AN: Well, I'm going to be a complete cop-out this year and write fanfic for NaNoWriMo, which means beginning anew with this. I'll still be updating my other fic, but a lot less regularly. This one (unless I drop out of the competition) will be updated with around 2000 words daily, possibly more.

This is going to be totally different to my other fic, in that it's not really planned, although I have a vague idea where I'm headed in that I wrote a bit from near the end and I'd like to somehow get there. Ana is going to be pretty close to canon, a little more sarcastic and able to speak up for herself but sweet and actually nice, but Christian is going to be very different, although still alike in a lot of aspects, good and bad. I don't know if this is something people will be interested in, but I've been planning something along these lines for ages and I've really enjoyed writing it today!

CHRISTIAN

She's not the kind of person that should be somewhere like this.

The rich kind, especially the girls, they always send staff to bring their vehicles in to the garage for us to fix and turn up last minute and give the place a disdainful look before they speed off in their unnecessarily expensive, newly fixed cars without so much as a thank you. I never know why most of them bother to get them fixed. They might as well buy a new one; it probably wouldn't make much difference to these people.

Not her.

She drove her car in a couple of days ago, a shiny black Mercedes like so many of them have, and gave me a smile as she explained what was wrong. She was very polite over the phone when I told her it was fixed, whereas so many of them seem annoyed that they have to expend their precious energy coming to get their cars.

It's a hot day, fairly unusually for Seattle in September. I bet she rolls the top of her car down on the way home and then complains about her hair later.

"Thank you!" she says as I hand her keys to her. "I hope it wasn't too much bother to fix." I swear she's so polite that I wouldn't know she was rich if it wasn't for the car and how many diamonds she was wearing. "I'm just glad to get it back, I hate having to get driven around by other people, so I've been walking most of this week."

"Mine breaks down every couple of days. I know the feeling." She laughs, seemingly genuinely. Her baby blue eyes light up. I'm inherently suspicious of her motives. No-one who comes in here is a nice person.

"You work with cars. Could you not just make it never break again?"

"Sure, if I was a wizard."

"Not possible?"

"Nope, not even with a good car like yours. Mine's a piece of shit really." She doesn't look offended by the blunt language, so I don't worry about it.

"So was mine. My first one, I mean, I didn't just magically make it shiny and faster, obviously. I wanted to buy my first one myself, so I bought it second-hand like a normal teenager, saved like crazy for it too from this waitressing job, not that Mom and Dad could understand why I bothered with that, but it broke down completely after a couple of years – I suspect sabotage on their parts, not that I'd say anything of the sort – and caved. It's a good car, mind, I probably should have just said yes to them getting it in the first place. This is the first time it's broken down at all in nearly two years." She talks a lot. Oddly I find it endearing rather than completely annoying.

"They're good when it comes to fixing them. Never too much of a challenge." Nor would you expect them to be at the ridiculously high price I know they're sold for, but I say nothing like that to her. It sounds spiteful.

"Well thank you again. Even if it was easy." She smiles and looks up at the clock. "Crap, I have to get home, I have a bachelorette party this evening p dull as hell I suppose, but I promised I'd make the effort to go, so I suppose I'm committed now. Have a good day!"

"Yeah, you too." I find myself saying. She grins as she gracefully enters the car.

She does roll the top down, but she also puts on some genuinely decent rock music before she leaves, which redeems her a little.

"She's not our usual. Less pumpkin spice latte and Instagram, if you know what I mean." I don't but I nod like I do. It's probably an expression he's picked up off Laura, she's always making shit like that up. "Shame your sorry ass got to her first. She deserved someone who would have given her a full service."

"Fuck off, Elliot." I tell my brother, and unfortunately, as of last week, co-worker. He just grins and stuffs another handful of Cheetos in to his mouth. "You're such a fucking pig. She would never look at either of us twice, especially not you. Anyway, I'm telling Laura when I see her tonight what you said about her. I'm sure she'll be really pleased."

"Hurtful, bro." He says with a grin, not even pretending to look offended. I roll my eyes. "So does mystery girl have a name?"

"I never asked." I know it begins with 'A' because she had one of those little letter key rings, but I don't say that. It feels a little stalker-ish.

"Ah well. Plenty more girls to bang out there."

"What a charming philosophy."

I'm putting up with Elliot a lot more than usual recently. Considering he just got laid off from his decent job and had to pick up something here, I figure he's getting enough crap from his wife right now that he shouldn't have to deal with anything much from me too. She's trying to be supportive, but it means once again they have to put off having a kid because they don't have enough money, and I know she hates that.

That doesn't stop him from being an irritating little shit though.

It's not too badly paid here actually. Between this and the bartending job I only do when they need cover I have enough to cover the bills, give some to Dad for paying for Mom's treatment even though he hates taking it, and pay for the house that I share with my little sister Mia. Well, I say share. I mean I put her up free of charge because she's trying to get through college and Mom and Dad can't afford to look after her any more, not with how sick Mom is. Neither can I really, but I want her prospects to be a little brighter than mine. We clubbed together all the savings we both had, plus a loan, and managed to get her in. She's a bright girl. She deserves not to be stuck at the bottom of the pile like the rest of us.

"Turn that shit down!" Elliot yelled suddenly. I am aware it is not being directed at me, rather at our co-worker Lena, our boss' daughter who turned out to be a lot better at fixing cars than anyone ever thought she would be. However, while very capable as a mechanic, Lena insists on blasting out God-awful pop music while she works. I'm used to it because I've been working with her since I started, but Elliot's new, and he hasn't learned to tune it out. He will. Lena's pretty bad when it comes to remembering the rest of us aren't deaf in one ear like she is. They'd had this discussion when he arrived and it made no difference. I just ignore them as they argue, mostly in good humour, as best I can and decide to get back to fixing the car in front of me, which I was working on before the girl arrived. The one that probably cost the owner more than I make in a year.

I like what I do. It might be one of those manual jobs that they warn you at school to work hard so you avoid, but it's what I'm good at. I'd rather be working with my hands than stuck in some shitty office job like Elliot used to have.

"Sorry, I didn't hear you!" I hear Lena yell back at Elliot. I smirk, knowing full well she did hear him as she turns the music up a few notches. My brother swears loudly and goes over to switch it off himself. She keeps waiting until he walks away and turning it up again. I sigh. The motorbike she's working is never going to get finished is this carries on.

The whole garage is bathed in a pre-sunset orange glow which makes my head hurt. At one time I might have thought what a beautiful sunset it would be and blow off my other job or dinner with Mia or whatever I was doing that night in favour of jumping in my shitty car, which despite being a mechanic I never seem to be able to get the dent out of, and go and take pictures of it to paint later. Now, I can't afford to miss shifts at the low paying bar he had picked up his second job in, I felt too bad refusing dinner when people went to the trouble of cooking it for me, and even if I could, so much of my money goes towards Mia and my Mom that I barely have enough to pay the gas bills. Being dirt poor is a bitch.

I don't even like painting anymore. It was just a way I used to kid myself that there was something else out there.

"I'm taking off!" I yell back in to the garage as I search one of the benches for my car keys before I can allow my mind to wander any further.

"Have a nice evening!" Lena yells back at me. Neither her nor Elliot, or me actually, knows how to use an inside voice, because most of the time there are machines going that we need to shout over, and when there aren't our ears are still ringing from them.

I go home to collect Mia. Elliot has the two of us over for dinner every Friday, which was probably originally his wife Laura's suggestion rather than his. She seems in a better mood today than she was last week.

Elliot might flirt a lot and joke about other women, but anyone who sees him with her instantly knows that he's not interested in anyone else.

"How was work?" Laura asks me pleasantly as she dishes out the lasagne she's made - Mia's favourite I remember with a smile as I watch her tuck in to it. This is pretty much the only hearty meal we have in any given week, mostly because neither of us has time to cook with my working and her being in classes, and we tend to help ourselves to thirds whenever we're over here.

"Good." I reply. Laura smiles softly and pushes her blonde hair out of her eyes.

"He was too busy thinking about this girl that came in to do much work. She came in early this afternoon, dude was useless from about that point onwards." Elliot butts in, and I glare at him. Laura rolls her eyes at her husband - general exasperation with him is something we have in common. Mia giggles.

"Was she pretty?" Mia asks interestedly.

"Does it matter? We had the briefest of conversations, that was it. I'm not going to see her again. Drop the subject now please." We've already talked about it enough for my liking, but my reluctance only serves to spur Elliot on. I'll add this conversation to the growing list of reasons I want to punch him in the face.

"He's getting all defensive because he likes her." Elliot chides gleefully.

"Shut the fuck up, asshole." They all start laughing, and despite myself I join in. "She was just nice. Not a lot of nice people around, especially not where I work."

"Language!" Laura chides, grinning and not meaning it in the slightest. "Hopefully her car will break down again and she'll be back soon."

"No way. Twenty bucks says you never see her again.

"And how on Earth are we going to establish you winning that bet?"

"Good point. Okay, we'll say… Not for like, a year at least."

"Make it fifty and I'm in."

"Deal."

"By which I assume you mean you'll have it marked on the calendar for if you win, but that if I win you'll pretend to have forgotten all about it and get Laura to lie for you too?" He nods and Laura shrugs.

"That's how life works." she tells me with a wink.

"It is when you have this idiot for a brother." I say, shaking my head. He grins widely, revealing a mouth full of food. I grimace.

"Elliot!" Laura scolds him.

Sometimes I think it's for the best that they don't have kids. Laura would be a great Mom, obviously, but Elliot might be a little more questionable. God knows what any child of his would turn out like. I'm not sure any of us should be encouraging him to further his DNA. The line of idiots should end with him. Laura's an intelligent woman though, hopefully she's at least somewhat balance it out. Still, it'd be nice if they did.

With Mia being a future career girl who has proclaimed that she will 'never ever' get married and my perpetual lack of love life, I think Mom at least would rather he had a kid sooner rather than later. I know she wants to see her grandchildren.

We don't mention it but it's there. The fact that she won't be with us much longer hangs over all of our heads now. Dad can ignore it because he sees her every day. There's no dramatic declination in her health when he sees her, but I only see her every couple of weeks. It's still not a long time, but it's far easier to notice.

"So?" Mia asks me in the car after we leave. "Was she pretty?"

"Stunning."

Mia smiles knowingly, and I spend the rest of the drive and most of the evening trying and failing to put her to the back of my mind.