Title: Lean On Me

Fandom: Fifty Shades Trilogy

Summary:

Christian has his work cut out for him after the incident in the playroom with Ana. He not only has to prove himself to Ana, but he has to get through her big brother, in order to get to her. Along the way, he realizes that BDSM is not the life he wants. For the first time in his life, Christian wants more, but only with Ana.

Tags: Christian Grey/Anastasia Steele...

Carrick Grey, Grace Trevelyan-Grey, Elliot Grey, Mia Grey, Christian Grey, Ray Steele, Jack Hyde Steele, Anastasia Steele, Katherine Kavanagh, Jose Rodriguez (Fifty Shades of Grey), Jason Taylor (Fifty Shades of Grey), Gail Jones, & Luke Sawyer

Protective Jack Hyde, Protective Ray Steele, Ana's Support System, NO BDSM, Steele & Hyde Publishing Houses

Chapter One: The Realization

It took every bit of self-control for Christian not to go running after the woman he loved when she walked away from him after the belt incident the previous night. It wasn't the first time he used a belt on a submissive, but it was the first time it made him sick at the thought of hurting a woman. Not just any woman, but the woman he loved and adored more than anything in the world. Ana wasn't a submissive, yet Christian tried to turn her into one. Hell, he was turning into Elena, and it was going to stop if it meant getting Ana back.

As he thought about Elena, he could finally see where Ana was coming from because as he thought about a teenage Ana in his position in Elena's dungeon, it made him enraged at the thought of Ana being taken advantage of as a child. He was going to find some way to make that bitch pay for what she did to him, and as he continued to think, he doubted that he had been the only young boy that Elena had taken advantage of.

Hell, it was due to that bitch that he cut emotional ties with his family because for years she has been telling Christian that his family couldn't possibly understand him or what he had gone through during his early childhood with his birth mother. He often wondered why his mother didn't protect him, and the only conclusion he came up with was she was battling her own demons, and couldn't take care of him like she was supposed to. Elena often reinforced that his mother couldn't have loved him enough to protect and love him because there was something personally wrong with him.

Elena was the one who always talked him out of going back to Detroit and finding answers. Grace was the one who encouraged Christian to confront his past because it was the only way he was going to be able to move past his pain. But Elena always found a way to stop him. It was maddening and it was going to change.

Not wanting to give that bitch anymore thought, Christian couldn't help but think back over the few weeks he had with Ana, Christian was sickened at how he remembered how he stalked her and did a background check on her, and every little thing he did to gather intel on her. What kind of person, let alone a man, stalked a woman he was interested in? Not a healthy one, that was more than clear. He vowed to do better for both himself and Ana. The first step was looking up the best therapist in the Seattle area because he knew Flynn was only after the money he could make from Christian. Christian himself was actually going to work through his issues, and actually listen to the therapist and his parents on what he needed to become whole.

He didn't want Ana to love a broken man. He needed her to love all of him, and in order for her to do that, he needed to become more than a shell of a man. Ana deserved better than that, and he was finally starting to realize that he also deserved it. But before he can be the man Ana deserves, he was going back to where his life started. He needed answers and closure. But Christian did not yet realize that he would have his work cut out for him in trying to get into Ana's life when he comes face to face with her father, and her big brother, both retired marines, and both out for his blood when they discover that the most precious woman in their lives was heartbroken.

Ray Steele and Jack Hyde Steele are forces to be reckoned with where Ana was concerned. There was nothing they wouldn't do for her. They have always been protective of her but after what her ex-boyfriend tried to do to her in high school, it got a hundred times worse. Hell, that sonofabitch was never heard from again and no one knows what happened to him and no one was brave enough to ask.

The only reason why Christian didn't find out about Ray and Jack was that they were on assignment, their backgrounds were classified and Welsh was not going to prison for hacking into the military database not even it meant that he got fired. Welsh crossed lines often for his boss, and he wasn't proud of it, but he would never hack into military records, as he himself was a retired Marine, and he wasn't going to betray his brothers in arms. When he found out Ana was the daughter of the Major he worked under, Welsh wanted to kill his boss. Ana was the daughter of a marine, and that made her family.

Welsh watched that little girl grow up, and he and his brothers were protective of her more than anyone else due to some past trauma Ana had endured. If Grey wanted another chance with Ana, it wasn't just her father and brother he now had to watch out for, it was her uncles, and the entire Marine base. You don't hurt a marine's child and come out unscathed.

Christian would get the surprise of his life when he encounters Ana's family. Even more so, when he discovers that Ana never needed anyone to protect her because she was a trained master in all forms of martial arts, and she knew how to shoot. Hell, she carried a gun in her purse and had one in her car. Ana had only let him think he had the littlest control over her because if she had wanted to, she could have easily had him on his ass before he could blink. But she wanted to trust him, so she gave him a chance, but it turns out, that was a mistake. One she wouldn't make again unless she knew he had changed.

Until then, Anastasia Steele wanted nothing to do with Christian Grey.