Hey guys, sooooooooo sorry about the delay, here's your next chapter!

Chapter 5:

Sneaking out of the bedroom before Raj could wake up, Navin crept down the hall and knocked on Tanisha's door quietly. She opened it straight away, obviously having been expecting him.

"So," she whispered, "How do you think it's going?" The previous night they had arranged to meet before anybody woke up to discuss the progress of their mission.

"I think it's going well so far," Navin whispered back, "They're becoming friends and they do seem to lie each other."

"But they haven't fallen in love yet!" Tanisha said, sounding quite annoyed about it. "When's it going to happen?"

"Tanu, you can't hurry love!" Navin told her, feeling a bit exasperated, "They've only known each other for one and a half days, you can't expect it to happen instantly!"

"But we've only got five days!" Tanisha sounded worried, "Two days are gone and we only have three left, can we really do it in that time?"

"I don't know," Navin told her honestly, "As far as I know both of them, they're not likely to fall in love that quickly. We're just going to have to hope for the best. And if it's not done by the time we return to the academy then we just keep working on it."

Tanisha nodded, even she knew that they couldn't hope for too much too quickly, but she couldn 't help being anxious when her entire future with Navin relied on this plan working.

"And if we fail?" she whispered, unable to keep the worry out of her voice? "If they don't fall in love and don't want to get married?"

"Then we think of a new plan." Navin told her gently and hugged her, "No matter what happens Tanu, we'll find a way to be together."

Shortly afterwards he crept back to his own room with Raj to find his friend completely awake.

"Don't think that I didn't notice you sneaking out before, Navin!" Raj told him jokingly, "At least have some shame in your parents' house!"

"I just needed to go to the bathroom." Navin tried to make an excuse, while inside he was cursing Raj for being such a light sleeper.

"Oh, really?" Raj raised his eyebrows at this, "You must have really been having some problems if you were in the bathroom all this time. It's been more than half an hour since you sneaked out of the room, Navin!" Then with a very mischievous look on his face he added, "Or does that mean that the next time I need to go to the bathroom, I should be heading towards the guest bedroom?"

Realising that Raj was teasing him and that he hadn't figured out what Navin had actually been doing, Navin relaxed and picked up his pillow, hitting Raj with it. Before long it was an all out pillow fight which only ended when a curious Naina poked her head around the door to find out what all the noise was. She shrieked and ducked out again closing it quickly as Navin threw the pillow at her instead.

After this they quickly got ready before joining the rest of the family for breakfast.

Due to Naina's nagging the night before, both Raj and Navin dressed in their new kurta pyjamas, while the girls both wore new salwar kameez. Breakfast was a very happy occasion, filled with jokes, usually at Navin's expense as both Raj and Naina ganged up on him. Navin and Naina's parents announced that they would all be spending the morning together, as they were going to drive up a nearby lookout point and then have a picnic lunch.

Tanu was excited by this idea, glad to be spending more time with Navin's parents, that was until she saw Navin's slight frown and realised the bad point in this plan. Raj and Naina were hardly going to be encouraged to romance with Naina's parents around. As everybody went off to prepare for the day, Navin and Tanisha snuck out of the house to meet in the front garden.

"What are we going to do?" Navin asked her, "Nothing is ever going to happen like this."

"Well…… we could leave them behind on the mountain so that they have to find their way back together. That always makes people fall in love in movies!" Tanisha said the first thing that came into her head, before realising the obvious hole in her plan, "Except for the fact that your parents would obviously realise if they weren't in the car with us on the way back.

Navin suddenly saw the light side of the situation and started laughing, "I can't believe how silly we're being, Tanu." He said, shaking his head, "I think we just need to relax and see what happens. Let's just enjoy our holiday."

Tanisha nodded, even she thought they were getting way too stressed about this mission of theirs.

Shortly after breakfast when they'd packed a lunch for the trip, and the young people had changed out of their formal clothes into something more casual, everybody piled into the car together and set off for the picnic and lookout spot. Navin's father was just explaining to Raj about the trek that could be taken up the mountain to an even more impressive viewpoint.

"Wow, Navin, we should do that." Raj told him, "I haven't been on a good trek for a long time." Turning to Naina, who was sitting beside him (something that Tanisha had managed by making Naina get into the car before she did), he asked her, "What do you think, Naina? Are you up for it?"

"Sure, but don't get so confident right now, you haven't seen our mountains yet." She joked with him.

Navin and Tanisha exchanged a secret smile, it was all working out perfectly and they barely had to do a thing.

They arrived at the spot after about an hour of driving and helped Navin and Naina's parents to unpack the car. It was a beautiful area and they weren't the only people who had had the idea of coming for a picnic for Diwali. Choosing a shady area underneath a tree they spread their picnic blanket and put the things on it. Both pulling out books to read, Mr and Mrs Ahluwalia encouraged the young people to go for a walk and trek up the mountain.

As Raj and Naina headed off at a good pace, Naina excitedly explaining to him what they would see when they reached the top, Navin gestured to Tanisha to go slightly slower.

"That way they'll have some time alone on the walk, and have to wait for us together at the top." He explained in a whisper.

Tanisha gave him a thumbs up, impressed with his plan. It wasn't for nothing that Navin was the best cadet at KMA, he really did have a good head for strategy. They slowed their pace practically dawdling up the mountain, and thought there plan was working when Raj suddenly turned around.

"You two are far too slow," he announced, "Hurry up or we won't make it before night!"

"You go ahead," Navin told him, "We'll make our way up in our own time, don't worry about us."

Naina made a sudden face at Raj, tilting her head in the direction of Navin and Tanisha.

Laughing, Raj finally understood. "Ohhhh, so Janab wants some time to romance, does he? Don't worry Navin, we'll give you guys some privacy, just don't take too long to reach the top or we're leaving without you."

Saying this he gestured to Naina for them to go, and they set off, Navin and Tanisha exchanged a high five and then waited for them to be gone a safe distance before continuing. Navin was happy to see that in the distance, Raj had stretched out his hand, offering to help Naina over a particularly difficult rocky area. His smile grew even more when the normally independent Naina put her hand into Raj's, allowing herself to be helped.

Everything was going perfectly.

**

Raj and Naina took the climb at their own pace, talking while they went. Raj wasn't sure why, but he found himself telling Naina about his family, about how snobby they were and how glad he had been to escape them when he went to the academy.

"They were against me joining the army of course," he told her, "They would much have preferred me to study business and do my MBA at some foreign university."

"How terrible," Naina says, and Raj realises that she's not joking, "I've never wanted to go abroad for anything other than a holiday. It must be hard having parents who don't understand your ambitions or dreams."
.
Raj had been surprised how easy it was to talk to her, considering that they'd only known each other a couple of days. Already he had told her more about himself than he'd intended to.

"So you don't want to do your MBA abroad then?" he asked her.

"No way," Naina replied, "I know foreign universities are more well respected, but there are plenty of good MBA programs right here in India. I just don't think I would enjoy being away from my family and my home for such a long time."

Raj nodded, "You're lucky, Naina, it's good that you've got a family you'll miss when you're away from them. As much as I love my parents, they've never been able to understand me, and I've never been able to understand them."

Naina looked back over her shoulder, "Where do you think that Navin and Tanu have gotten to? They must be quite far behind us by now?"

Raj laughs at that, "Let them have their privacy. Navin is too obvious when he's trying to do something secretly, I guessed that he wanted to be alone with her the moment I saw they were falling behind us."

"They do make a cute couple, don't they?" Naina asked him, "I think I would like having Tanu as my Bhabi, I hope that everything works out between them."

"Well they're very serious about each other." Raj told her, "Navin might have flirted a lot with girls in the past, but he really does love Tanu, and she's crazy about him too."

The rest of the trip up the mountain they discussed Navin and Tanu, as Naina had been dying to know how the two of them had fallen in love, but obviously she couldn't ask her brother and she hadn't known whether it would be alright to ask Tanu or not.

When they finally reached the top, the view was breathtaking. They sat back on a bench, relaxing, as they waited for Navin and Tanisha to make it to the top, continuing their conversation about each others' families and the academy and Naina's college.

Navin and Tanisha reached the top about twenty minutes later.

"It's about time!" Naina told them, "I'm starving after that climb, let's go back down and have our lunch."

Navin and Tanu sat down for a moment to rest and enjoy the view then they all climbed down the mountain together again, arriving just as Navin and Naina's parents had finished setting out their picnic. Everybody collapsed on the picnic blanket, exhausted, Naina complaining that her legs hurt since she was the only one of them not used to a great deal of exercise.

They all ate and chatted happily, both Tanu and Raj were happy at how welcoming and warm Navin and Naina's parents were. Since it was already early in the afternoon they decided that it was time to go back home so that they could begin preparing for that night.

In the car on the way back, Naina drifted off to sleep, tired out from the long walk and then the lunch afterwards. Her head slipped down to rest on Raj's shoulder, whose eyes were also closed.

Navin couldn't help thinking how perfect they looked out together. It couldn't have turned out better if he'd planned it himself.

Oh that's right.

He had.