"Michael," Jacob warned, "if you keep that up Ana will be more than a little vexed with you. Smile at people and if you can't be nice than don't say anything or do anything."

Michael sighs, "Not bullying is harder than I thought it would be. Does she have something against bullies or something?"

Jacob does all he can to hold back his laugh. "Oh, you could say that. Ana was bullied her whole life until Damon had me become her first body guard. She had decided on Trinity being her bodyguard even though he was Hawk's son, because he stopped a bully from picking on a foster kid. She had never even met him.

"Now, what do you do if someone knocks into you?" Jacob demands as he returns to his teacher mode.

"Threaten them," Michael replies smartly.

"Michael, do you remember the day you almost knocked me over?" Ana calls out sweetly as she comes up behind him.

"Yeah, you called me names and..." Ana shakes her head slowly.

"I told you that an apology is what a decent person would give. When you threatened me what did I do?" Ana demands.

"You laughed at me. I think that hurt more than a physical fight would have." Michael says honestly. He'd been a victim too and it still hurts.

"Yes, humor makes a lot of things better. If I had actually fought you, you'd have been dead. There will always be bullies, but when we decide to stop being victims we need to be careful to not become the bullies in turn. There are some that say that I'm a bully although I try not to be. I might be psychopathic though." Ana shrugs doesn't really matter to her.

"Tell me, do you have any happy memories to pull from?"

Michael looks down and kicks his foot into the grass. "Not many, mostly of what my mother did before my sperm donor killed her."

"Did your mother ever bully anyone?" Ana asks gently.

"No, not really she was too retiring and gentle. Snake did his best to make sure that she was too terrified to do much of anything." Michael says with a great deal of vitriol.

"Then think of what your mother would do around other's. You don't want to turn into your father and I won't let you." Ana avers.

"Yeah, you told me you'd kill me." Michael says bitterly.

Ana takes out of her gun and cocks it at him, "Do you want me to do it now? I think you have a great deal of promise and I want you to reach that potential. It's why I didn't kill you before. Now if you want to prove your father right I'll pull this trigger right here, right now."

Michael looks at Ana with wide eyes, "You really think I have potential?"

"If I hadn't I would have killed you when I found out who your father was." Ana waits for him to make up his mind before putting her gun away.

Michael stands up straighter and has a more determined look in his eye. "Okay pretty boy let's do this again."

Jacob sighs, he hadn't minded the nickname at first but now it's getting old. At the laughter he sees in Ana's eyes though he thinks that he's stuck with it.

"Okay one more time," Jacob says with amusement. He's beginning to like Michael.

Ana walks off with Trinity by her side. "What are you doing with that kid Ana?"

"Like I said, he has a lot of potential and I want him to reach it. His father very nearly destroyed him," Ana smiles, "and soon I'm going to destroy his father."

Trinity is rather amused by her words, "You've found where he's at then?" Ana hadn't even tried to get Michael to rat out his father. She thinks it would harm him even further, besides she's not sure that she'd be able to trust him if he did.

"No, not yet and I won't have to. When the time is right he'll come to me. Probably at the most inconvenient time possible for me. Which means it will  be here and will have something to do with Damon."

Trinity stops dead in his tracks, "You think Damon would betray you like that?"

Ana turns to face her guard and shakes her head, "No, never intentionally. That's part of the reason we need to leave. I bring danger to Damon by being here although he refuses to see it."

"We are definitely leaving then?" Trinity says thoughtfully.

"The day after my birthday. I've already started pulling some of the men back. I'm still not happy about Spider's men though. I won't be able to bring them to the house so Jonah will have to deal with them more than I like. I wish that I could trust their second and third more." Ana sighs, she really hadn't wanted to take over Spider, just deal with Jezey permanently. Well Jezey was Damon's problem now.

"Ana, why are you out here so late?" Damon asks coming up to the girl carefully. Ana likes the guard dogs and they adore her. It doesn't matter how vicious they are to everyone else they've always taken to Ana. And they always growl at Damon.

Ana looks up from her ear scratching of the dog at her feet. "I just needed to think and get some air. The dogs wanted to play a bit so I indulged them."

"They aren't pets, Ana. You're keeping them from their job." Damon says in exasperation. He's had this conversation before.

"I know, but it won't hurt to allow them to have a few minutes for fun." Ana says wistfully, she knows how the dogs feel.

"Ana, I'm sorry," Damon feels that that's all he says anymore to Ana.

"For what Damon?" Ana is confused, as far as she knows Damon hasn't done anything to piss her off lately.

"I haven't been able to do much right in the last year." Damon says gingerly sitting down on the lawn being careful to stay away from the growling dogs not far from him.

"We all make mistakes. Tell me something," Ana is curious, "when you went to Jezey that first night was she a virgin?"

"Really, Ana? That's your question. I thought you were better than that." Damon says smirking.

"I'm just curious. You said in the eval that you weren't sure if she was or not. I didn't think Jezey was that good of a liar personally. Her mother didn't believe her to be, she thought Jezey was lovers with her father."

"She wasn't a virgin. Who she fucked I don't know, but she definitely wasn't a virgin. And I don't think she has been for years. She's very experienced, an idiot, but experienced nevertheless."

"I see, well that explains a lot. If she hadn't been so impossible I'd feel sorry for her." Ana says sadly.

"If she hadn't be so impossible then you wouldn't have done that to her." Damon says in the ensuing silence.

"You're right. Damon, I'll definitely be leaving after my birthday, Snake will be coming after me and I'm too much of an easy target here. I'll make sure you have my email address so that you can contact me, but I just can't live here while I pose a threat to you and your men."

"You don't pose a threat..."

"Damon we both know that me being here is an open invitation for Snake to come calling with his guns blazing."

"What are you going to do with Spider's men?" Damon asks sadly.

"I'm going to leave them here under Jonah. I'll be making Trinity my second with Hawk. It's damn inconvenient that Jerome decided to betray me now."

Damon gives a twist of his lips, "When is it ever convenient for betrayal?"

Ana sighs, "True. It's been nice being back here though. For the first time I felt like I was finally accepted."

"Will you spend your birthday with me?" Damon asks hopefully.

"Yes, last birthday was miserable." Ana mumbles and fights the tears.

Damon slowly takes out something from his pocket. "This is what I got you for your last birthday. I've waited till now to make sure that you would accept it, or at least open it first. I hope you accept it."

Ana takes the box in her hand and opens it up, she catches her breath as the moonlight catches the diamonds and makes it sparkle. She pulls the necklace out of the box, "It's beautiful Damon, thank you." She leans over the dogs and gives Damon a hug.

"You're welcome. This one I hope you don't leave behind." Damon says sadly. 

Ana turns around and demands, "Put it on me." Damon complies with a sad smile.