Title: Having A Moment
Author: MercuryPheonix (Your Angel of Music)
Rating: K
Spoilers: Set during the 8th March episode, just after Zainab sends Christian out to post the letter to Denise and Kim.
Summary: As he considers his new-found acceptance into the Masood family, Christian realises that sometimes you just need to have a single moment of pure, unadulterated joy...
A/N: This was just a little something that hit me like a truck and I had to write it. It was done rather quickly, but I wanted it to be short and sweet and not-too-fussed-over. Many thanks to Jenn for the beta.
Having A Moment
Christian was glad that Zainab had sent him out on that errand.
Not just because it reminded him of the old days back at Masala Queen – being ordered to fetch and carry at Zainab's bidding, doing so with a huff that belied a knowing smile – but because it gave him a few precious moments to himself.
And he needed them.
He needed to catch his breath: to take a step back and realise that, suddenly and out of the blue, everything seemed to have shot forward into unknown territory.
It wasn't unwelcome - but it was a shock. It was so sudden, so unexpected, without any kind of forewarning…he needed to stand in the open air, take a deep breath into his lungs and just let himself be, if only for a few seconds.
There was terror mixed in with the exhilaration – fear mixed with jubilation, happiness and anxiety and confusion all bubbling together and boiling over in a messy puddle of thought.
He didn't know what to do.
Here was a family set up - a culture, a religion, a way of life - and with that came expectations. Expectations he didn't understand. How would he fit into that? He didn't have the first clue how the intricacies of their every day lives worked – their faith, their beliefs, their lives, the order of the family, what they would expect an in-law such as himself to do…
What was it like being a Masood? What did that entail?
Because, he realised, he had a feeling he was on the verge of becoming one.
A Masood.
When he'd sat on the plane this morning, envisaging every last moment of his return - and what he was going to do to Syed – in extremely close detail, this had been further away from his mind than any other conceivable thought. It just seemed so…unattainable, so alien, so impossible…
It was something he had never expected. Something he had never planned.
But it was something that he wanted.
God, he wanted it so much.
They had accepted him. Invited him for dinner. Invited him for dinner. He still couldn't quite wrap his thoughts around that concept.
Syed's family - his mother and father - the two people in the world that Syed loved as deeply as Christian knew he loved him; the two people who were such a part of Syed's life that to be excluded from it, from them, had made him feel as though he were shut off from a segment of Syed's heart.
But now it was opening. He could feel it - the acceptance - washing over him in a sudden unexpected wave of excitement and nervousness and…joy…so much joy, more joy than he felt he ever could feel, much more joy than he could possibly contain...
And so, as Christian made his way quietly through the darkness to the Masood's house, he let himself luxuriate in the moment that Zainab had given him.
For that brief moment, paused in the middle of the road that led to the front door of this new family, Christian forgot that he was a thirty-nine year old man trying desperately to please his fiancé's parents.
And, as he jumped into the air, clenching both hands into fists against his chest like an excited child as his feet seemed to hover above the ground, a grin stretching his face as though a happy axe had been pummelled into his jaw, his whole being focused in on that one leaping, joyous, gleeful moment of sheer childish delight…
…in that moment, Christian realised that it felt good to be free.
Fin
Just a silly little thing, but I hope you enjoyed it!