Zayn

"He really hasn't mentioned anything about the baby?" I wondered desperately, my gaze fixed on my mum as she led me and Hannah over to the living room.

She shook her head, staring at my son. "He hasn't, Zayn. Tears leaked from his eyes during dinner, though, I'm not sure why. He told me he was tired."

"Zeph just needs some time, Zayn." Hannah said softly, reassuring me for the hundredth time this evening. Which was, apparently, needed. My guts had felt heavy after his reaction, which had seemed lost, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing when he was holding that photo.

Biting my lip, I glanced at Zephaniah who was fast asleep on the couch, needless to say, onto his stomach. It was true, it was Zephaniah. It was a big change, both Hannah and I knew that, although, we had figured now was the right time for another child.

"Didn't he want to sleep in my bed?" I suddenly chuckled, pushing my concerned thoughts away by changing the subject.

Mum laughed softly, shaking her head. "He had smoothly hinted he just wanted to lie on the couch. I think we traumatized him that one time where we decided to just let him sleepover."

"It was stupid, from me." I smiled sheepishly. "He woke up disorientated because we had told him we'd pick him up at eleven thirty. Can't blame him. He was pulled out of his structure."

"It was alright," mum gave me and Hannah a smile and as I glanced at the clock, I knew we needed to head home now.

Walking over to Zephaniah, I simply crouched down near his face and rested my cold hand on his warm cheek, softly stroking it. "Zeph," I observed his expression, he hadn't heard nor felt me.

"Zephaniah, wake up." I tapped on his cheek, seeing how his neutral eyebrows turned into a frown, his body rolling onto his back not much later.

"Good morning," I fondly watched him as he awoke completely, looking at us with his head tilted up slightly, confusion written on his face. "Coming home with us?" I whispered, watching as Hannah gathered his stuff, Cooper and kissed my mum goodbye.

Zephaniah nodded quietly and slipped off the couch, sleepily stepping into his Nike shorts as he didn't like sleeping in them. Hannah wrapped his coat around him, and Zephaniah let it be like that as he seemed to be too tired to put it on in the right way.

"Come on, let's go." I mumbled, my eyes fixed onto his face, wanting to know how he actually felt about the baby me and Hannah were expecting, but, it was as if he slept. His eyes still halfway closed, his appearance extremely quiet and calm.

Once we had thanked and wished my mum goodbye as well, we got settled in the car and drove back home. Zephaniah had fallen asleep again, and I let him, knowing the disturbing from his sleep could trigger his seizures.

We arrived not much later and as Zephaniah was about to walk upstairs, he suddenly turned around, wiping away the fringe. "Dad," He gulped, his once sleepy eyes now wide, "I- I forgot to ask grandma- Cooper has not been walked yet, I need to-"

"Go to sleep, Zephaniah. I'll walk him, it's no problem." I gave him a genuine smile, softly pushing him back onto the stairs.

He glanced at the clock, visibly swallowing, "Uhm, but- but it has been three hours-"

"It's okay, Zeph. Dogs can adjust perfectly fine, I'll walk him. It's okay. Goodnight, Zeph." I ruffled his hair and pushed him again, watching him as he walked upstairs, sighing in relief, perhaps.

Turning around, my eyes met Hannah's, smiles automatically appearing on our faces. "Is it okay if I go to bed right away? I'm exhausted," she said, her dimples fading as her smile turned to a serious expression instead.

"Totally, babe. You need your rest," I said quietly, cupping her cheek and pressing a soft kiss to her lips. "Goodnight, love. I'll join you once this one here has done his business," I chuckled.

Hannah simply smiled at me, pressing another kiss to my lips before turning around and walking upstairs. "Goodnight, Zayn. Be careful."

"Will be, Hannah." I answered, then left our house and locked the door- just in case. Cooper dragged me through the route Zephaniah always walked with him. It had become so structured, that Cooper exactly knew where Zephaniah stopped to either catch his breath or get lost into one of his many stare moments.

It made me smile, it made my thoughts run. Cooper always made my thoughts run at our late night walks for some reasons. I hadn't ever minded, it relaxed me.

We walked pasted the garden from one of our 'far- away' neighbors. The garden I never wanted to see, as it reminded me of my awkwardness towards Hannah.

I had plucked several flowers out of their garden, as I ran out of money and couldn't buy her some when I wanted to take her out for a picnic, our very, first, official date without our son.

She had loved the flowers and wondered where I had gotten them from, few days later the neighbors were stood on my doorstep, scolding and accusing me of vandalism and stealing.

Hannah hadn't stopped laughing and although I had felt extremely stupid and ashamed, she said she wouldn't have wanted it differently.

Now, ten years later, we could only laugh when one of us brought up the story and we both waved at the neighbors, who still glared at me a times.

Ten years. Today, ten years ago, I had married Hannah Blake. I called her my wife now, which was extremely odd if you would've thought about it years ago, when she was Zephaniah's caregiver.

I couldn't believe how much had changed ever since she had come into both mine and Zephaniah's life. She had given me so much confidence, always encouraged us while raising Zephaniah, making sure I felt loved, making sure he felt loved.

When in our relationship- she came by almost every day, still taking care of Zephaniah, but in a different way. She wasn't a professional caregiver, anymore. She was a mother.

Zephaniah didn't know how he had to call her at first, because if she was his mum, why didn't she live with him? I had tried to explain Zephaniah our norms and values in the best, and easiest ways I could. He had understood, though, still confused on how to call her.

Miss Hannah became Miss Mummy Hannah, but the Miss had faded right after the moment we were married and she came to live with us. The first day had been very strange, but in a good way. I couldn't believe that my little family was finally complete, though, Zephaniah acted as if it hadn't ever been different, which confirmed that that was it.

Hannah, Zephaniah, and I.

Hannah guided Zephaniah with the things she had helped him with whilst being a caregiver, but in a different way. Zephaniah sat on her lap all the time, his arms always wrapped around her and I.. I was happy.

After Zephaniah's presentation, we had hoped for his classmates to be more understanding. Truth was, they hadn't changed. Hannah and I hadn't known what to do, as we knew a new school would be an immense thing for Zephaniah, and we didn't know what the good was in that situation.

Until, Zephaniah was fed up with their comments and behavior. He had totally flipped, screamed, cursed and hit those boys, hard, in the daze of his autistic meltdown because everything became to much for him.

He had feared to go to school the day after, as he thought they would hit him back, clearly knowing what was wrong and right. Though, the boys had stayed silent completely, not daring to make another comment to or about Zephaniah.

However, Hannah, the teacher and I had decided that we could try for Zephaniah to join the regular primary school, as we had the impression the kids in his class from the Special School, had the opposite effect on him as what we wanted him to have.

It had given him more stress, as they were more aggressive and they drew a lot of the teachers' attention. Zephaniah, therefore, went unnoticed many times as the teachers had something else to deal with, and would simply shove a work sheet in front of Zephaniah's face because he was such a good and quiet boy, he could do it himself.

It hadn't worked like that, so as Hannah and I signed himself up for the regular school after we had had many conversations with the director and his teacher- we had tried to explain Zephaniah why and what would be happening.

He had been very afraid, but they had promised that he could take Cooper with him, which he wasn't allowed to at the Special School.

It was the best decision Hannah and I had made, probably. The class was busier, but Zephaniah was allowed to wear headphones for his concentration and to numb the many noises that made him overstimulated, the teacher always took extra time for him to explain the work sheets, took him to an empty room if he was about to get overstimulated.

Besides that, Hannah had followed quite some courses that helped kids with special needs. She had done a basic course as speech therapist and had helped Zephaniah extremely much with that. His regular stuttering and stammering turning to lost stutters at times, stammering due nerves.

We had wanted for Zephaniah to join more social activities after that, as we wanted to teach him that it wasn't only scary to meet new people, it could bloom into friendships as well.

Zephaniah and I had joined Hannah's church when he turned nine, a first step for social activities for him, but secretly also for me. I had been more nervous than Zephaniah, probably, as I was afraid people would judge Hannah because she was in a relationship with a man that had a child with another woman.

I was wrong. Completely wrong. They were the most welcoming humans I had ever met, and I had definitely felt comfortable being around them. We had built up our own friendship groups, and Zephaniah went to the so called 'kids club' where he had met Alexander.

The church also had a boys choir, and since Zephaniah sang a lot at home, Hannah and I had smoothly taken him to a few shows of them in church, deeply observing his expressions the whole time.

Zephaniah had mouthed along with the songs, quietly danced when he thought we weren't looking and his eyes were sparkling the whole time.

Hannah and I had told him that he could join, Alexander was there too, after all. We had to coax him for quite a while, but after the first time he had sung and performed with the boys choir (and Cooper), he had been beaming from happiness.

Church thought he was a special boy. He was the youngest one around that time. The choir was meant for boys ages nine to fifteen. They sang and danced geographies professional dancers would've hysterically laughed at.

Clap, clap, jump, clap, turn to the right, clap, turn to the left, clap, turn around, clap, clap. The sight had been comical, but our hearts swelled with love each time we saw Zephaniah perform.

We had discovered that he had a really pretty voice. The leader of the boys choir had said that she loved his voice, thought it was special as she could hear the slight vibration in it, that came from my Pakistani heritage, I had given to Zephaniah.

His voice was undeveloped, the one from a young boy, still rather high pitched, which is why they gave him high notes many times.

Zephaniah had a lot of fun, until they gave him more solos each time. It made him feel insecure and he started fearing performing. The one time where he had a seizure on stage because of the many aspects that had triggered it, that's when we, sadly, decided to sign him off because, he wanted it.

Alexander, his one good friend, had moved after that as well and I wondered if things would go downhill from there. Zephaniah and Alexander had started writing letters, but after a few months, he had stopped. Zephaniah didn't understand why, I had sadly explained him that it's life.

He had been eleven at that time. When he was thirteen, he had another very severe seizure, needed medication to stop the seizure rectally as through his mouth had been too dangerous as he could suffocate. To our gratefulness, his brain hadn't been damaged again, which was a mircale. Doctor said the severity of the seizure could be because of his changing body.

When puberty came, Zephaniah started changing slightly. He got meltdowns regularly, became physical violent at times as he didn't know how to express certain things. He'd hit, kick us, or hurt himself by tugging at his hair or deeply digging his nails into his skin.

Later on, I discovered that he didn't understand what was happening at all. He had cried and cried, asked why his bones kept hurting and why his voice was changing. He didn't want it, he wanted to stay him.

Hannah and I had explained him everything, not leaving one, single, detail out. He had understood and although his mood swings caused many meltdowns and his changing body many seizures- we got through it and when Zephaniah had turned sixteen, his meltdowns became less and less heavy, the softhearted boy coming back each day a little more.

Growing up, I had always noticed girls falling for Zephaniah, especially because of his strange- in a good way- green eyes. They'd flirt, Zephaniah had always been a little oblivious to that.

He preferred staying close to us during services, walking home right after, while the youth group would hang out. I had asked many times if he wanted to join- but he was too tired for that.

It was understandable, new schools had always triggered everything. He needed a calm, and restful weekend. Though, I was sad that he never found someone like Alexander again.

Zephaniah hadn't always seemed to mind that. He was a real, and loyal family guy and as long as that made him happy- I was happy.

"Oh, Cooper. What has he told you, today?" I whispered as I crouched down in front of the dog, softly patting his head.

Hannah and I had waited for another child for the sake of Zephaniah. He had been through so many changes in the years where Hannah and I were married, that we knew it'd become too much for him.

It wasn't a small thing, after all. Once he turned eighteen, we had thought it was the right time, but after trying for months, Hannah hadn't become pregnant, which had saddened us deeply.

Until, two months ago, the doctor had given us positive results. We hadn't known if it was the right time now, as he was nineteen and had just started University which had completely messed up his safe structure.

But, we were happy. Zephaniah just needed some time. Time to process, time to adjust.

Sighing deeply, I decided to go back home. Sleep was slowly taking over me as well, and I couldn't wait to step in our bed.

Luckily for me, Zephaniah didn't walk too far from home, so it was only minutes later when I stepped into our house again.

Instructing for Cooper to walk upstairs, I quietly opened Zephaniah's bedroom door and pointed at Cooper's sleeping mat besides his bed.

"Good boy," I softly scratched underneath his chin, which he clearly loved as his eyes closed, and gave him one last pat before turning my attention to Zephaniah, who was sleeping deeply, a smile making its way onto my face.

Once he was old enough, he started explaining what was going through his mind in very interesting and creative ways. He said more than only the well known words 'my head is full'. He explained why it went 'boom' at times, he came up with the 'pizzahead' and many more things.

But no matter how hard he tried to explain everything to Hannah and I- we'd never fully know what was going on, as we simply didn't know what it was like to have mild autism.

Staring at my son for another while, I sighed sadly.

What is that, that you're dreaming of, Zephaniah?

~~~

Zayn?! Surpriseee.. hope you liked it. Thought I'd give you his point of view and some history about Zephaniah throughout the years that we missed :(.

How was it?

Zephaniah from age nine to his age now?

Small zannah moments?