A/N: This is the last chapter of this story but i'm going to write a sequel if anyone's interested

Chapter eleven

Zainab inwardly groaned when she heard Christian's voice coming from the kitchen as she entered the house. Even though she had been trying to hide her feelings towards Syed and Christian's relationship since her son agreed to come home she still hated the thought of her son and Christian together. Syed had once told her that thought of being intimate with his wife made him feel physically sick and that is how she felt about his current relationship. But she had to hold her tongue or her eldest would leave again. She just wished he would see sense and end this charade. Putting up the mask she had been wearing the last few weeks she headed to the kitchen.

"Zainab," Christian greeted with the same false cheeriness she had been using with him. "How are you this afternoon?"

"I'm fine," she told him with a hint of bitterness in her tone. Something which did not go unnoticed from her son.

"Mum," he hissed quietly, nor happy with how she was acting.

"Maybe I should go," Christian said as he stood up, suddenly feeling highly uncomfortable with the situation.

"You shouldn't have to," Syed told him.

"No it's okay, I have some things to do anyway," he said and leaned down and kissed Syed deliberately; knowing full well that Zainab was watching over them with her disapproving gaze. "I'll see you later," he smiled before he left.

"Yeah," Syed said feeling angry at the position his mother was putting him in. Once he heard the door close he turned to Zainab. "Why did you have to do that?"

"Do what?" Zainab asked as if nothing had happened.

"Act like that when I'm with Christian, like he's the lowest form of scum?"

"I do not."

"Yes you do," Syed said, feeling his voice rise higher alongside his anger. "Why can't you just accept that I am with Christian?"

"Because it's unnatural," Zainab snapped and shouted at him. "You can say how much you love him and parade it around the square but it does not change the fact that it is wrong."

"So that's how you really feel?"

"It's how I've always felt."

"How about taking my feelings into consideration in all of this?" He shouted. "I gave up everything to do what you wanted. I married a woman I didn't want to because you didn't want to be shamed. I put up with that sham marriage for months because you said you would be the first to disown me. Now, for the first time in I don't know how long, I am happy but you can't seem to accept that. Do you want me to be miserable for the rest of my life? To spend it with someone I'm not in love with?"

Zainab didn't know how to come back so she just stood and stared harshly at her son.

"I just want you to understand."

"I'm sorry," she told him; her voice low and full of sadness. Her gazed dropped to the ground; she could no longer look at her son. "I'm sorry but I can't."

"Then I can't stay," Syed replied just as quiet. Not waiting for his mother to react, he took off and hurried up the stairs.

Once he was in the safety of his room, he slammed it shut and grabbed the bag residing under his bed. He pulled open his wardrobe and began shoving his clothes into the bag. He knew he couldn't stay here any longer; he couldn't even look at Zainab without wanting to scream. He couldn't stay in the same house; he didn't even think he could stay on the square with his mother looking on with her disapproving stare.

Zipping the bag shut, he opened the door and hurried down the stairs. As he was pulling his jacket on; his father walked through the door.

"What are you doing?" He asked; noticing the bag sitting on the stairs.

"I have to go. I can't stay here with mum."

"What has she said now?"

"That what I'm doing is wrong and unnatural."

"Why don't you just try talking to her?"

"I tried talking to her but she won't change her mind. I have to get out of here before I say something I truly regret," he told Masood and he nodded slightly in understanding. "I'll speak to you later," Syed said as he headed out of the door and over to Christian's flat.

"I can't do it anymore, I can't stay there and have her judging me like I've done something wrong," Syed ranted at Christian. Christian just sat on the sofa and allowed him to get it all out of his system as he paced up and down the small room. "How could she say those things? I mean what possessed her to be so evil?"

"Sy, sit down; you need to calm down."

"I know; you're right," Syed sighed and sat down next to Christian, leaning into him when he wrapped his arm around Syed's shoulder. "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"We could always leave," Christian suggested. "Go somewhere new, start a life for ourselves."

"I don't want you to feel you have to do this just for me. What about Jane?"

"She'll understand. This is about you and me; no-one else. I want to be with you for the rest of my life and I want you to be happy. We need to start living our own lives and stop feeling so responsible for our families. What do you think?"

"I think that maybe it's a good idea," Syed smiled and leaned in to kiss Christian. "A new start."

"Christian and I have decided to move away," Syed told Masood the next morning.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know yet, we just need to get away from the square; away from all the gossips and dirty looks," and Zainab, but that went unsaid.

"But you'll keep in touch?"

"Of course I will," he said to his father.

"And there's nothing I can say to get you to stay?" He asked but Syed simply shook his head.

"This is just something I have to do."

They left without a big send off, just slipped off quietly into the night but that was the way they wanted it. As long as they were together it would all be okay.