Hello readers! I know it has been a very very VERY long time since I have posted updates to any of my stories and for that I am very sorry. I have had a great deal going on in my personal life and sadly wiring had to take a back burner. I am not sure how this is going to go, but I figured I would start with Fifty Ways which is my most followed story and see if you guys are even still interested in reading more from me. I know you are also looking for more Edge of the Night, so I will work on that update next.

For those of you who have reached out to me via message or review over the last few months THANK YOU for all of your very kind words. I am trying to get back to you all but I have a very full inbox at the moment. Just know that your messages gave me a push during a very dark time and some days they made all the difference. You have no idea. I hope you all enjoy this chapter and I will be posting ion a more regular basis going forward.

Love to you all,

PPP

I remember the day when my mother left Ray. I was seven and a half and we were living in his house on the lake. He fished a lot. He would take me out on his boat in the very early morning, while the sun was still sleeping in the ocean. He would tell me stores on the drive there, stories about magical far off places. He told me stories about a girl just about my age who was also named Anastasia, a girl who would go off on adventures to these far off magical places. She would slay dragons, fly with the birds on the back of a winged horse, she would battle the evil witch and win. Never once in all of the stories he told was Anastasia saved by a prince because she was the one doing the saving.

We would sit on the still dark water and watch the sun come up over the horizon, the water lapping against the side of the small boat that I helped him paint a bright orange red. Ray loved being surrounded by the "sounds and smells of nature". I learned from Ray, in some ways I learned more from him than anyone else; how to bait a hook, how to clean a fish, how to cook it. That's one thing I remember more than anything else. Coming back, my mother still asleep and the smell of fish frying in one of his cast iron skillets - that mixed with coffee was the smell of the only home I had ever known. Even now I smell coffee and I could be seven years old again.

I knew something was wrong in a way that only a small child does. There were long stretches of silence followed by loud bursts of screaming. I would spend a lot of time sitting at the bottom of my closet with a book and Ray's cat Charlie curled up in my lap, waiting for Storm Carla to pass. There I could get lost in the world of Narnia, or Plumsfield or Pemberley. I could pretend that I was a shipwrecked boy on an island, or Alice wandering through Wonderland, I could be Snow White or even the Huntsman. I would imagine myself in one of Ray's early morning stories, drawing colorful pictures with my box of 64 Crayola crayons. It was all possible for me in that closet. It was a great escape and one that I use to this very day. The power of my imagination has always been my saving grace.

I came home from school, and my entire room was packed, my closet was empty. My sanctuary was gone. One lost periwinkle blue crayon on the closet floor. I shoved it in my pocket so hard it broke in two. She had left Ray a letter on the kitchen counter and we just started driving. Long days stretched out on the highway. Short nights in cheap hotel rooms until we made it to her friends place in New Mexico. The rest of the days that followed are a blur, I just remember being sad and missing Ray and my cat thinking that nothing would ever be the same and I was right. Nothing ever was. That is when I learned that everything is temporary, even sadness.

I still miss the smell of fish frying in the morning and the way the windows would shake when the wind would blow in Ray's old house. I miss the feeling of home. I think I have been searching for it ever since and more a moment I thought I had found it with Chris. I thought that I had found that missing place, that missing piece. But a person cannot fill that for you. If I have learned anything from all of this, it is that you have to be full before you can let anyone in so you can over flow.

"I don't want to fight with you." He sat on the far side of the chopper; I could barely make out his frame, just the moon light reflecting off the top of his shoulder that was still bound and tied with a pair of my leggings. Somehow that made it easier to speak, not having to look at him. Not having to see his reaction and to look into his eyes I was able for the first time to speak my peace without fear, or anger. I wasn't unsure or confused. I was certain. I knew what was wrong and I knew what we needed to fix it. Just like I knew how to get back to the crash site. What I didn't know was if he would listen. Would he be able to trust me enough - but the bigger question was would he be able to trust himself enough to let me lead the way. I wasn't sure if he could.

"No, you don't want to fight. You never want to fight. You just want to win Christian. You don't even care how you win. Just. That. You. Win. I am not a prize or a possession. I am your girlfriend but more than that I am a person. I am Ana. I have thing that are important to me. Things that I want to win. Things that make me happy and excited and those things aren't all you! I am capable, more than capable of doing things for myself and being successful. I was the one who spotted Hyde on the security footage. I am the one who saved myself from Hyde in New York. I am strong and brave and if you let me… I can be your equal. No. I already am your equal. You just don't see it. I have tried to be what you need… what you think you need…but what I have learned from you, more than anything is that I need to be strong and I need to be myself. The good, the bad and the ugly. I need to be Ana. Not Christian's girlfriend, Ana. Or Carla's daughter, Ana. Or Ray's Step Daughter, Ana. Just Ana."

"I want you to be safe…but what you said today was true. You were safer without me. I see that but I can't give you up Ana."

"I am not asking you to give me up. I am asking you to stop treating me like something that you own or something that needs saving. I am not your mother…" I was expecting a retort or a roar but I got neither and so I continued. "We have been at this for months, highs and lows, love and indifference. I don't want this for us. We both deserve better. I want a life with you, a real life full of real things. I trip to the market, a movie, a lazy Sunday morning. I want a house that we build together and a family that we make together. I want Olivia and you and me. I want to grow and people but I want us to grow together."

"Ana…" His voice was hoarse and shockingly pensive. "I know what you want, I've always known. I knew this day would come. I thought if we had enough time I could convince you that you and I could be happy just on our own. I could show you amazing things if you let me. Take you anywhere you wanted to go without the ties of a family. But I knew when Olivia attached herself to you the way she did, there was no going back from that." His body shifted and he ran his hand though his hair. We were both silent for a few minutes, both know the next words spoken would change everything. And then he spoke.

"You know that you can't have Olivia. You must realize that you are too young and she is too much in need of stability, no court would ever allow it."

"I know." I had thought about it quite a bit, even spoken about it with Peyton, who had discussed it with a lawyer friend of hers. On my own, no judge would every grant me custody of Olivia. It would be a hard sell even with Christian.

"You also know that I don't see a future with children in it… I never hid that fact from you."

"Nor did I hide the fact that I wanted children from you."

"Olivia can be in our lives Ana, she just can be our life."

"I know that, I am more concerned about you railroading me into never having children – ever. That's what you do, you railroad until you get your way."

"I can't change who I am Ana, no more that you can. You said it yourself, what you've learned from me most is being true to who you are. That is a hard lesson." He was throwing my own words back at me and while there was some truth in it, I would not accept it.

"That is a bunch of bullshit and you damn well know it. How dare you say that to me? You have changed leaps and bounds since we have been together. I have changed. People change; if we don't change we die and before you met me you dying Christian. You were a thirsty man surrounded by water but you were too tired to get up and get a drink. So don't you dare diminish this year together by tell me you can't change. You HAVE changed, you ARE changing." I was so frustrated and sad; he was so stuck on the person that he used to be he could see the person he was becoming. He could see the man he could become. I know that his past was rattling around in his head, Elena's teachings rearing their ugly head.

"That may be true, but I can't change my past. And I don't think I would change it even if I could."

Again we were suspended in silence. Silence and thought.

"You are twenty one years old Ana. There is so much you can do, so much you can see, and have, and be. You don't have to have children now, or even five years from now. You don't have to rush. I am not saying I will ever want children. If I am changing the way you think I am who knows what I will want in five years, or ten. I can't make you any promises and I won't expect any from you. But this is only an issue now if we make it an issue. We both agree that Olivia is off the table, she is best served with my parents. You have your job and all the potential that hold and all the potential that we hold. Can't that be enough? You asked for more and I gave it to you and now you want more still. Will it ever be enough Ana? You talk about me seeing you the way I want to see you but you are just as guilty. You see me as a man I am not. I told you who I was and you said you loved me anyway. If that's true then why this constant need to change me into what you want me to be. That door swings both ways."

Here we were at the fork in the road that we both knew was coming. There was no Flynn to act as a buffer and lead us down the right path. There was only the distance between us and the veil of night. I closed my eyes and tried to picture myself, old and gray. I tried to see Christian beside me, at the dinner table, holding my hand the way that Carrick held Grace's hand. Was I wrong to ask him for a life he didn't want? Was it wrong to want him to want more? I could feel the tears well up in my eyes and hear rate quicken. Could I give up the dream of the family I never had a child or could I give up Christian because it was very clear that I couldn't have both.

"I love you… Ana… I love you. Can't that just be enough?"

My heart knew the answer.

I'm not really sure why but I get up and make my way through to the darkness to Christian. I am so stiff. Everything hurts, my legs and back ache. My ribs are sore. I slide down the side of the chopper and sit Indian style beside him resting my head on his uninjured shoulder. I hear him sigh slightly and we both relax a bit.

"I love you Ana."

"I love you Christian." He takes my hand and braids our fingers resting them on my lap.

"If I could give you everything you wanted, I would. I just can't give you this."

"Never?"

"Never."

There was such resolve in his voice and in that moment I knew that I would never change his mind. My heart broke a little at the thought of never having a family but it split wide open at the thought of never seeing Christian again. And that is what we are taking about right now - never seeing one another again. We couldn't be in each other's atmosphere and not be together. The pull was too great.

"We can't go on like this. Waiting and wondering... You need to choose Ana."

I hated all the silence and distance between us. She has not said a single word to me for hours. I was so angry. Angry at Ana, angry at this horrible situation but most of all I was angry at myself. Ana was going to leave me I could feel it in every part of my body. Every muscle and nerve could feel her walking away. She was so young and unmarred by life. Of course she wanted a family. Why wouldn't she? Ana was designed to be a mother. She was so sweet and kind, nurturing and warm. She was everything you would want a mother to be. Who was I to deny her that joy. But here I was asking her to give that all up for me. I know I could give her an amazing life without the restraints of a family. A life full of wonder and excitement.

"... You need to choose Ana."

The words were heavy on my tongue but I knew I had to say them. I lost hearing Flynn in my head at out last appointment, telling me that I couldn't deny Ana the life that she wanted, I couldn't force her. She would have to choose and I would have to live with her choice. If she choose me I know on some level she would resent me. But if she chose children, a house with a fence and all that shit I would have to live with the idea that Ana was living her life with another man. I would have to live without her. I couldn't even fathom the thought of either. But above all I couldn't fathom being a father.

What could I give a child? Not a fucking thing.

I want to fuck and travel and work. I want to fly planes and choppers. I want to live right on the edge of my safety and sanity - you can't have a child on the edge of sanity.

And what if the child didn't listen and obey? My anger... What if I just... Unleashed... Elena said I was not build for normal... I was built for pain and sex and making money. I have too much shit in my past... To many secrets... What if I couldn't keep my child safe... I couldn't keep Leila safe... "You need to change Christian." No. Never.

"I don't want to live my life without you Christian."

"If it was up to me you wouldn't have to."

"Okay, what if we back burner this for five years. Let's just live our lives, together an in five years' time we will see where we both stand. I mean I'm certain that neither one of us would have thought this would be our lives a year ago."

It was a fair point well made but deep in my black soul I knew no amount of time would change my feelings. I could only hope that five years would be enough to show her what was possible.

"You're quite right about that. I can't guarantee that I'll feel any differently in five years Ana."

"Either can I. But we will worry about it then."

"So no talk of babies or family..."

"None. But..."

"There is always a but isn't there."

"But... I... Don't..."

"Say it Ana."

"I don't want to be apart from Olivia."

"I would never suggest such a thing. Ever. You and she have a bond. I would never try and break that. I just need you to maintain healthy limits. Grace is her mother and you are her sister. As long as that boundary is not breached we are fine."

There is a long moment and I know she is thinking at a rapid pace trying to make a decision. It harder for her than I would like it to be. If I had my way she would choose me and that would be that. But I have gotten used to not having my way when it came to Ana. And I didn't like it.

She moves like she is going to get up and my heart drops for a second and then slowly she straddles my outstretched legs and wraps her arms gently around my neck. I can feel her breath on my lips.

"I choose you Christian."