BACTRACK

Summary: What if Ana had not backtracked when she told Christian she felt the same way about punishments the way he felt about being touched. Two Shot.

"Anyone would think you didn't want me to catch you."

"I don't. That's the point, I feel about punishments the way you feel about my touching you." His demeanor changes in a nanosecond. Gone is the playful Christian, he stands staring at her as though she just slapped him. He's ashen.

"That's how you feel?" he whispers.

For a split second, she wants to take back her words, backtrack, pretend as if the last minute didn't happen but then the look of abject horror on his face was exactly how she felt about the thought of a belt, whip or cane coming into contact with her skin. She took a deep breath and walked around the pool table next to him and hoisted herself onto the table. "I want a boyfriend, not a part time boyfriend who is a Dom on the weekends, not a boyfriend I get to see one day a week. I want a boyfriend I can surprise any day of the week. I want a boyfriend who for no reason another than he felt like it buys me flowers. I want a boyfriend who will not kick me to the curb because I happen to have fallen in love with him." And like a Swiss precision watch Christian flinches much to Ana's devastation. He wishes on everything he was that that wasn't his reaction, but it was.

"Ana… I can't… I do…" He had no words to help him. He could feel her slipping from his grasp, and he had no words to pull this from the edge of the cliff it was teetering on.

"How long do we do this for? Let's be honest, eventually you'd want a girl you can take a cane, belt or whatever else you fancy to and I'm not that girl. You would get bored and look for someone else." She paused attempting to reign in her emotions. "So… I think it's best to end it now before it destroys me."

"You are leaving me?" He asked refusing to dwell on the comment about destroying her; if he was honest with himself that was his fear. He had almost walked away for that very reason, and now there it was, but again he stamped down that fear.

"You asked me to try and I did. This is not for me, and I can say that from having given it a try. I want things you are not prepared to give…"

"Like what." Negotiations, that's what he did best. They've been here before and like before he negotiated his way into getting her, he just had to give her that little bit more, and they could get on with their weekend.

"I want to be me."

"I want you to be you." He argued back.

"No, you don't… not all the time, there are times you like my smart mouth as you call it. There are times that same smart mouth earns me a cold glare from you followed by the words 'be careful.' I can't roll my eyes without fear of punishment, everything that I am you want to beat out of me." What?

"Ana, that's not true." If he didn't get just how much she hated punishment he did now, but he couldn't do without it.

"I want to look at you, I want to call you Christian, I want to be able to touch my boyfriend, I want to be able to have dinner at my apartment with you on a Tuesday if I feel like it. I want you to come home from work on a Thursday and find me here in your bedroom unpacking for the weekend. Not in a room of my own for a reason that we already know do not apply to us. I don't want to be afraid of my boyfriend." That did it.

"You are afraid of me?" Fear was the one emotion he had learned never to instill in a sub, Elena had done that to him, and he later learned that was wrong. Respect, care, devotion, intimacy even, but never fear and to think Ana feared him was devastating.

"Yes, I hate the thought of punishment, and you are the man that will deliver it if I happen to break your lengthy list of rules… so yes I am afraid of you. I am afraid to tell you I love you. I shouldn't be sad to have you in my life, but that's how I feel most of the time, I have spent more time crying since I met you than I have my previous years on this earth combined. I want to be happy, I want to revel in having a boyfriend for the first time, being in love for the first time and yet all I feel is sadness and fear and a constant sense of dread instead of the anticipation I should feel about you. I shouldn't feel this way."

"No, you shouldn't." He admitted sadly.

"Can you answer one question, maybe if you could make me understand." She was lying; there was nothing he could say that would make getting caned or whipped acceptable.

"Why do you need to punish me?" He paled and shook his head.

"I can't…" he whispered

"I believe it's time for me to go." She hopped off the pool table walked past him, but before she could get far, he held her wrist stopping her.

"Ana…" words escaped him again, as it seems to have throughout this conversation.

"It's okay, this is who you are, and you have been honest about it. It's time for me to be honest about who I am. We are not meant to be, and that's okay." She leaned up and softly kissed his lips.

He was rooted to his spot going over the conversation they'd just had. How did they go from a playful moment to her walking out on him? She promised she'd never leave albeit unconsciously, but it was a promise none the less. His phone rung and he would have ignored it, but it was Welch.

Ana sat on the edge of the bed for a moment just to collect her thoughts when she burst into tears. She had fallen for a man who did not believe he was capable of love. She knew who he was and yet she had fallen hard and fast, she had no one to blame but herself. They were done at her behest; she had chosen to walk away for the sake of her sanity. Without any real focus she threw the little she had into her bag, got dressed and sat back down on the bed, her tears would not stop spilling. Without thought, she laid down on the sub's bed hugging the pillow to her.

She wakes with a start two hours later and realizes it's seven in the morning. Shit, time to leave. She walks out of the penthouse without a fuss and hails a cab back to her apartment. She has walked away, and yet the tears would not stop. She lay in her bed cursing the pedophile that thought it right to introduce a fifteen-year-old boy to this lifestyle.

Christian jogged an additional three miles at breakneck speed. It was Saturday morning, and he didn't have to worry about work today. His mind whirled as he went over and dissected his conversation with Ana. He was glad she was still at the penthouse. Could I do without punishment, why do I need to beat Ana? She is not the crack whore for fuck sake. By the time he got to the apartment, he had found himself thinking about compromises. He was sure they could work something out, except he found her bedroom empty, the empty room a picture of how he felt. Empty.