And let's not forget that you moved in with him." She says, keeping her voice down.

"I love him, he loves me, all is good in the world again." I tell her as we enter the library, my favourite room in the apartment. We sit down on the sofa and I tell her briefly about the good things that happened yesterday and Christian's love confession. She is quiet for once, listening to every word I say.

"I'm very happy for you, Ana. Some people don't find real love in their lifetime and you found it with someone who really loves you back. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't believe me or even listen to me. On Wednesday he went ballistic, but you didn't hear it from me." She says, but now she has me curious. On Wednesday she tried to talk to me, but the moment she said Christian's name, I refused to listen.

"It's your turn not to hold out on me. Come on, what happened?" She looks at the closed door and sits closer to me.

"Okay, but you keep your mouth shut. I don't want to lose my job."

"Yes, yes, I promise."

"On Wednesday there were some articles in gossip columns and Christian called the entire PR team to the boardroom. Believe me when I tell you that you have never seen him that pissed off and annoyed."

"I called you here to find out what my PR team is doing to stop this bullshit in the media at the moment." He started and his tone and bad temper got everyone's attention.

"Mr. Grey, we haven't really given much attention to them since…" Sam started, but she kept quiet when Christian looked like he was about to kill someone.

"You didn't think that this deserved the attention of my PR team? The team who gets paid to handle shit like this? Let's see," Taylor handed him his iPad and even he was not happy. "Anastasia Steele probably found out that Christian Grey was gay after all. Grey probably told the hopeful Steele that he only wanted to be friends. Steele caught new boyfriend with another woman. The money was not worth the effort. Grey probably saw Steele for the gold digger she is and ended things." He then threw the iPad on the table and I swear, I thought it broke.

"Now, tell me again why it didn't deserve the fucking attention I pay you to give to shit like this." He went off on Sam, but she was clever enough to just keep quiet.

"Someone give me something. If I wanted to handle this myself, I wouldn't have an entire fucking PR team on my payroll."

"Mr. Grey," I said as I wasn't about to let my best friend's name be dragged through the mud, especially knowing what I knew at the time.

"Yes, Maya," This had everyone looking at me like I had a death wish.

"I was thinking we could release a statement to somehow explain the photo? Something like Ms. Steele receiving bad news about a friend and rushed home to deal with it." I suggested and he calmed down enough to sit down.

"Okay, that would explain the photo and could just work. Would you run with it and give it to me for approval?" he asked and then Sam objected.

"Mr. Grey, I don't think that anyone would believe that statement given by not only one of Ms. Steele's best friends, but also her roommate. Maybe…"

"Excuse me, but that is exactly why they would believe it. As her roommate and best friend, as you pointed out, I should know what happened." I said, not liking her tone at all.

"If we knew what happened…'' Sam started and I lift my, fully prepared to take the nosy bitch down.

"What happened is none of your business. How to fix this however, is." I overstepped and knew it immediately, but shit, she will not stick her nose into private affairs that has absolutely nothing to do with her.

"Do not tell me how to do my job. A job you just started in. We work for Mr. Grey, not Anastasia Steele." She spit back, pure hatred in her eyes. And by saying that and also saying your name like that… well let's just say she was on the shit list.

"Stop." A single word came from Christian, shutting up the hushed conversation around us, rubbing his temples, way past irritation and exhaustion. Clearly he hadn't been getting much sleep. "Firstly, working for me means working for Ms. Steele. I agree with Maya, the media will believe it coming from her. Well, get to work, I don't care what they say about me, but I want this bullshit about Ms. Steele to stop immediately. You are all excused, except for Maya and Sam."

"Let me tell you, I was scared to be asked to stay behind. Turns out that he picked up the tension between Sam and me. He decided to move me up to his floor to handle PR for his charity work and also all PR relating to his personal life. This way, we won't have to work together and some pressure is taken away from the PR team to concentrate on matters regarding GEH."

"You didn't tell me that. It's wonderful news. And thank you for standing up for me." I tell her just as the door opens.

"I thought we might find you in here. Care to join us on the balcony for a drink before we have to leave?" Christian asks, handing me a glass of water and Jackson hands Maya a glass of wine.

"We have some news of our own." Jackson says as we sit down on the balcony.

"Do share," I tell them and they look at each other.

"We have decided to get our own apartment. My dad is less than thrilled with me at the moment, and he does nothing to even try and hide it. So we thought, why not? We love each other and are in a committed relationship, so we might as well take the next step." Jackson says, taking Maya's hand in his.

"Congratulations." Christian says, smiling at me. "So, which one of you is giving Kate the good news?"

"Oh crap, Kate is coming back to an empty apartment." I say, already imagining Kate's response.

"Please, she will love the extra closet space." Maya says, brushing off my concern.

"As if she isn't already thinking about moving into the other Grey penthouse. Those two are madly in love and Kate is not the type to say goodbye to Elliot every night. Believe me, she will not be sleeping alone." Jackson says and we all laugh. I will have to talk to Kate and very soon.

"Maya, do you happen to have the latest news with you? With everything today, I didn't have a chance to look at the latest Grey-Steele gossip." Christian asks and Maya reach into her oversized handbag to pull out her iPad, already saved on the webpage, knowing he would ask.

Seattle's own golden couple

After arriving at the Copy Together Gala alone, Mr. Christian Grey was seen leaving the gala with non-other than Ms. Anastasia Steele.

With the rumours about the couple breaking up now nothing but a distant memory, the couple enjoyed the night. As a rare treat, the media got pictures of the couple dancing. A dance that cost Mr. Grey a whooping hundred thousand dollars. The highest bid ever recorded in the First dance auction at the annual Coping Together Gala and also the first time Mr. Grey participated.

It was confirmed this morning by his personal PR manager that the couple is indeed in a loving and committed relationship.

The article goes on about current deals Christian is working on and my new job starting tomorrow, but Christian gives the iPad back to Maya with a shit eating grin.

"Good. We are officially a couple and everyone in Seattle knows it. Sawyer better do his job and keep you safe." Christian says, earning himself a glare from me.

A/N: Please review, another update soon.