Okay guys... this chapter was fight... wow... I have reworked it a few times and I hope that I made the right decisions... Thank you all for your amazing reviews of the last chapter... I am thrilled that you all loved the song choice...

I am offering up a challenge for you guys in this chapter... CG mentions a song below that his mother used to sing to him. I would love to hear some suggestions based on what you guys have read so far... So please take to the reviews and let me know your thoughts as this song will be a HUGE part of the upcoming chapters...

Once again, you guys keep reviewing they way you have and I will keep writing... Thank you all for this amazing support...

And please follow me on Tumblr perhapsperhapsperhaps50. This week I posted a poem from CG's POV called When You Come. I will also be posting some photos and links to music and the Pinterest page! Tumblr is also a great place to ask me questions and find out when I plan to update... So come on and follow me!

XOXO PPP

Chapter 4:

There is a beauty in sadness and pain. People seldom realize this fact, but it is true. I have tied many a beautiful woman to my bedpost and elicited her pleasure through pain. I myself have been the recipient of such pain, the joy that came with the degradation and abuse. A familiar echo though my soul, reminding me of my past only this pain was of my choosing. I allowed it to happen to me and there was beauty in that, a raw powerful beauty. There was even a strange sort of beauty in my mother's death. The silence that surrounded her in those last seconds and the sense peace that came with it. Her final smiles and words known only to me, her last breath was whispered on my forehead. These moments are ingrained into my memory and haunt me in my dreams. But in my recollection of that final second of her life she never looked more beautiful or more whole even with all her fractures.

Years later in high school we were reading Hamlet and I was never so struck by a passage.

…I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died…

My mother was a flower that baked in the light of the sun but lacked the water for her roots and she withered away. I am quite the opposite, I am the seedless flower whose roots are drenched and clogged by the mud so deeply that it's leaves can't grow without the warmth of the light. Ana is that light.

I have never understood the idea of happiness; it is as foreign to me as the thoughts in Ana's mind as she runs away from me. Happiness is an unknown world of laughter and smiles that seem so unnecessary. I do have one small moment that I remember being truly happy. It's also one of my earliest memories, laughing with my mother in the early morning hours on a cold winter's day. I was nestled under her arm twirling my fingers in her hair. She was singing her morning song and would tickle my sides to wake me up because I was pretending to still be asleep. I can't remember the words to the song only the melody and I often find myself humming it or striking the notes on my piano. I have listened to the radio for ages in the hopes of hearing it again and knowing the words but it has yet to happen and I wonder if it was just a song she made up. I wonder if my musical talents come from her? I wonder if she had dreams that never came to fruition.

In that moment together I remember us being contented, just lying there with sleep in my eyes, the faint smell of cigarettes and strawberry shampoo in my mother hair and the gentle hiss of the radiator keeping the room warm. We were happy my mother and I, but the moment passed when her pimp came barreling through the door, still drunk from the night before, screaming about how there was nothing to eat. The next thing I remember I am being hauled out of the bed by my ankles and my head hitting the floor with a thud. After that it is just a long memory of pain and screaming. All those memories just blur together in my brain, as one long never ending beat down.

I never wanted or craved joy like most humans do, in fact the opposite was true. I actively repelled it. I have turned my eye away from smiling children, family vacations and connections with women. I find my pleasure in immersing myself into my business and risking my life in pursuit of adrenaline. I find my pleasure in fucking brown haired girls with sad lonely eyes and small delicate bodies. I don't know any other way really. It is hard wired into me on the base level of my personality. Seeing what I have seen and knowing what I know I just assumed that joy had no place in my heart or mind but then I saw her standing there in the sun and I knew I was wrong.

I chase after Ana through the garden and into the house. The adrenaline I seek is most certainly pumping though me as I watch her take the stairs two at a time. I feel like if I don't catch her before she reaches the top that she will be lost to me forever and the idea of that is abhorrent to me now. She has been lost to me for so long and I can't imagine ever recovering from seeing her today. And knowing that I have a child makes it so much more real and palpable. I never expected to feel such immediate unmitigated attachment to something so - flawless. Leo is perfection and a light shines out of him. To have your entire place in the world change in a single second and not be phased by it in the least was cathartic. I felt no fear or panic, no sadness or shame, only love and that something that only Ana could have given to me. Because she is the reason that I believe in the existence of my emotional heart, she is the reason why I am the man I am today.

I reach her the moment before her foot hits the landing, taking her hand in mine. I feel it once more, this pull and my soul shudders.

"Please, let me go." She whispers her voice on the edge of breaking. I hear someone call out her name from a distance and my stomach clenches. Her eyes go wide and she looks at me for what I believe to be help. Deep down I know the voice is that of Jose and I am happy to see that she wants to run from him too. I tighten my grip clutching her hand in mine and lead her down the hall way to my childhood room. She follows without resistance and I wrap my arm around her shoulder. She fits against my body as if she was molded and designed to be mine. The room is sparse to say the least but it is large and she looks so small standing there beside me. She pulls her hand out of mine and takes a few steps away from me leaning against the door, her lips pressed together in a hard line.

There is so much that I want to say to her, so many words and thoughts scattering in my mind and they remain tethered to the back of my throat. For the first time in my life I have no words only thoughts and regrets.

"God Ana I have missed you."

"Did you think about me? I mean I can't imagine that you did." She quickly wipes away a tear from her cheek and straightens her shoulders turning to me. She is harnessing her inner-strength and it is a site to behold. She has grown so much, her innocence lost and I am the one who stole it from her in a night I have thought about a million times. I am the reason for all of this. "I was there working at the bar for months and months just waiting for you. I would take extra shifts…Every time the damn door would open for weeks I would feel this jolt of excitement and every time I was disappointed. Then I just started to feel dread. This overwhelming dread and sadness. Like I had lost something so precious. So don't stand there and tell me that you missed me, because you had the means and the opportunity to find me and chose not to. I had no choice. All I could do is wait, and wait and wait."

"I thought about you every damn day." I said dryly, disgusted with myself. Angry that I let me delusions convince me that she moved on unscathed. Her jaw drops and she lets out a sardonic chuckle, full of disbelief.

"I doubt that… Because I thought about you every damn day and let me tell you, if there was even a hint as to where I could have found you I would have. I thought about your sadness and your eyes… I thought about how I felt when you touched my hand for the split second… I thought about how you felt inside of me… And when I held that fucking pregnancy test in my hand I imagined you next to me, sitting there telling me that everything was okay. That you loved me and that we would do this together. I have imagined you everywhere. The day I told my father that I was having a baby; you were there next to me. Every doctor appointment, every kick your hands were on my belly… And the day he was born was the hardest day of my life because you weren't there…When I dropped out of school and moved back to Montesano I knew that there was no hope left. I knew that I would never see you again. "

"Please just let me explain."

"No. NO! There is nothing to explain. Had we not crossed paths here, I never would have seen you again and I would have been fine. I made peace with it. I have moved on with my life…"

"Yes I noticed. You and Jose seem quite contented. I mean MY son calls him papi so…"

"Go to hell." The anger flares up in her eyes and it incites something inside of me.

"Does he believe that Leo is his?"

"You have some nerve; I don't have to justify my choices to you! I can't even believe this is happening right now. I need to go…"

"Damn it Ana, wait."

"Wait! I waited… I waited for weeks and months for you… and you never came. Did you even think of me? Even once… because I thought of you. Everyday. Everyday." Her chest is heaving and her voice is shaking, I reach out to touch her but she pulls away.

"Ana, I am so sorry."

"Sorry, why because you fucked me and never looked back or because I have ruined your day by being here? What are you sorry about? Are you sorry that cried and cried at the end of every shift because I had hope that you would walk through the doors. Every night I would lie to myself and say this is the night that Christian is going to come back for me, but you never did. I was so stupid." She rests her forehead in the palms of her hands as she tries to control her crying by taking a few long deep breaths.

"I thought I was doing the right thing – you were…"

"I was what? What was I? I was just a girl… right. When I found out I was pregnant it all because so real, because I knew I would have to lie for the rest of my life. I would have to lie to my friends and family and my child… How do you tell your father that you fucked a stranger in a bar and got knocked up? You can't. So you create a man and story, you create a lie that sounds like the truth and enough time passes and you start to believe it yourself. But then your son is born and looks like the truth. You hold him in your arms and the truth is looking up at you."

"So he is mine?"

"Are you kidding! Did you look at him? If I would have known I never would have brought him here…never. You mom took to him right way… Here I was thinking I was going to meet Elliott's gay brother Christian… That's the sad part, when they were telling me about you years ago… It was Elliott's successful gay younger brother Christian. I never thought it could have been you. But I had all these hopes that one day I would see you on the street or at the supermarket… And when I was in labor and Kate was far away – Oh my god – she was interviewing you, right…" She starts to laugh through her tears as I process all that she is telling me. Here I was thinking that I was doing the right thing for leaving her be but I could not have been more wrong. I can't form a word and all I am capable of is a nod "Well that's just fucking perfect. I need to go… I need to get my son and go home."

"Ana, please let's just calm down and talk."

"Fuck you, calm down. I don't want to calm down. I have been calm Christian for years. I quit school, moved back home with my dad, I work at bank, I am raising my son. I am the picture of calm. So I don't have to be clam now with the man who fucked me and knocked me up okay." She turns the door knob and opens it slightly. I lunge at her slamming it shut with the flats of both my palms. I have her sandwiched between the door and my body and I never want her far away from me again.

"Stop saying that." I growl harsher then I intended and I can see her recoil a bit in fear.

"Stop saying what!?"

"That I fucked you, I didn't fuck you Ana. You were and will always be the first and only time I have ever made love to a woman." She swallows hard and we are both breathless.

"And you were and have always been the only man I have ever made love to." I can tell she wants to take the words back as quickly as they came. But I am thrilled that they have reached my ears. There have been no others and I wish I could tell her the same thing. Joy, just joy there is nothing bites her lip and breaks her eyes away from mine. I place my hands on either side of her face bring her back to my gaze.

"Jose…"

"He is my friend, Leo's godfather…Jose calls his father Papi and one day Leo started calling him that and I didn't have the heart to stop him."

"And there has been no one else?"

"No, how could there be? How could I? When I had you with me here?" She places wraps her hands around my wrists and pulls both my hands over her heart. "But that was a fantasy and you are not. I love the fantasy but I hate the man." Her voice has turned bitter and she pushes my hands off her chest. This is what I deserve her hate, her anger. She tries to slip past me but I push her back against the door, holding her there by her shoulders. She struggles against me pushing at my waist.

"You can't hate me anymore then I hate myself." I flex my hips in to her and she is pinned, no room for her to move even an inch. "Which is why I stayed away from you day after long day. All the endless nights thinking about you. Trying to forget you. Trying to replace you. All the hours spent trying not to think about you. All the pain and the loss of not hearing your voice and see your face, touching you, tasting you that was my penance. I thought of you every moment of every day." I can't bear it for another moment as I crash her mouth into mine. I have thought of this for a thousand days and the moment is more then I ever expected it to be. I remember every crevice of her mouth, her breath, the moan the seeps out of her throat. I feel whole and at peace. I feel happiness and it is not just a memory. I feel my cock tighten and stretch as it mirrors the activity of my heart. I know one thing to be true – That I love this woman. I have loved her from the very first moment I laid eyes on her and if I had it my way she would never bet out of my sight again. But I never really get what I want.

She pulls her mouth away from mine and slaps me across the face with the full force of her small body behind it. After years of taking beating and training with Claude it is no more than a bee sting. What really hurts is her rejection.

"Don't you ever kiss me again! Ever. Do you think that I am that same stupid naive girl I was three years ago? Do you think that a look or a touch from you could reduce me to fall at your knees? Do you think I would ever allow you to touch me ever again! I never want to see you again… I know that Elliott and Kate's wedding will make that impossible… but that does not change the fact that I hate you. I hate you for leaving me. I hate you for never coming back for me and I hate that you are here today. Now let me go Christian. Let. Me. Go." There is a loud banging on the door and I can feel the vibrations flow through Ana's body into my hands.

"Ana!" I hear a man's voice all out her name and then a woman's voice, maybe Kate. Elliott calls out my name next and I know there is an audience on the other side of the door.

"Christian please let me go…You're hurting me." I release my vie like grip on her shoulders and take a few steps back. Ana opens the door with tears in her eyes. There is a rush of activity around me, Kate and Elliott, my mother and father surrounding me, a million questions being asked. I watch as Ana is wrapped up in Jose's arms and shuffled down the hall way.

"What the fuck Grey?" Kate is right in my face, her eyes blazing fire in full Domme mode. I sit at the edge of my bed and I can't even process all I am feeling. All I know is that Ana is leaving with my son and another man and I can't allow that to happen. I stand quickly and everyone in the room takes a step back.

"Ana… Wait." I lunge towards the door but Elliott and my father hold me back. I fight against them but my mother closes the door and stands in front of me.

"Let her go Christian. I don't know what is going on but let her go. You don't want to upset her son." Fuck. Leo… Leo is all that matters. He is old enough to remember the way that I was. The idea that he would be afraid of me, or damaged by my actions is the emotional equivalent to a tranquilizer. My body immediately relaxes and after a few moments Elliott and my father release the grip.

"Cary, Elliott, Kate… Give me a few minutes alone with my son." I feel my knees start to shake as the adrenaline wears off. I sit back down on the edge of the bed just on the edge of my sanity.

"Mom I don't want to hear it."

"Honestly I don't care what you want… That boy, that beautiful boy of Ana's… He is your son isn't he?" All I can do is nod and watch as the smile spreads across my mother's face.

"When he walked in the house today, my heart stopped. I felt like the clock turned back thirty years and there you were. My little red headed boy…" She sits beside me on the bed and rests her hand on my knee. "You didn't know?"

"No, not until I saw him."

"And Ana?"

"It's a long story but she was a one night stand…"

"I see… That didn't look like a one night stand when you were dancing tonight."

"No, I am sure it did not."

"You love this girl don't you?"

"Yes."

"Well then you need to make this right Christian. I don't know but you make this right."