Hey! First, I want to start by saying that I respect every person regardless of whatever what/who they like or their disabilities, etc. Because, as mentioned later in this chapter, after all, we're all persons, human beings, and nobody is perfect. I don't want to offend anyone, specially, in this case, people on the spectrum and if I do, know that it wasn't my intention, at all. I, like many others, have a lot to learn about Autism and I'm always open to listening/reading/learning from any of you who might actually be autistic. I personally can say that I'm not on the spectrum but that's only because I've never seen a specialist. Even though I identify myself a lot with Shaun and the show has made me realize a lot of things about myself and my childhood, etc; I've never been assessed to confirm or discard such diagnosis. So just know that all this story is being written from my heart and with all due respect to everyone.

Also, I didn't get any reviews here about the first chapter but I got told by some of you (on other sites) that you liked it so I decided to continue. I hope you enjoy this new chapter, let me know what you think and, again, thank you for reading!

UNLIKE OTHERS

It was late at night, the whole building was asleep, the only sounds out there were crickets and some other car that would randomly drive down the street. After a day full of meetings and coding, Lea was finally resting in her bed, sleeping peacefully until random noises that sounded like someone on the other side of the wall was moving around furniture or something, woke her up. She groaned, rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling with a slight frown, focusing on the noises she was hearing, trying to figure out where they were coming from, then she realized it was her friendly neighbor, Dr. Shaun Murphy.

—What on earth is he doing at this time? Why is he being so noisy?— She thought and groaned again, closing her eyes and rubbing her face with her hands and then she started hearing —pipes banging?— She asked herself in her mind.

"What is he doing?" She asked out in the air in a very frustrated tone. She rolled over once more and pulled her pillow over her head. —Why do the walls have to be so thin? Why is he banging pipes at this time?— Her thoughts were interrupted when she could hear in the distance the "ding" from the elevator. She moved the pillow from her head and focused on the noises around her again.

The neighbors door opened and closed again, then the heard voices muffled by the wall and at one point it sounded like things got heated they rose their voices and Lea wondered what they were arguing about. "Stop it!" She managed to hear because whoever said it did it so loud that the wall wasn't thick enough to not understand it and then, more muffled voices.

At least there were no more pipe banging or furniture moving noises. She was so tired that the muffled voices became soothing and she feel back asleep.

Next day went by normally; for, meetings, coding, lunch, more coding, more meetings, home at last but, this time she actually felt with more energy than normal at the end of the day so she decided to go to the gym. She drove there, checked herself in and worked out some; though, her routine wasn't really extreme, she enjoyed the boxing lessons the gym had available and sometimes she'd walk into the yoga ones too, depending on her mood but also, she enjoyed looking at the guys in there; not the big buff ones though, those were almost terrifying for her.

One could say that the gym was where she'd go to release stress or extra energy but it was also a place where she'd sometimes meet guys and walk out of there with one every now and then; even though she'd only go to the gym at the hours she knew it wasn't too crowded and nothing with any of those guys ever turned into anything serious.

She did both this time, the boxing and the yoga —Why am I so energetic tonight?— She wondered as she took her things, packed them in her bag and headed out of the gym right after having a little chat with the receptionist that had become sort of her friend by now.

She got in her car and drove out of the parking lot turning on the radio to listen to some music on her way back home. She stopped at a red light and glanced at both sides of the streets, that's when she noticed a guy standing by the buss stop, a guy that looked familiar to her. She rolled down her window and squinted her eyes a bit focusing on the guy who was fidgeting slightly and apparently holding something in his hand but she couldn't make up what it was —Is that…?—

"Shaun?… Are you okay?" She called out.

Shaun turned his face to look at her briefly and replied with a simple "Yes".

"Are you waiting for someone?" She asked still looking at him, wondering what was he doing there alone.

"No" He replied simply, again.

—Oh…then what are you doing?— She thought and glanced like around looking for answers then looked at him again.

"Do you need a ride?" She asked raising a brow.

Shaun looked around like pondering for a moment then answered her question with another simple "Yes".

She smiled. "Come on then! I'm heading home too."

Shaun looked around again then walked to Lea's car. She unlocked the door and he hoped in on the copilot seat.

Lea just watched him kinda amusedly. "You got lost or something?" She teased him.

"I missed my stop because I got distracted looking at the posters of girls in bikinis that are on the bus walls" He answered glancing around at the things in the car and fiddling with his fingers.

Her eyes widened slightly in a combination of shock and amusement as she wasn't expecting that answer.

"I see…" She said kinda feling bad for teasing him but at the same time she tried not to laugh about what he said.

"I'm horrible at directions too. Every time I exit a BART station, I walk like three blocks before I realize I'm going in the wrong direction" She commented, not wanting to make more of what he said and shook her head at herself a bit. Shaun said nothing.

"You're lucky I came to the gym today. I like to go when it's not crowded, but it's so hard to get motivated after work. I just had some extra energy today. Half the time I end up not…"

"You stink" Shaun interrupted her and she couldn't help to laugh some at his out of the blue comment.

—Wow…— She thought then replied to him grinning."I know, I'm disgusting. But I can't shower there. I'm terrified of foot fungus…Hey, you know, as long as we're tossing out truth grenades, you suck at being a neighbor…" She got Shauns attention as he was now looking at her and she continued. "First, you take back your batteries and then you wake me up in the middle of the night stomping around and banging on pipes. What the hell is up with that?"

"My sink drips. I couldn't sleep, so I tried to fix it. Then I couldn't find my screwdriver which made me anxious" He said in a flat monotone way.

"You kept me up because you were anxious about a screwdriver?" She asked and looked at him quickly before looking back at the road.

"Yes. I was very anxious" He answered.

She looked at him once more then back at the road, again. "You're funny… I stink. You're anxious. You always say exactly what's on your mind. It's the total opposite of most guys… It's nice."

"I'm autistic" He blurted out while staring at the road while Lea was driving, as if saying that's the why he's not like other guys.

She raised a brow at such confession and suddenly, in her mind, a lot of things made sense now, even though she didn't know much about that matter. Her mind wandered thinking about what Shaun just said and not long after, they arrived at their building. She parked her car in her spot and they got out, headed to the elevator, got in it and it was a quiet way up to their floor. Once they got there, they walked out of the elevator and Shaun walked straight to his apartment. Lea stood in front of her door and looked at him.

"Good night" She said with a smile.

He turned around to look at her and she continued "And don't go fixing any faucets tonight. That's Armen's job"

She unlocked her door, gave him one last smile and walked into her apartment closing the door behind her.

Lea spent the rest of the night thinking about Shaun's confession. She felt kinda stupid for not realizing but also, somehow embarrassed for not knowing more about the topic. She's never met someone on the spectrum before. When she met Shaun, she just thought he was a shy and nervous guy but now, things made sense. She'd only heard about Autism a long ago, somewhere, she couldn't remember. She didn't want to feel ignorant anymore so she decided to do her own research about it. She grabbed her laptop and began searching and reading stuff about Autism and people on the spectrum. She forgot about dinner and her usual gaming session as she read through articles, watched videos, and other things about the topic. The extra energy that she happened to have left that night turned into focus for all the information she was processing. Eventually she fell asleep, laying on the sofa with her laptop resting on her abdomen.

In the morning, she woke up stiff and sore from sleeping on the sofa and her head was aching from all the information she had processed the night before. The last time she felt like that was back when she was in university and was just starting to learn about coding. She got off the couch leaving her laptop on the coffee table and walked to the kitchen, turned on the coffee maker and rubbed her face with her hands, still taking in what she had read last night.

Part of all the things she learned made her feel sad because, in the end, Autistic people were just persons too, they are human beings too and, even though not all of them are the same or are as high-functioning as Shaun, they deserve respect too, they deserve a normal life like everybody else. But a lot of people still don't understand it, they're still ignorant and close minded, going as far as to say Autistic persons are retarded.

Just to think about it made her blood boil. Sometimes she couldn't understand how can people be so cruel, and all out of ignorance. It all made her emotional, she shook her head slightly and a tear ran down her cheek while staring at the coffee maker as she waited for it to be warm enough to get a cup. She quickly wiped the tear away with her hand, grabbed the carafe and a mug the poured coffee into the mug before adding some sugar to it and taking a sip, then she almost hugged her mug thinking about her neighbor and thanking the universe for not having to go to work that day as she was mentally exhausted.

A few days went by and she didn't hear or see much of Shaun until one day they both arrived to the building at about the same time. Shaun was arriving from the hospital and Lea had gone to the store nearby to get some groceries. She smiled as soon as she saw him and held the elevator's doors open so he could get in.

"Good evening, neighbor" She greeted him to break the ice once they were inside the elevator and the doors closed.

"Hello" He said in a flat tone with his hands right in front of his abdomen, fingers intertwined as usual. Lea sensed another vibe though, and her smile faded away.

She stared at him but at as soon as the doors opened, Shaun walked out straight to his apartment without saying anything else. Lea stood there watching him for a second "Okay…" She mumbled to herself and walked out to her door. Both walked into their apartments silently.

The vibe Lea had sensed wasn't good, it felt as if Shaun was walking under a grey cloud. She wondered if something bad happened to him.

There was no way for her to know what Shaun had been through the past few days at work. There was no way for her to know that Shaun had been in a case where the patient looked exactly like his dead brother and this boy was going to die too and there was nothing Shaun could do to save him, or that saying goodbye to him was like getting closure and saying goodbye to his own brother, Steve. Because after all, she had just met Shaun.

She stared down at her bag of groceries remembering what she got them for and a slight smile formed on her lips as she got an idea.

She went to the kitchen, emptied the bag and started cooking the pasta she was going to cook. She didn't know how too cook a lot of things, in fact, her skills in the kitchen were minimal but if there was something she knew how to cook like a pro was some bolognese pasta; among some other Italian dishes, because her nonna made sure she learned the recipes to the T. Lea smiled remembering when her nonna taught her because she was too worried about what she was going to eat when she left town to go to university.

"A Dilallo should eat well. I don't want you to lose more weight, you're already too thin and small. I don't want you eating pasta out of cans or those disgusting instant soups." Nonna Dilallo said to her granddaughter back then.

Lea kept on cooking until the dish was done. She plated some pasta as nicely as she could, recalling in her mind all the cooking shows she's ever watched and trying to make her plating look as nice as those on tv. Once she finished she looked at it and grinned to herself proudly. —Nonna would be proud— she thought.

As a final touch, she just added a post-it note to the side of the plate that read "I don't know what happened but I hope this makes you feel better, as good as it always makes me feel after a rough day. I'm all ears if you ever want to talk. - Lea."

She suddenly realized she had forgotten about her also rough time at work that day, which is why she was going to cook the pasta in the first place, to comfort herself.

She grabbed the plate and carefully headed out of her apartment. Walked to Shaun's door and placed the plate down on the floor. She knocked on his door several times to make sure he hard it and like a kid playing around, she ran back into her apartment and closed the door with a little giggle.

She stood there waiting and heard Shaun's door open. He looked around then glanced down and saw the plate, picked it up carefully and inspected it closely, then he read the note. After a bit, Lea heard his door close again and she smiled to herself hoping he liked it but her insecurities creeped in for a moment —What if he doesn't like pasta? What if he's not into Italian food? What does he even like to eat?— She thought but shook her head and tried to remain positive telling herself "He'll like it, no one's ever not liked nonna's food" She nodded to herself and walked back to the kitchen to serve herself some pasta.

Shaun was in his apartment, sitting by the table inspecting the dish in front of him. He had never eaten bolognese pasta before since he was sort of a picky eater, he hated pickles and liked his meals arranged in a certain way or he gets upset but Dr. Glassman once told him it could be seen as disrespectful to reject someone's food if they cooked for him or were inviting him and also "There's a lot of stuff out there, Shaun. You have to at least give it a try! How can you know you don't like it if you've never even tried it? You have to try it first to know if you actually like it or not" Glassman said to Shaun one time and that argument was basically enough to get him to eat other things because he was even pickier back then.

He got up, went to the kitchen to get a fork then sat back down in front of the dish. He leaned in closer to smell it and thought —It doesn't smell too bad…— "You have to at least give it a try!" He remembered again and hesitantly picked up some pasta with the fork then put it in his mouth. He savored it for a moment, testing the texture and all the flavors in his mouth as he chewed then he swallowed. It was surprisingly good, he usually didn't like food with some sort of dressing or sauce on it but this was actually good so he continued eating. He stared at the post-it note that now rested on his table, next to the plate. "I hope it makes you feel better". That stuck to him and he realized that in fact, it made him feel better.