Hi Everyone!
We're back! Shocking, right? Aish and Naina, and back so soon with an update?!
Haha, well anyways, I just wanted to let you all know that there are two chapters left, including this one and then hopefully an epilogue, if we can get that in before the deadlineđ (Which is coming up soon, if I may addđ)
Happy Reading! And thanks everyone for your lovely/amazing comments!
Cheers!
~Naina/Aish
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Link to Previous Chapter
Chapter 7: Memory Lane
"Tum?"
"Surprised?"
Abhi scoffed, gently setting down Nikki's hand as he got up, "To say the least! What are you doing here?" He reached over to give her a warm hug, "God Jiah I haven't seen you in forever!"
She smiled back at him, but the smile didn't reach her cold eyes; eyes that still remembered being heartbroken over this very same man, "Yes." she replied, "It has been a while."
They stepped back, taking each other in, many things had changed in the six years since they had last seen each other, and yet many things seemed the same. Abhi was still oblivious to her obvious affections, and Jiah, well Jiah was still very much in love with the man standing before her.
"Wow...WOW.....This is just kind of a shock" smiled Abhi.
"Jee thanks."
"No. no, God J, you- you look like a girl!"
"Abhi!"
"Sorry," he laughed, "But anyway, what brings you here?" he questioned, puzzled.
"Abhi..Abhi...What could a doctor POSSIBLY be doing in a hospital" she feigned bewilderment.
He slapped himself in the head "Oh D'oh, of course. Ignore that stupid moment of mine." Reaching out to pull her into a hug once more, Abhi had a huge grin on his face as he congratulated her, telling her how excited he was that she would be working with him.
Jiah raised an eyebrow questioningly, as she caught sight of the woman lying the hospital bed, looking pale and weak. Abhi followed her gaze, his expression straining, the smile completely vanishing, as he saw his helpless wife. "Nikkita." He said, "My wife." He turned his back to Jiah as he headed back to sit near her bed, "My life" he softly whispered.
He was too engrossed in studying Nikki's face to notice the sour look that overcame Jiah's face. Her fists were clenched as she inquired what happened, a sadistic sneer forming on her blemish free face as Abhi sorrowfully told her about Armaan and his betrayal.
"It will all be alright Abhi," she assured him, giving his shoulder a slight squeeze. "She'll be fine, and you look like you need some rest."
Before Abhi could respond though, he heard his phone ringing, a call from Riddhima? He clicked Answer, and the first noise to make it to his ears was the sound of a baby crying. NEIL! He had completely forgotten about his son, his little baby son.
"Abhi, you have got to come home. Sid and I have been trying to get Neil to stop this crying, but I think he needs you or Nikki...And well, yeah Abhi, just get home."
"I'll try and be there ASAP, but could you send Sid over or something, I'd prefer having someone with Nikki when I'm not here" he sighed.
But Jiah interrupted, "Abhi, what's the need of someone else coming here? I'm here, and I'm a doctor. If something happens, I can take care of it, no need to trouble someone else."
Abhi looked slightly uncomfortable, but gave in eventually. Sid and Riddhima already had their hands full with her pregnancy, and Sid should be with her as much as possible. Plus, they had been stuck with Neil for quite a while, and he could be a handful. "Riddhima, Jiah's here to take care of Nikki, Tell Sid that he doesn't have to come here. I'll be there soon."
After hanging up the phone, Abhi turned to Jiah, taking her hands into his own, "Thank you so much for this help. I truly do appreciate it."
"Hey, no sorry and no thanks between friends" she smiled.
Abhi turned back to Nikki, placing a soft kiss on her forehead as he whispered, "Get better soon baby, Neil and I miss you loads." With one last glance at his wife, he turned around and left the room.
.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.
Abhi chuckled to himself, walking through the corridors of the hallways. Jiah! She was the last person he expected to see here, at Sanjivani. But it had been what, 5 years, 6 years since they'd last met?
Old memories flashed through his mind.
////.....\\\\
Jiah and Abhi had been two of six in their little gang of interns, and they had been the best of friends. As in, they did everything together, so much so that half the hospital had thought they were a couple. It wasn't until they'd gone with the rest of the gang to see Jaane Tu...Ya Jaane Naa that they'd realized this however, and they'd been the brunt of jokes for months afterwards. Infact the stupid movie had given too many people too many ideas; he remembered the last week before internship had ended, when he'd been talking with his friend Rahul:
"You should really ask her out dude!" Rahul said again.
Abhi rolled his eyes, "We've gone over this man, we're just friends."
"Yeah, and Dr. Keerti's not hot!"
Abhi gave Rahul a look that stated 'Why the Hell are you checking out senior doctors?', Rahul shrugged, "I'm a guy! I can't help but notice!"
Abhi rolled his eyes again, "look, Jiah and I have a good thing going, anyway, I like having a girl that's just a friend."
"You'd still have Muskaan and Anji."
"That's not the same dude! Those two are always up to something or another," Abhi paused when Rahul nodded admittedly, Anjie and Muskaan were divas, and when they weren't at odds, were best friends who always seemed to have some scheme or another up their designer sleeves. To say the least, they kept their boyfriends, Atul and Rahul repectively, on their toes.
"But Jiah," Abhi continued, "she's got that uncanny ability to be just one of the boys."
Rahul slumped over as Abhi began to get more into the topic, he knew what was coming, he was going to go into a debate with himself.
Great.
Why did he get himself into these things? Why did he think he would be the one to convince Abhi to see things his way?
"Look." Rahul said before Abhi could continue, "All i know is, Jiah and you are the only ones out of our group that aren't dating-"
"That's not exactly a good reason to start dating." Abhi interrupted.
"AND." Rahul continued with a warning look, "As far as we're concerned you guys spend too much time together to not be a couple!"
"Just because a guy and girl are friends doesn't mean that there's something going on between them. Abhi said determinedly, "Friends. That's all we are. End of topic, chapter CLOSED."
=======
The next week had passed by in a blur, filled with projects to be finished, and many good-bye's to be said. Only three interns would be chosen to stay on at Sanjeevani, and they wouldn't know who until the very last day of internship.
That's why Abhi didn't notice the growing distance between him and Jiah; he had just been too busy to notice her growing more distant and disturbed.
He had found her the last day, sitting in the observation room, crying in the dark.
"Jiah?"
She glanced up at the sound of his voice, hurriedly wiping away tears, "Abhi, tum."
"What's up J? What's wrong."
She shook her head, "It's...It's nothing. Just, everything is over."
His eyebrow furrowed, "What?"
"This is the last day, after today we'll all go our separate ways..."
"Jiah just because our internship is over doesn't mean we have to stop being friends."
She let out a bitter laugh, "Friends" she whispered, "Friends. Just friends."
"J what's wrong?"
"Nothing." she said, getting up and straightening her clothes, "Nothing at all. Bye Abhi."
And she was gone.
He had never heard from her again, until today.
////.........\\\\
And soon after he was an actual doctor at Sanjeevani, yes he was one of the interns that were chosen to stay there.
He had a whole new set of interns under him, one of whom was Dr. Nikkita Malhotra. She had gotten on his nerves initially, always seemingly lost in her own world, crying over some guy, and never getting any work done.
And to top all that off, she was the only one to yell back at him, completely disregarding the fact that he was the senior doctor.
And so their initial meetings were always fights And more fights. And well, more fights.
He remembered their first meeting, they really had gotten off on the wrong foot.
[--------]
Abhimanyu glanced at his watch as he ran upto the Coffee Tree he was late already, Abhimanyu Modi was NEVER late! And he couldn't afford to be late today, the new interns were having their orientation today!
He burst through the doors, crashing right into a young woman holding her vanilla latte. Her very hot vanilla latte.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" he screamed as the scalding hot drink ran down his WHITE shirt, it was all he could do not to start stripping down in front of the whole store. He watched dismayed as the the coffee stained his new shirt.
Great, now he was not only late, but his clothes were also ruined. He glared up at the young woman, meeting her frightened wide innocent eyes, "YOU!"
" I am SO sorry!" she blurted out, "I didn't mean to-"
"Yeah cuz your intentions really help me here!"
"I'm trying to apo-"
"I'm already late for a meeting do you know that? And now I have to change."
"I've got some Tide to Go if-"
"Like that tiny thing is gonna help this giant mess you've created! Seriously woman, are you blind?"
Her mouth fell open for a second, and he realized he had gone a little too far, "I-"
"FIRST of all," she began, "This WHOLE thing is YOUR fault! You were were the one that barged in like nobody's business. YOU were the one that bumped into ME! YOU are the one that is blind! I wanted to help you, but NO! Mr. I'm-Too-Important-to-Listen-to-Anyone-Else just doesn't listen. You know what? I bet you deserve this. In fact all men deserve this! Here!"
Saying so she went on to pour the remainder of her drink on him.
Abhi stared open mouthed at the woman who had the guts to do this to him, but before he could get another word in, she had pushed him out of her way and strutted out the door.
He had then proceeded to forgo the caffeine and drove like a maniac to Sanjeevani, where he had used the locker room shower and borrowed a shirt from Rahul to look slightly presentable that morning. He'd still been late to the meeting, where he, of course, had gotten the the shock of his life when he saw the 5 new interns standing in front of him that morning.
After introducing the senior doctors, Dr. Keerti walked down the line of interns introducing them. As expected, Abhi's little brother Sid had been there, looking like he was already bored. He stood between Dr. Maan, who stood beside Dr. Geet, Muskaan's little sister. On the other side of Sid was Dr. Rhiddima, and next to her, stood Dr. Nikkita Malhotra, who looked like she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her right about then.
And from that point on, Abhi had the best time in the world making Nikki's life miserable, assigning her the worst jobs, literally giving her rectal exams day in and day out. And well, she was no less either, always yelling at him, picking fights with him, and annoying the crap out of him.
Until that one day when Abhi had once again found a woman crying in the observation room.
Nikki had been perched on the top row, hugging her knees close to her chest as she sobbed uncontrollably. It was the first time Abhimanyu Modi had felt something other vengeance toward Nikkita Malhotra
He felt a sense of deja vu as he lost an internal battle and walked all the way into the room, "Are you ok?"
She froze for a second, then unfurled herself, wiping her tears as she clumsily got up. She didnt say anything as she descended the steps, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Nikkita, what's wrong?" He asked, blocking her way, he refused to let this go. He didn't know why, but he felt intrigued by this feisty ball of energy, who apparently had a soft side too. And for some reason he didn't want her disappearing, just like Jiah had when he'd refused to question further.
Somehow, for an hour they'd managed to call a temporary truce as they sat in the dark room. He had listened intently as she told him what was wrong. After exiting that room, they had never spoken of it again.
A few months later they had both gotten the shock of their lives when their parents' had brought in the marriage proposal for the both of them.
The immediate first reaction, was the obvious "NO WAY IN HELL!"
But their parents were adamant, asking each of them to give the other one a chance. After a lot of thinking and pondering, Abhi and Nikki had decided to call a truce, and start with a clean slate, start with friendship, and just see where everything went.
During the few months of them being friends, they argued, of course, but it wasn't like the arguments and fights from before. It was different this time, because even in their fights one could see how much they cared for each other.
Abhi and Rahul had never mentioned the "just friends or not" discussion again, and to Rahul's shock he was pleasantly surprised when months later, Abhimanyu Modi, THE Abhimanyu Modi admitted to having feelings for Nikkita Malhotra.
The rest of the past four years had gone by in a blur, their brief period as boyfriend/girlfriend, as an engaged couple, and finally since then, their relationship as husband and wife. And before he knew it, Abhi and Nikki had discovered that brewing relationship between Siddhant and Riddhima, and soon enough they were married also. Neil was born a year later, and well Abhi and Nikki were overwhelmed with happiness. A baby, their baby, their lives were now complete. Well, that's what Nikki thought, especially after going through labor for a whole 36 hours where she cursed Abhi and every single one of his forefathers who had dared to have sons. Abhi still wanted a baby girl, that was just like his wife. But well, that was something to be argued about later.
[-------]
The sudden honking of a car brought him out of his trance as he realized that he was just sitting inside his car, not going anywhere. Nikki, she would get better. She was Dr. Abhimanyu Modi's wife, she was a fighter.
Turning the keys in the ignition, Abhi slowly pulled his car out of the parking space and began to drive out of the parking lot.
Someone was running head on into the car! Armaan! ARMAAN?! Abhi slammed his foot on the brake, as he bringing the car to a stop, just a hair's width away from Armaan, who was stood there, panting, looking like a disheveled mess; there was blood on his shirt, a deep slash across his abdomen, and sweat pouring down his face, as he tried to form a sentence, but failed miserably.
"Abhimanyu...Jiah...Nikki...Accident...Warehouse..." he said, trying to formulate a coherent sentence.
Abhi hurried out of the car, and ran towards Armaan, who was running towards the hospital.
"Abhimanyu, Nikki's room. Now!"
And before Abhi had any time to react, he found himself being pulled by Armaan into the hospital, as the two hurriedly made their way to Nikki's hospital room.
And the sight before them as they stood outside the open door, was alarming.
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