Author's Note

Hi, thanks for taking the time to look at my story. Some of you may not be familiar with the shows/ characters this is based on, being from the Indian subcontinent will help you get the flow of things, characters and some of the words that absolutely had to be in Hindi - but obviously you're welcome to read anyway and ask questions if there's anything you do not understand.

Just a little disclaimer, I don't own any of these characters and the story is the result of random musings and liking the following characters A LOT:

- Zaroon from Zindagi Gulzar Hai (was played by the hottie Fawad Khan) he is our protagonist

- Aaila from Neeyat (played by pretty gal Mahira Khan, though I also love another character called Falak that she played in this drama called Shehr-e-Zaat/ "city of self". So you'll find that Aaila is actually a mix of Aaila from Neeyat and Falak from Shehr-e-Zaat)

- Other characters from these soaps or ones that I've just created to help the flow of the story

Lastly, I understand that there are people who don't appreciate AU and ship Zaroon with Kashaf of Zindagi Gulzar Hai, I respect your feelings and while this story isn't about your OTP I haven't bashed Kashaf.

Same for people who ship Aaila & Sikander from Neeyat or Falak & Salmaan/ Hamza from Shehr-e-Zaat.

Chapter One

The alarm went off at 6:30am, he was a light sleeper and woke up easily. Then sitting in bed he rubbed his eyes as he went through his schedule for the day on the iPhone. He had started forgetting things lately and the routine helped, with so much to do and such little time he didn't remember when he'd last taken a day off for himself. He found his way to his six year old son's bedroom and woke him up for school, the boy was good for his age and never gave him much trouble. The next 50 minutes went by like they did every day of the working week, he dressed for work and helped his son Nivyaan dress for school, then they went downstairs and had a quick breakfast with his parents after which he dropped his son to school on the way to work.

He was in the office before everyone else, there in the solace of his cabin he'd have his morning coffee and half an hour of what he called "me time" – in this duration he read the morning news, caught up with the diaspora of friends through Facebook, went through his personal emails and generally did things of little consequential value. The routine continued six days a week when he was in the office and he liked the sense of discipline it brought to his life.

Life which had been tough since the sudden accident and death of his wife three years ago, Nivyaan was too young to remember the details but he knew the boy missed his mother, especially when he saw the mothers of his peers turn up at things for school. Sometimes, no matter what he did as a father he felt he had failed to fill the void caused by his wife's death. There were times he wanted to believe otherwise, but then his mother and sister would be at at, telling him otherwise. He sighed as he closed his Gmail and logged into the intranet to start the day's work.

In another part of the city, a flustered architect was going through the designs of a staircase for the eighth time with her clients who wanted the best money could buy and more. She'd consulted three colleagues, an expert in France and her boss and nothing would satisfy this couple who were obsessed to find a fusion of Victorian elegance with the space-edginess of Star Trek. She went to Rushna's cubicle as soon as they left and demanded that the two head to the office canteen for cups of steaming tea and samosas. Rushna had been with her since primary school, the two went to the same college to study architecture and later ended up working for the same practice. Rushna she didn't have to ask any questions, she just knew everything there was to know and more. Unlike her, Rushna did everything right and didn't make a big deal about it, she had everything going for her, but took her time to find the right man and married him at the sensible age of twenty-seven, that was three years ago and she and Nadir now had a year old bundle of joy called Laiba. She on the other hand had met Salman at a friend's party, he was smart, had a great sense of humour, a decent career as a copywriter and came from an uber rich background so money was never a problem but he was all sorts of wrong for her. It didn't matter though, she was twenty-one and still in college, they were married within a year in spite of much resistance from her friends and parents. Life was okay initially, then she got pregnant and had Faiz and somewhere, something changed. She wasn't sure what, perhaps it was her? Or maybe he was the horrible, vile man Rushna had always thought him to be, they started living apart when Faiz was barely a year old and got divorced two years ago. He found a job in Dubai and emigrated and she settled down at one of the biggest and most respected architectural practices in Karachi. She had her brother and parents, a good support system in friends like Rushna and a job that paid well, if only she could successfully be both father and mother to Faiz, and remove the pain of her divorce life and Salman's departure. Faiz was five now and boy was he growing up fast, it wasn't easy to explain why his parents didn't live together anymore. Apart from that she didn't mind being single, but hated the looks people gave her now that all her friends were getting married, it was like her life was over and she'd barely turned thirty. Thinking all of this, as she dressed for the wedding of a school friend Mariam she practiced smiling and rehearsed her standard response as she braced herself for the standard "Have you thought about remarrying?" questions. Her mother knocked on the door to say they were all ready and waiting downstairs then and she set off.

"So, which of these do you think looks better with this suit?" he said as he held up two neckties to Nivyaan who looked bored and antsy so he said, "you know what? It's not like I'm off to a business meeting, I'll skip the tie. Don't think Osama will mind! Come on then" he said as he threw the ties on the bed "You're coming with daada daadi later, I'm the best man, have to go now"

It was a quick drive to Osama's house from where he lived but he decided to take a detour as he smoked a cigarette and thought about his best friend, who'd waited till the age of thirty-four before taking the plunge. Unlike him, who prided himself on being a great judge of people and rushed into marriage at the age of twenty-six and then proceeded to father a child. Not that he regretted any of it, cause honestly Nivyaan was the best thing that had ever happened to him but he still thought about the opportunity costs of an early marriage, he'd missed out on quite a few things that his friends got up to simply because he was married. And now he was the silent participant in conversations about wife troubles as all his friends were settling down, he didn't mind but sometimes being the odd one bothered him.