Meri Musibat [Tere Bin FF]

1. 18, 21

A/N: If you follow me on Twitter, you know I got obsessed with the idea of Meerab finding out she is a Khan under less dramatic circumstances. This story starts when Meerab is 18 and Murtasim is 21, and will follow them through every summer of their lives!

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At the tender age of twenty-one, Murtasim Khan had thought he had inherited all the musibats one could possibly inherit. His destiny, shaped by his father's death, had thrusted him into the role of a feudal lord, a mantle he didn't ask for, and one that came with a myriad of complex problems even his predecessors had been unable to unravel. It was a role too heavy for his youthful shoulders, and a life that seemed to be shaped more by obligation and duty than by the desires of his heart.

But as fate would have it, at twenty-one, Murtasim inherited a musibat he had never anticipated –the bane of his existence was actually Meerab Anwar Khan not Meerab Waqas Ahmed.

Meerab, a girl he had known since childhood but understood little, was the unanticipated daughter of his Anwar-Chacha.

If he were to rank television-worthy revelations in his family, that would take the cake. To him, the revelation that Meerab was family was somehow more shocking than when his mother's father had casually announced that he had an identical twin who lived in India. It was even more shocking than when he had discovered that his grandmother's sister wrote political novels under a pseudonym. He didn't even count the story of his uncle who had 13 children with women other than his wife as television-worthy, that man was just a disgrace.

Nothing had shocked him as much as when Chacha-Saab, who had been mostly absent from his life until his father's death, had revealed the truth about Meerab's parentage on her 18th birthday, it left him reeling.

He had just whispered no.

His mother had whacked him in the head and told him to shut up – everyone said he got his anger issues from his father, but he was sure his mother's disposition hadn't helped the matter.

For years, Meerab was just Meerab Waqas Ahmed, an annoying girl who had always been a part of the Ahmeds' visits. But on her eighteenth birthday, she was revealed to be a Khan, a daughter forsaken by her own father after her mother's death.

If the secret had shaken him less, he would have enjoyed her gobsmacked expression more, she had been about to take a sip of the mango shake in front of her when after a couple of sighs Chacha-Saab revealed that he was her biological father.

It was like in that moment the heavens had parted and he had received the answer he had had always sought. it made so much sense suddenly. For Murtasim had always wondered why his family was so engrossed in every detail of Meerab's life, so much so that he knew much more than he wanted to know about her.

Like the fact that she had started a Bachelors in Law (LLB) just last year – it had been a contested topic in his household for women in their families chose a short three-year Bachelors of Arts, at most a Bachelors of Education, to ensure they could teach their future children. A five-year LLB was a shock, and there had been a lot of back-and-forth that he didn't understand, until Meerab inevitably got her way, she always did.

He also knew that they all thought Meerab was utterly gorgeous, his mother left no opportunity to comment that she was the most beautiful in their family, he had never considered her a part of the family so he just rolled his eyes at that comment, she was...all right.

Murtasim also knew that they – meaning his mother and uncle - also thought that she had too many male friends, that she was not demure enough for their tastes, that she loved the colours pink and yellow, preferred books over movies, and so many other little things he didn't care for.