My dear little broccolis ???

? So, this story is yet another request to translate a TMI fanfic into an FSOG one. It is a two-parter, and I hope you will like it.

? And you know support is always great and is easier to be seen through reviews, follows and favourite. So do show me your support and love ?

? If you want pictures of the story, just check out my Facebook group, Mina's Broccolis, and you will find pictures as the story unveils. And a few sneak-peeks here and there as well.

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Chapter 1: Loving & Losing Ana (3,8K)

.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

Christian's PoV.

I slowly bring the glass of scotch to my mouth and take a long sip as I angrily stare at the door. She was supposed to be home three fucking hours ago! Lately, it's always like that. She always comes home in the middle of the night and leaves at dawn. If I call her to know just where she is, she doesn't pick up her phone. Past 9 pm, she never picks up her phone. I could try calling her a thousand times or I could be shot in the chest, it would still be the same: she wouldn't pick up.

The clock infernally ticks the minutes that Ana isn't home, and I can't help but remember the time when she used to be home bright and early. She used to even come and see me at my workplace during her lunchbreaks. This was so fucking long ago, when I was her everything and when just by winking at her, I could make her swoon. It was when we would walk in Central Park, hand in hand, goofy smiles full of love plastered on our faces. It was when I used to buy her blue roses out of nowhere because I knew they were her favourites. It was when she would pout if I didn't take her in my arms when we fell asleep in our bed.

Now … Now, nothing. She's just fucking late, and I'm just fucking waiting, hoping that she didn't get hit by a car or something. Actually, I'd rather hear the phone calling with the hospital telling me that there's been an accident than to have to face the something. Because the something has a face that I really can't stand.

Finally, she opens the front door of our apartment. I don't even try to move and go greet her because I'm in her way anyway. If she wants to sleep in our bed, she has to pass through the living room. She has to see me, sitting on a chair, drinking the last drops of a bottle of scotch that I opened not even an hour ago. And she does. Her blue eyes linger on me for less than a second, but I can still see the surprise of seeing me awake at 2 am. Usually, I don't wait up for her, I just go to bed, and pretend I'm sleeping when she slides next to me.

Our eyes meet for even less than a micro-second, and so she looks away. And you know what pisses me off, she doesn't even have the decency to look guilty. I mean, she should, but she doesn't, it's like I don't even faze her anymore.

I guess it's my own fault. After all, I started all of this. I'm the one who did her wrong. I'm the one who was scared of us and who tried to destroy us, and she's the one who forgave me. She's the one who welcomed me back with open arms and said that she loved me and that it meant nothing to her. So I played nice. For a while, I stayed faithful because I remembered how frightened I was to lose her. Especially because of one stupid and faceless one-night-stand.

But then, I started thinking that she loved me too much, that she wouldn't leave me, no matter what I did to her. I wanted … a thrill, and so I deserted her again. And she didn't say anything. For a while. Until she came up with the solution of an open-relationship. She said that we loved each other, but that urges couldn't be controlled. And I agreed to it. Instead of begging for her pardon, I took this as a blessing, when it was actually the beginning of the end.

This is all my fault. I am the reason why she comes home late, why she doesn't look guilty anymore, I pushed one too many times, and now, I am going to lose her. And this is something that I will not bear. I can't lose her.

"Where were you?" I ask imperially. I know I have no rights to question her like that, but I still do because of this awful lump forming in the back my throat. She doesn't even look at me, taking off her heels as she says,

"With Luke."

She doesn't even try to lie anymore. At least before she used to pretend that she was with colleagues, then it was friends. But now it's a fucking name. And what name! Luke fucking Sawyer! I bring my glass to my lips to repress what I want to hurl, and I drink.

Luke fucking Sawyer! I just can't believe it. It's like she chose him on purpose, just to hurt me. I mean, it's fucking Sawyer! This guy is on my hated list, at the very top. He's everything I'm not, and he's the fucking guy trying to steal my girl away. Ever since I first saw his fucking face, I've hated him.

He was the nice and popular kid back in school, I was the total douchebag who was always expelled or in detention. He was the major of our promo, I was the one who barely came to graduation. He was the one who went to law school, I was the one who ended up working in a garage. But at least, I had Ana. The one person who came to the garage one day, completely greasy and panicked as she said that her bike just died.

And just that made me look at her twice. Biker women have always been a turn on for me. And her blue eyes hidden behind all the grease on her face caught my attention more than I intended. She pushed her bike in the garage and enumerated all the things she needed to make 'Jessy' live again, and that little nickname made me smile. I mean, girls usually don't give names to their vehicles. I fixed her bike in a jiffy, but I pretended that it took me forever, and after a lot of flirting, she finally agreed to go out with me.

This was when my life started to change. She was the one who convinced me to open my own shop, she was the one who helped me become someone better. She's the one who struggled with my finances all the while juggling with her part-time job and her internship in a law firm. She's the one who helped me make peace with my family to whom I had turned my back on so long ago. She's the one for whom I woke up every morning, a bright smile on my face.

And then came the infidelities, because I was so scared of being so happy all of the sudden. But she still stayed. Until the high-school reunion. When I learned that her newest associate was fucking Sawyer! That's when I decided that I should stop or I would lose her, but we had already established our rules of open relationship. And so I stayed quiet, mostly because she was still with me. She still did everything to eat with me at lunch, she still snuggled against me when we went to bed. And so we stayed like that, in love, with me having wronged her so many times, but vowing to do better in the future.

Until the day an old hookup came by the garage, and Ana caught her dirty talking to me, enumerating everything that we did during our night together. Ana didn't say anything, but I still saw the hurt in her eyes. The hurt that she had managed to hide so well all those times I cheated on her. She waved off my apologies, saying that it was nothing, that she understood, but that night, she came back home late. For the first time without warning me ahead. And this kept on going for a whole week, Ana would come back home really late, her face blank of emotions.

I tried to swallow my hurt, but when I saw that fucking Sawyer was the one dropping her off, I lost it against her. She didn't raise her voice as I did, she didn't even waver, she just said, "There's no reason to be angry, Christian. It's not like we're exclusive, anyway."

It's not like I could actually be angry at her. She was right, we were in an open relationship, and I took everything out of it. She never went to see anyone else but me, when I fucked so many girls. So I swallowed my pain, and when she started being late more and more often, I went back to my old routine, just to make her react, so she could feel what I was feeling. But I never went back to the same girl when she always went back to fucking Sawyer.

Of course, she never said so, and the few times I asked her, she denied everything, and so it always turned into fights between the two of us where she would leave storming out of the house, and I would drown my pain in a bar, finding a girl in my arms in the morning. But now, I can't take it anymore. It's more than the hurt, it's the feeling that she's slipping away. She sleeps on the edge of the bed now, so far away from me, she always pulls out work hours, even during her days off, she doesn't smile at me anymore. She's slipping away, and it's like I can't do anything to prevent it.

"Are you coming to bed?" She innocently asks, and I feel anger rising within me. How can she still have this fucking annoying innocent sweet tone when she talks? Especially when she just comes back from fucking Sawyer! I clench my fingers around my glass and I answer,

"I'm not laying next to you when you're stinking like Sawyer."

She sighs and closes her eyes. I know that she's rolling them behind her eyelids, she always does that when someone says something that gets on her nerves. As she does so, I look at what she's wearing, and once again she's wearing a dress. She used to almost never wear dresses because of her bike. She wore dresses when we went out because I once let it slip that I loved seeing her in dresses. But now, not so much. Every time she's in a dress, I know that it means that Sawyer picked her up and dropped her off. Which means that in addition to fucking in their office, they also fuck in his fucking car.

"I'll take a shower. I had a rather long day." She simply states.

"You should use bleach, in that case." I snarl because I can't help myself. She just came back from fucking Sawyer! How long has it been since we made love? How long has it been since she kissed me? Even on the cheek? Too fucking long!

"We're not going through this again, Christian." She says, her voice tired as she rubs her forehead. Normally she would have asked me for a massage like she always did when she felt like she worked too much, but now, she doesn't ask me for anything anymore. It's like I'm nothing to her anymore.

"I didn't say anything," I mumble, bringing the glass to my lips. I know this is all my fault, that I shouldn't be jealous and just get on with it. She's the one who stayed when she could have left. I'm the one who messed everything up when I had a perfect life. I should have kept it in my pants, but I didn't. And now, she's drifting away.

"Good," She says, and I can't help but glare at her. Can't she see that I'm hurt? Can't she see that this little arrangement that we have is no longer working? Can't she see that Sawyer is threatening our couple?

"Stop looking at me like that, Christian." She says, her brows frowned, and that's when I snap. I don't know why now, but I snap. Maybe because it is the one too many times that I've been hurt, or maybe it's because I finished a whole bottle of scotch, or maybe it's because she looks so damn calm when she should feel something else. Guilt, shame, regret, something!

"You had to fuck fucking Sawyer!" I explode. "Of all the guys you could have screwed, you had to choose Sawyer! What did he give you that I can't?"

"Well, for starters, he looks at me." She immediately retorts before she swiftly brings her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide as she realises what she just said. It's clear on her face that she never intended to say those words, at least not to me, not in this situation. I get up in one furious movement and I yell,

"Are you fucking serious?!"

"I am," She concedes, looking down on her feet before she adds, "This isn't working anymore, Christian. When was the last time you looked at me? We just became roommates with the inconvenience of being a couple."

"What are you saying?" I ask blankly, fearing the answer before it even escapes her lips.

"That we should … call it quits. We don't make each other happy. We're not good for each other, anymore."

She lifts her head up and looks at me with her big blue eyes, and then she turns her back to me. In one angry movement, I throw my glass at the wall next to her head and she freezes on the spot.

"You want to leave me?! To go to fucking Sawyer!?" I yell, my insides freezing with fear at the realization that she might say yes to my questions. She doesn't move from her spot, her back still facing me as she murmurs so softly that I have to strain my ears to hear,

"I want to live, Christian."

"And how am I preventing you from doing so?" I ask, thinking that if I forbade her to live, we wouldn't be in this situation. I would have never let her go to Sawyer, whether it was for work or for more. I would have locked her in my heart and kept her there selfishly, away from the world.

"I don't know." She whispers, and I clench my fist because I can hear in her voice that there's something that she wants to say. And it is fucking scary. Ana was never afraid to say what she had on her mind, and that's one of the things I love about her. She always called me out on my crap and stood up to me when I was being stupid or angry. And now, I'm losing this part of her, because of fucking Sawyer.

"Maybe you'd like to go back to sleeping with Sawyer, right now?"

"Leave him out of this!" She vehemently says, finally turning to face me as she defends that fucking idiot. And I don't like it. She's not supposed to react that way. She's not supposed to say that. She's supposed to reassure me, to say that she's where she wants to be, that I'll always be the one she'd go back to because I am the love of her life.

"Why?! Did he promise to take you away from me?"

She hesitates and that only allows me to know that he did. And she considered it. She considered leaving me. She probably still considers it. She wants to leave me. She wants to walk out on me, when she's my everything, when I don't know what I'd do without her, when she's my oxygen. She wants to leave me.

"Fuck that, Ana! You said that you'd stay with me!" I scream, my heart begging her to stay with me. I can't do it. I can't live without her. I can't lose her. She glares at me as she replies,

"There's no point in doing so! You're always angry at me, I'm always angry at you. This is not a healthy relationship that we have. I want something more! I want the average life of Miss Anybody. I want to get married, I want to have children, and you're not giving me any of this!" She yells, and I pale. Not because I'm not ready to give her her dream, but because her tone is implying that someone else is more than willing to do so.

"Oh, because Sawyer promised you that? He promised you your perfect life behind your white picket fence!?"

"As a matter of fact, he did!" She angrily admits, not caring for one second that she just broke my heart. But that's nothing compared to what she says after, "And you know what? I think I'll do it!"

"You're going to do what?! I'm not letting leave me! I'm the one who'll give you every single one of your dreams!" I hurl, my voice shaking at the possibility of losing her. My fists are clenched so hard that I don't feel the blood in my hands anymore.

"And how? By going to fuck anything with a skirt when you feel like it?" She yells, and I use this little hope she just gave me. If she cares, it means that she can still maybe stay. She will stay.

"You said you didn't mind." I simply state, waiting for her to say that she had been lying all along and that she doesn't want this anymore, but she doesn't,

"I didn't! I don't even care anymore. As I said, I'm leaving, Christian."

As soon as the words leave her mouth, I close the gap between us and tackle her against the wall, but she doesn't even seem fazed by my outburst. She just looks deep into my eyes while I feel my whole being crumbling. I lean my forehead against hers, one of my hand knotted with anger in her vibrant chestnut hair.

"I'm not letting you leave me, Ana," I growl, anger and fear battling inside my heart. What am I going to do if she does leave me? Life without Ana, ain't life.

"I'm not leaving you a choice, Christian. I've been more than patient with you, I waited for you to realise that I was worth it, but you didn't. Now there's someone who actually wants me and who wants to build a life with me. I'm not going to let this opportunity pass because maybe, one day, you'll open your eyes."

Oh dear God, I am losing her. She is leaving. She doesn't want to try for us anymore. This isn't happening. This can't be happening. She's my everything, she's my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night. And now, I'm losing her just because someone else fucked her.

"Ana, I love you. Sawyer just wants to get in your pants." I say, brushing her cheek with my thumb as I plant my eyes in hers and try to reason her, to make her come back to me, the one who loves her.

"No, he doesn't. He never touched me, even when I threw myself at him because you went to one of your so many nights out. He loves me." Fucking Sawyer told her that he loved her! And she's going to believe him and leave me for him. How am I going to survive that?

"No. No one will ever love you like I do. He doesn't love you like I do, Ana. He can live without you, I can't. You're all my life. Don't leave me," I beg, tears burning my eyes.

I hate how her face is so calm. I know it's because she's so used of controlling her emotions and thoughts when she's in Court, but I'd like to see something else than her professional face. I want her to act freely around me again like she used to do so long ago.

She brings her hand to my cheek and smiles sadly as she says, "I'm sorry, Christian. You think like that now, but you'll get over it and find someone who will really make you happy."

"Don't." I plead with a broken voice, tears escaping my eyes. At this point, I don't care about anything but making her stay. She has to. "I'll change. I'll stay. But you need to stay first. You can't leave me."

She softly sighs, her face finally showing something else than nothing. And I see something that I like: pain. Maybe she won't leave me. Maybe she'll stay. Her hand on my cheek slowly falls to my chest and she says:

"I already did. I love you. I really do. But not enough to keep living like that."

And with those words, she escapes my grip and leaves the living room. I can't move, completely frozen by what just happened, and slowly, I let myself fall against the wall and I take my head between my hands. I hear her call someone as she shuffles around in the room, but I still can't move. She's leaving me. She's leaving me and she's not coming back. What am I going to do? I can't live without her. She's the one who stabilized me, she's the one who made my life worth living, she's the one who was supposed to bear my children. And now she's leaving me. And there's nothing I can do or say to make her stay. I deceived her too many times for her to trust in me anymore.

I love her. But I lost her.

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?Your thoughts and opinions are always welcomed?

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? So yup, this story is a little angsty. I hope you liked it. Tell me all. Especially since I really enjoyed writing this little story. Anyway, make me happy. Pretty please?

? E L James owns the names of the characters from the Fifty Shades franchise, everything else is mine.

Love, Mina???