ArHi FF|Mohabat Door Jaane Na De| #4, Last Part-pg.16 *Complete!* - Page 10

Wonderful update as usual. I am glad Arnav and Anjali had such a heart to heart talk.

Very well written. You have managed to portray their emotions so beautifully. You have magic in your writing. Waiting for a romantic part now 😳

Anjali turned out to be a genius here...

Anjali knew about the turmoil they had during the initial days of relationship,didnt see this coming because she was sceptical when arnav was working over time and she could see that khushi was not very bubbly.

More ArHi, as promised.

Oh, and um, italics denote flashbacks, just in case you're wonderin'

So...

*hides from nerves*

Chapter Fifty

Part II

"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then." Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

***

He was not sure if it was real or if he was dreaming, but he heard the faint chiming loud and clear.

"Khushi?" he groggily called out, pulling his eyelids open with some effort. He was a little disoriented- his thoughts had been fluctuating in and out of focus, and the dimness of his surroundings threw him off. It was only when he attempted to haul himself upright that he realised that his feet were sprawled out in front of him, and his spine was uncomfortably bent with the upper half of his torso braced against something smooth and with hard edges.

The bed.

Where his exhaustion and the force of gravity had earlier dragged him into the mattress.

But that was not the issue here- the issue was the chiming that he'd heard, and it did not take him long to locate its very real source.

"Ahh, sorry-" came the timid apology of the figure gingerly perched at the edge of the bed, holding the ends of the duvet that she had obviously been adjusting over him, her bangles tinkling from the motion, "I was trying not to wake you up-"

"I wasn't asleep," he disputed instantly, bolting up to dispel her of the notion. The haste of the movement made his head reel a little bit, but that minimum discomfort was not significant- he leaned forward towards her, the bleariness of his sight dissipating as he grew more alert, "Where have you been?"

Khushi had relinquished the hold on the now discarded duvet, but her fingers had instead shifted to fiddling with her dupatta. Arnav's eyes narrowed as they dropped to her fidgeting, reading it as a sign of aggravation, and then a fact that had somehow slipped his mind occurred to him again- she was wearing salwar kameez, instead of the sarees she had made a habit of cladding since they got married.

And that little factor acted like a light-switch- it flicked on his drowsy brain, and the events that had transpired since that morning returned to him with the crashing speed of a freight train.

"Khushi?" he repeated again, though this time his tone was more wary- more apprehensive.

His voice seemed to rouse her from her reverie- the dupatta slipped out of her grip as she glanced sideways at him, and then she was watching her hands again as she answered the question he'd forgotten he had asked.

"I was...speaking to Bauji," she told him quietly, and there was something so forlorn about her tenor that it spiked fresh dread in Arnav's blood. His mind was at the end of its tether- his defences had been weakened by everything he had had to withstand earlier, and even though he could not understand or foresee what was wrong, Arnav felt the steady ground on which his bed stood sway, as though he had just been dropped into the middle of the ocean.

He could not take it.

"What happened?" he urged gruffly, unsure if he wanted to know, unsure if he could deal with it.

Khushi dithered for a moment longer before she confessed in a rush, "He told me that he spoke to Di yesterday. As in...when we were out...when we were out, he and Di went to the temple and they...he told Di everything. He was the one who...that was how...that was how Di found out."

***

Silence followed, and the disquiet and nerves that had been nibbling Khushi up from inside switched to devouring her instead.

Keeping her stare distant and averted from him, Khushi took in a slow breath before blurting out the question that had been needling at her ever since her phone-call with her father.

"Are you angry?"

Seconds ticked by without a response from him, and Khushi did not even dare breathe, not sure what she was expecting, but conscious nonetheless of the nervous trepidation growing like mould and mildew inside her skull, her thoughts disintegrating.

"Why do you think I'd be angry?"

His timbre was very low and very even, and Khushi banked on everything she had learnt and understood about the nuances of this man to try and detect a modicum of displeasure or ire in his tone.

But there was none.

And when she stole a glance at him again, she found him watching her, silently waiting, his expression devoid of anything that might have confirmed the sudden dread that had overcome her when she had tiptoed her way into the bedroom earlier.

Dread that had been nipping at her heels since their visit to the police-station, in the wake of every little thing that could have toppled the tentative balance they'd reached.

It emboldened her to answer.

"Because," she started, and her voice was a little thick because it seemed to have sunk deep into her throat, travelling a greater distance than normal to make itself heard, "because he didn't tell us. Even though I stayed at Buaji's house yesterday and spoke to him and everything- he didn't tell us."

She realised she sounded accusatory, and washes of guilt swept through her, but there was no helping it, because if Bauji had just told them earlier-

"Are you angry?"

His question came in unison with the first touch of his hand against hers, and Khushi started a little as he gently pried her fingers loose from where they had been digging into the material of her dress. She watched almost blankly as he twined his longer digits with hers, before he squeezed her hand lightly and repeated his question. "Are you angry?"

Her feelings were complex- they were convoluted and all enmeshed into one another, and she had known that separating them strand by strand would take her a long time, and evaluating and weighing them would take even longer.

But somehow, his touch eased her honesty out of her so effortlessly, it didn't give her a chance to think.

"I'm...a little upset," she admitted quietly, and saying it aloud only confirmed the latent emotion she had locked up inside of her. She hated that she would have to feel this towards her father- towards the man who had been the stoutest pillar of support in her life since some of her earliest recollections of childhood, the man who had almost been killed in his bid to protect her from a psychopath's disturbing aspirations- and the fact that she could not help the way she felt only compounded her distress by adding a second layer of remorse and self-disgust to the feeling. She did not want to feel this way but-

"He knew that we hadn't told her anything yet- he could have at least let us know! If he had told us yesterday that Di already knew about everything, then-"

"Then?" Arnavji goaded her, when she cut herself off abruptly.

It was unfair, that being honest was so difficult, but being dishonest was impossible.

"Then..." she echoed again, and her voice had dropped into a hush as she tried to word out her inane, unfair reasoning, "Then...you wouldn't have to...you wouldn't have had to..." His fingers were steadily tightening about her, as though trying to squeeze out the rest of her reasons out of her, and Khushi gurgled it out, "You wouldn't have had to put yourself through all this."

She recalled, only too clearly, the desperation that had dribbled out of his voice when he had spoken to her on the phone the night before- remembered vividly how broken and fragile he had looked when he had stepped out of his jeep in front of Buaji's home that morning. Remembered how gaunt and haunted he had grown in the police-station as he mechanically had the F.I.R. recorded- how breakable and unstable when he had left the office so the Inspector could interview her privately.

It was not as though she did not realise that he would have had to find out at some point- whether the day before, or today, or the day after. That was not the cause of her chagrin.

The cause of her chagrin was that he had put himself through so much- hours and hours of suffering and turmoil, dreading what was to happen to him and his life and all his treasured relationships once he revealed what he had been hiding from his sister, and he had almost undone himself in the process- only to find out that she already knew.

The cause of her chagrin was that even though he would have suffered, at least his suffering could have been cut short.

In some obscure way, she understood that she was being unreasonable. Knew she was being unfair. The circumstances they had all been trapped in had been tangled worse than a ball of yarn twisting itself up into knots, and the blame could not be handed over to a single person. There was no accusing Bauji of doing the wrong thing, because Khushi certainly did not know what the right thing was.

Was it right that they had hidden the truth from Di for so long? Was it right that they had not gone to the police the moment they had discovered that Shyam had tried to murder her father, and then gone on to keep him paralysed and handicapped? Was it right that they had married under the circumstances they had, and hid the truth from everyone?

She did not know.

And it was so confusing, so bewildering, and in the midst of all this, Khushi was upset because her father had kept secrets from her, and she was devastated because she knew he had his reasons, and knew whether he had kept them or not might not even have made a difference in the long run.

It was ironic, how she had always accused Arnavji before of lacking human emotions- had considered it a shortcoming in him. Right now, all these inconvenient, dark, painful emotions were like individual curses bent on causing her anguish, and she could begin to understand just why Arnavji had preferred to live so much of his life without them.

"If he'd just told us..." she mumbled again, feeling herself being submerged by the contradictory sensations welling over inside her, "If only he'd just told us...I wouldn't blame you, if you were upset too-"

It would hurt her, it really would, but she would not blame him.

And then a hand was firmly tipping her jaw up and about to face him, as it had countless times before already, and then she was looking into his eyes and feeling her heart falter at the exhaustion she saw there, but before she could torment herself any further, he was speaking.

"I'm not upset with him, Khushi. I don't think...I have the right to be."

***

Khushi blinked slowly at him, trying to comprehend what he meant, and Arnav sighed wearily.

There was something wonderful, something healing and rejuvenating, about being cared for, and greedy as he was, he was aware that he was selfishly pleased when Khushi admitted that she was upset with her father because she thought he had prolonged his misery.

But that aside, it was only as he watched Khushi grapple with everything she was thinking and feeling and struggling with that it dawned on him that he did not blame Bauji.

How could he, after all? Di had pointed it out earlier too- if he had found out about Shyam being the engineer of the accident that had nearly gotten Di killed, there was no telling what he might have done. No telling how far away he would have pushed Khushi- perhaps so far that she would be out of sight before he realised how horrendous an error he had made.

If that fickle thing called chance had not contrived to put him next to Bauji to hear the first words he uttered after his recovery, he might never be sitting here, in the bedroom he shared with Khushi, holding on to her hands because she was letting him. He was indebted to his father-in-law- and he had no right to blame him for exposing what had involved him and his daughter from the very beginning, what Arnav had been postponing for his own selfish reasons.

And also because-

"He couldn't have told us," he breathed out, absently reaching a hand to brush off some of Khushi's hair behind her ear, "Di told me that she asked him not to."

***

"How are you feeling, Bitiya?"

Beyond the door, he could hear the not-too-subdued voices of his sister, and occasionally the more timorous notes belonging to his wife. He could tell that it would take longer than just one evening for their shock and agitation to wear out- after all, they had just finished an intense round of interrogation with him after the police had left after finishing theirs, and they could not be faulted for that. Payal had been sent hurrying back to Shantivan immediately afterwards, Garima was beside herself, and Jiji was being particularly vocal about her grievances, but that was only to be expected- they had barely known just how perilously close their family had been to breaking apart, to losing its loved ones.

The trauma was natural.

And it would take them time to absorb that knowledge, to settle on which perspective they chose to see it through, to decide how they were going to tackle the changes it had inevitably set in motion.

And so, Shashi Gupta had wheeled himself into his bedroom under the excuse of fatigue, cell-phone hidden beneath his shawl, and had dialled the number he had appropriated the day before.

When Anjali spoke, she sounded thoroughly tired out.

"I am alright," she answered, and Shashi chose not to comment on how unconvincing that sounded for the time being. At least this time, she did not sound as though she were fooling herself, along with fooling the rest of the world.

There was pause, and then he spoke again.

"You did well, Bitiya."

Another pause, a longer one, and this was distinctly heavier- it was laden with emotion and things that needed to be said, and Shashi patiently waited for Anjali to speak.

"I don't know if...what I did was the right thing..." came the faint, uncertain words.

Shashi Gupta smiled a little without humour, and raised a hand that was still slightly unsteady to smooth over the aged lines of his face.

"None of us do," he told her gently, "I don't think any of us know if what we did was the best way of doing things. Even I...even I don't know if I made the right decision, telling you everything the way I did yesterday-"

"No!" the dissent burst out of the phone, louder and more decisive than anything Anjali had said so far. And then a beat later she was apologising, "I...I'm sorry. What I meant is that...please don't apologise for telling me, Shashiji. I'm glad that you did. If you hadn't, I don't know if...I don't know if I could have handled being told by Chote himself."

***

Anjali sipped down some more water, replacing the tumbler on her bedside table before her eyes strayed to the door. She had expressed her desire to be alone for a little while, and had escaped before Mamiji could bombard her with any more questions. She could not quite gauge how the family were taking it- there was a lot to process, a lot to accept, a lot that had broken without anyone realising, and a lot to repair before they could move on. The atmosphere at home was sensitive and touchy; shocked and bewildered. Tragedy had been swooping over their heads like vultures awaiting death, and they had hardly known it until the danger had passed and the ill-omened birds had slinked away.

Things were changing, and they would keep changing until their worlds returned to equilibrium.

And Anjali had pointedly made her way out of the thick of things, and hid now in her bedroom, because there was only so much she could withstand for one day- she needed to preserve her strength and bolster her courage, and the mix of sympathetic, aggrieved and horrified glances that had been skating over her since they had returned home would not help.

But it was also true that as she sat in her bedroom, a bedroom that she had once shared happily with someone else, a part of her wished that that closed door would swing open, and someone would come inside- maybe Chote, bristling because she was not resting, or Khushi, anxiously checking and re-checking if she had taken her medicine on time-

She shook her head at herself, smiling sadly. People did not change overnight- she could not expect herself to become completely independent of the people she had relied on within the short space of twenty-four hours.

But she believed that, if nothing else, she was headed in the right direction.

"I'm really glad you told me, Shashiji," she poured her gratitude, completely authentic and heartfelt, into her words as she gazed distantly at a corner of the ceiling, "I'm glad because...I don't know how I would have been able to face Chote, if he told me that..."

She trailed off, unable to continue.

Unable to reiterate everything she had learned the day before.

Everything she had been told when she had broken down in front of Shashiji in that tranquil little courtyard that seemed to belong in a realm apart from the grim world they resided in.

Everything from the way that Shashiji had almost died because he had discovered that she was married to the man about to get engaged to his daughter, and had tried to expose that fact.

Everything from the way that Khushi had attempted to confide Shyam's double-dealing to her, only to turn back because she did not want to jeopardise Anjali's happiness.

Everything from the way Chote had married Khushi because he had been duped into believing that she was having an affair with her husband.

Absolutely everything.

***

"I didn't know...I didn't find out until yesterday."

Anjali could practically see Chote puzzle out what she had just said, and could pinpoint the exact moment he hit upon the answer.

Because, aside from Khushi and himself, only one other person knew the complete truth, and had the opportunity of uncovering it to her.

"Bauji...?" she watched him mouth.

But the conversation was taking a premature turn, and Anjali had to steer it back in the direction she wanted it to take first.

"And when I found out," she ploughed on firmly, not giving Chote the chance to ask the multitude of questions he would have wanted to ask, nor giving him a chance to delve into the realisation he had just come to, "It was not about me anymore. It was about you, and it was about Khushi, and that's why I had to do something."

She could tell that her words were taking time to sink in, and could see him struggle to sieve out their meaning.

She could also tell this was only because he did not want to accept their meaning.

"I came to talk to you, yesterday," Chote ground out, and there was no menace in his words- just emotion that was too difficult for him to control, and the twinges in Anjali's heart panged with gusto, "I came to talk to you after you came home, but you said you were tired."

Her brother often came off as rude or impertinent, and one reason for that was his penchant for going straight to the point- he had no patience for the flowery and the rhetoric and in general beating about the bush.

But when it came to matters such as this, matters which involved something dear to him, something that rendered him vulnerable because it was evidently important enough to be a weakness, Chote did not know how to be direct.

Did not know how to be frank.

Had gone so long crushing sentimentality into the dust that he did not know how to be straightforward without leaving himself open to hurt.

Anjali knew that.

She understood it.

And she understood what he was saying without saying it.

Understood why he would feel betrayed.

Because she had lied to him.

He had not made that accusation aloud yet, and Anjali believed it was not only because he wanted to spare her feelings but because he wanted to spare his, as well. One did not come out calling the person they had trusted the most all their life a liar unscathed.

And Anjali appreciated that.

She appreciated it a lot, but he had been trying to shield her for far too long.

"I'm sorry I lied to you," she said, giving voice to what he had refused to say. Unsurprisingly, Chote immediately avoided her eye, dipping his head down instead, "I'm sorry, Chote. I know that I lied all this while- I lied about knowing where...where he had gone, I lied about getting calls from him...and I lied again after I found out everything. I'm sorry."

Chote did not say anything for a while- he remained bent over, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his untamed hair, drooping over his forehead, but she could see that the corners of his mouth were turned down.

When he spoke, he sounded as though he were having trouble keeping the volume of his tone from leaping up.

"Why did you lie?" he asked tonelessly, not looking up, "You said you didn't know about...Khushi and I...before yesterday. Then why did you lie before that? And why would you lie after that, Di?"

"Because...I was afraid."

"That's exactly why you should've-"

"No, Chote, let me finish. It's not...it's not easy. How do I explain it?" Anjali dropped her head into the cradle of her hands, more to hide the fresh glimmer of tears blossoming against her lashes than anything else. She swallowed a long drag of air, willing herself to be level-minded as she remembered those dark moments she had lived trapped within the confines of her mind. She had to tell him- she had to make him understand. "When I found out about it...I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe it at all. Even with the proof...it was so difficult. This was the person whom I'd believed loved me- the person I loved with everything I had! We were about to have a baby together...and I thought life was perfect. I thought that finally, finally...with you married and settled, with the baby on the way...I thought that finally our family would be happy and complete and fulfilled in a way it hadn't been since Maa-Papa passed away."

She paused for breath, not sure what to make of Chote's silence before she resumed.

"But I couldn't...disbelieve it...either. I'd seen it with my own eyes. Heard it with my own ears. And I'm not proud of myself for what I did Chote. I'm not proud that I got so scared that I did nothing. It wasn't even as though I was scared of him. It was more like...I was scared that if I did something...this perfect, happy world...it would be destroyed. I didn't know...if I could take that.

"And perhaps that's why...that's why I pretended so hard that everything was good. Everything was great. I saw that there was something off about the way you got married, I saw that you would go to work early and come back home late, I saw how Khushi was...Khushi seemed to have...become subdued, seemed to have diminished...but I convinced myself that it was all OK. I convinced myself that everything would be just fine because at that point...everything I believed in, everything I had lived for- counted on that belief. And I was so afraid of what would happen if anything changed...I was so afraid that it would all fall apart, like it did all those years ago...because if it did, I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know how to...live through it."

She stopped, noticed that she was shivering, and clamped her hands together to tamp it down.

"Even when he left...when he left, and I didn't hear anything from him, I was still afraid. But then, I was afraid that he would come back. It was like...like daylight had come back after forever in the darkness- Shashiji was better, Khushi was happier than I had seen her in ages, Akash and Payal had come back and you-" her breath hitched, her emotions, the sheer relief she had felt, the relief at being to breathe freely again, to be able to see a happiness that was genuine and that she did not have to delude herself into, emanating from her words, "-you became...you became warmer. More open. I could see it- I could see you getting closer to Khushi, I could see how content and happy you'd be when you were near her...and then you gave her Maa's bangles, and I was so, so, delighted because it meant you had accepted her into your life, that I wasn't just lying to myself about your happiness. And your happiness was enough to make me happy. I was content to forget about...about him...and just focus on everything that was going right."

Tearfully, her smile twisted and bitter, she looked at Chote- at his chagrined, agonised expression.

"I was such a coward, wasn't I?" she laughed, without a trace of humour in the quivering, horrible noise, "So much of a coward I just chose not to think about a problem because it was not close to me anymore. I didn't want to think about it...I didn't want to talk about it...I didn't want it to ruin the peace that we found in this family, your happiness, after so long-"

"Di." Chote interjected, gripping hold of both her hands and severing the confessions free-falling from her mouth. Anjali watched him choke on what he wanted to say for a while, spluttering a little, as though he were trying to find a way to translate what he was thinking and feeling into speech. Anjali could empathise with him- she doubted if she would have been able to say a fraction of everything she had just blurted out had she not spent nights upon nights analysing her own actions, her own motives, trying to find a loophole- trying to find escape. And now that she had, she could not keep it all locked up inside her anymore. She did not want to be shackled down by it anymore.

"Chote-"

"No, Di! No!" Chote vehemently cut her short; he was shaking his head, and she could only catch glimpses of how his expression was contorted with anguish, "How could you do that, Di? How could you think that? How could you think that I'd be happy while you were not? After everything...after everything we've been through, everything we've faced, how could you just decide not to tell me something like this because you thought I was happy?! How could you imagine I would even want to be happy if you weren't?"

His chest heaved, his breathing ragged, his eyes bugging out and bloodshot, and Anjali couldn't help it.

A sob escaped her.

"Then how could you think I would be happy if you weren't, Chote?" she cried out, and she could feel his grasp upon her hands slacken in surprise, saw his eyes widen in shock at her, "Haan, maana ki humne tumhe kuch nahi bataya...but you didn't tell me anything either! You didn't tell me that you thought he was cheating on me with Khushi! You didn't tell me that you forced Khushi to marry you! You didn't TELL me that you were making yourself miserable just to keep up my sham married life! Even after you found out about Shashiji's paralysis...even after that, you still didn't tell me, Chote! Why? Why did you go to such lengths?! Why didn't YOU tell me?"

***

"He couldn't have told us...Di told me that she asked him not to."

Khushi's lips parted in surprise, a nonplussed frown upon her brow at his declaration.

"Why...?" she mouthed at him, before a pinched look of concentration took over her face and she fell silent in consideration.

Khushi had driven home in the same car as Di and himself- she had been waiting in the front room of the police station when he had gone to check why the interrogation was taking too long and one look at her face was enough to tell him she had been dawdling on purpose. The way she had looked up at him, her phone clutched in both her hands, and risen out of her seat, all the while keenly searching his face, told him that she had deliberately let him have his time with Di- had stayed back to give them the opportunity to tackle the conflict, if that was what it could be called, that had arisen between them.

Given them the chance to find closure.

And apparently she had been reassured by whatever she had seen in his face, because she had flashed him the most delicate, most hesitantly beautiful of smiles, before taking his outstretched hand and following him to the car.

They had not had an opportunity to talk, after that. The mood inside the car had not exactly been conducive for conversations- and with their family lawyer tagging along as an extra passenger the ride had passed in silence, everyone wrapped up in their own thoughts. Many things had happened after that- gathering the family and explaining to them what exactly had been happening behind their backs, answering their questions, facing their shock and grief and chastening and lamenting, the police coming over for some preliminary procedures as part of the investigation, aiding their searches of Shyam's belongings, and then his frequent calls with Aman and the private investigators to ensure all the data they had collected be transferred to the police-

And it had been at the end of one of those calls that the heaviness of his body had caused him to collapse into the bed.

Throughout that blur of events that had followed fast on the heels of others, he and Khushi had barely had the chance to discuss what had happened.

And now that she was here, now that she was with him, in their bedroom, on their bed, her hand in his...he found that he could not even resist the urge to tell her.

Tell her everything.

Somehow, he thought it would clear his head. Somehow, he thought it would alleviate some of the pain that had dulled into a steady ache inside his chest. Somehow, he thought things would make more sense once he did.

But above all, he wanted to tell her everything.

Everything he and Di had talked about in the car, every confused and distraught thought that had crossed his mind.

He did not know what he anticipated to gain from it- all he knew was that he wanted to.

And so he did.

***

Her face was tear-streaked, her features twisted with heartache, and Arnav could do nothing but gape at her wordlessly, because he did not know what to say.

So he said what he had been saying all along.

"I wanted to protect you...I just wanted to keep you happy..."

As he said the words, he thought they sounded like echoes, and he realised that was because he had just heard Di saying the same things too.

"And how could you expect that I would be happy with you making yourself miserable, for my sake?" Di asked him again, clutching back at his hands with her own trembling ones, "How could you think I would just let you do that?"

"I...I didn't have a choice-"

"You did," Di stopped him, somehow sounding decisive despite the audible sobs making her voice quake, "You could have come to me, you could have told me the truth- but instead, you took the hurt upon yourself, didn't you? You tried to take my share of the pain, didn't you?"

He could not respond- it felt as though he had been struck dumb.

Never before had he seen such an expression on her face- never before had he seen her look so...fierce. So unwavering.

His Di could be as stubborn as he could- for many years she had been the only person to bend his will, to a certain extent, against his wishes. He had seen her persuasive side countless times before- seen her being plaintive, seen her being peeved and petulant, seen her being obstinate-

But never before had he seen her with this blazing look of determination in her eye, glinting even beneath the film of her tears and the shadows whispering of her turmoil lining her face, and it was arresting.

"Then why-" she whispered, her fingernails biting into the skin of his hands as she clung on to him almost aggressively, "Why is it wrong if I try to do the same? Why is it wrong if I try to do the same?"

He wanted to tell her that it was still wrong. He wanted to tell her that she had no business trying to do anything of that sort, because looking after her was his self-proclaimed duty and responsibility, and she was not supposed to take that away from him.

But he couldn't.

Because somehow, he could sense that Di would call him out for being a hypocrite.

"It's not fair, Chote," Di continued to mumble, rolling a shoulder forward and wiping off some of the dampness against her cheek with her sleeve; her hands were still firmly clasping his, instead of the other way around, "it's not fair that you think you can do anything you want to keep me happy, but I can't do anything for you. It's not fair. You're my little brother- I'm your older sister. Your Di. Why can't I do something for you?"

He found his voice. "By putting yourself in danger? By putting your life at risk?"

"It's not just that, Chote!" Di retorted, and actually snapped her teeth together; it stunned him, because he could not recall her ever being this agitated before. "That was stupid of me, it was cowardly, it was shameful, I know that! But still! If I made that mistake, so did you! You didn't tell me anything! You didn't confide in me, you didn't let me bear your worries, you didn't let me search for an answer with you! All this time, you've been trying to bear the whole world up by yourself, Chote, and it's not fair! It's my world too!"

He sucked in a sharp blast of air.

A whirlwind swooped in on him and tossed his thoughts back to the night before, and through the howling of memories zooming past, Khushi's words rang out to him crystal-clear.

"It's about time - about time you stopped trying to bear up the whole universe, Arnavji."

"I'm about to become a mother- and if I still can't do anything for myself, if I still have to rely on someone for every tiny little thing, how will my baby rely on me?"

"This load is not yours alone to carry - it's mine too, and it's Di's and it's everyone's whom you love and who love you too."

"You want to protect me because I'm your sister- well, you're my brother! My younger brother! Why can't I protect you? The love that we have for each other, for our family- why does it have to be one-sided? Why do you always have to be the one to do things for us, if we can't do anything for you?"

"Let me carry my share - and a bit of yours too, if you'd let me."

"That's why...that's why I had to do this by myself. THAT'S why I didn't tell you. I had to carry my share- I WANTED to carry my share. If I'd told you, then you, and even Khushi- you'd have taken it completely off my shoulders, and I'd be relying on you again. And I couldn't do that- not after I found out what you...what Khushi...what you went through...just for me...So I had to do this. I had to. If I can't do anything for myself, then I can't do anything for the people I love- and if I can't do anything for the people I love, I don't deserve to love them at all."

***

Shashi Gupta picked at a loose thread against his shawl.

"Even if you thank me, Bitiya," he told her mournfully, recalling his earlier conversation with Khushi- he could tell she had been shaken, could tell she had been upset, and even though he had promised to explain everything to her when they had the time, he did not quite know how he would do so, "I'm not sure it was my place to tell you what I did. In fact...to be perfectly honest...perhaps my motives were thoroughly selfish."

He had not intended to tell her the truth. He had not intended to trigger off the series of events that had culminated in this moment. He had suspected, when she had visited their home, that she might have known something from her bearing and demeanour, and he had seen a reflection of Khushi in her- lonely and despondent and helpless, and he had wanted to help her, somehow...

But when she had succumbed to her tears, when she had cried so brokenly she could not even pause to breathe, and she had told him that her husband had tried to kill her, something in him had snapped.

His patience, his tolerance.

His revulsion at his own helplessness.

And that same protectiveness that had ravaged his immobile body, clawing at his brain and at his heart as he watched his little girl shed innumerable tears as a consequence of Shyam Manohar Jha, and later his brother-in-law, had charged to the fore.

Except this time, he could act on it.

He had told her to have her husband punished.

He had told her that her husband was a dangerous, horrible, awful man- an unhinged man that was capable of anything.

He had told her that he had not only tried to kill once, but twice- and perhaps many more times that they were not even aware of.

And as she asked him, stunned, weeping and devastated, how he knew, he told her the whole story, from beginning to end.

Perhaps he was tired of waiting for the scumbag who had caused his child so much pain to be caught.

Perhaps he was trying to redeem himself in his own eyes for being unable to do anything to save Khushi.

Perhaps he thought Anjali deserved the right to know- deserved the chance to do something about the calamity that had befallen her life.

Whatever his motives were, emotionally charged and inseparable at the time and even now, he knew they were selfish, and he agonised over whether what he had done had been the right thing to do.

But there was no denying that when Khushi had called him, and urgently narrated everything that had transpired at the police station, beneath the part-tension, part-relief with which he had greeted the news, he had experienced a very palpable sense of pride.

The kind of fatherly pride that his Khushi always managed to rouse in him.

"That's ok, Shashiji," came the weary voice of a woman who was still very much a child- who still had a lot to learn about life and how to live it, so she could one day look back at it without regret, "Even if it was selfish, I am grateful. You...you gave me a chance. You gave me a chance to prove to myself that I could do something...even something as little as this...for myself. My reasons for being thankful are pretty selfish too."

Yes, he was definitely proud of Anjali Raizada.

And he believed that, given time, she would learn to be proud of herself too.

"How are things at home?" he asked- more interested in how she was dealing with them than with the circumstances at Shantivan themselves. He already knew the details from Khushi, and it eased his heart that his daughter was bearing up well, considering how dire the situation was, but-

"It's difficult," Anjali answered honestly, and Shashi managed a smile at hearing her not even bothering to be euphemistic, not even bothering to sweeten up their current, fractured reality, "but...I know it will get better. As long as we can look forward to that...we'll be OK."

***

A few silent seconds passed, as Khushi twirled the kangan circling her wrist round and round.

Arnav watched on, hypnotised by the spinning of the gold band, his arm secured around Khushi's smaller frame and holding her close to his side as they both leant against the bedpost, cushioned by pillows.

"So that's why..." Khushi started all of a sudden, so quietly she might have been talking to herself, before trailing off again.

"That's why what?" he mumbled; the flowery fragrance of Khushi's hair was wafting all about him, and it was refreshing and sedating at the same time- it lightened his head somewhat, made it feel less jammed and muddled.

Khushi shifted a little at his side, and he loosened his arm enough to adjust her position as she tipped her head up to look at him.

"That's probably why Di was...Di was like that, when I went to talk to her earlier."

When he arched an eyebrow, prompting for an explanation, Khushi elaborated, "I...went to talk to Di earlier. I wanted to... I wanted to apologise to her, but she stopped me. And she said, "Thank you" and she told me to come to you first...and that later she would apologise to me properly."

***

Khushi hunted his face for signs of sorrow or confusion, but he merely looked as though he were mulling something over. The bow of his mouth was pulled down, and his brow was furrowed in thought, but he did not look particularly distressed.

Khushi ran over everything Arnavji had just told her in her head- ran over trying to coordinate what had been said between the siblings to what she had been observing for herself afterwards.

"Is that why...you didn't go to check up on her?" she inquired tentatively, after a few more moments of silence had elapsed. Arnavji was fiercely protective of his sister- and it had taken her aback when he had not taken to trailing around behind her since the moment they'd gotten back home.

For a bit, he did not answer, and then he sighed, the burst of air blowing her fringe into her eyes. He was brushing it out of the way before she could reach up her hand though, and he answered slowly, "She said that...she wants a little time to deal with this situation...in her own way. She even told Nani not to mollycoddle her...it would only hold her back..."

Khushi watched her husband intently as she asked, "And are you OK with that?"

He took a moment to consider her question again, and then sighed once more. Khushi could feel this one trundle down his body, making her own, enveloped in his hold, quake as well.

"I don't know," he admitted, and Khushi could distinguish a faint note of defencelessness in his tone, a little forlorn lilt, "I don't know. I don't know if I can...get used to...you know...not looking after her all the time. Especially now, after knowing that she was almost-"

Khushi tried to sit up, and was instantly dragged back down by his hold, which had not budged.

"That's not what she said, though!" she protested regardless, squirming about until she was face to face with him, staring into the ebbs and flows of his molten eyes, "She never said she does not want you looking after her! She only said you should let her look after herself too...and let her look after you."

Arnavji watched her for a long time, his eyes boring into hers. She stared back intently, watching the emotions swirl in their captivating depths, and hence was caught a little by surprise when a sudden, tired chuckle rocked through his body and in turn, hers.

"What?" she demanded, perplexed.

"Nothing," he answered back, though a vague hint of a smile remained about his mouth, "Just that...you and Di are sounding the same. Are you both teaming up to yell at me?"

In that instant, Khushi knew. She knew that even though the times ahead were not going to be easy- even though there was a lot of adjusting and adapting that they needed to do, a lot of changes they would have to make and accept, things would be alright.

Because the storm had come and gone, and it had not torn them asunder.

They were still here, together, their family- under the same roof, joined by loss and bereavement and clinging to hopes of better times, but joined nonetheless.

At least, despite it all, they could still smile.

Just as Di had smiled at her earlier, and said "Thank you for everything, Khushi. I don't know what we would have done without you."

It gave her the strength to return her husband's faint grin as she shot back, "Well, someone has to do something about this nasty habit of yours- trying to do everything all at once. You're not superman, and you're not god, it's about time you accept that."

"Oh?" her husband raised an eyebrow at her again, "And what about you? What about your nasty habit of thinking everything is your fault?"

"When did I-"

"At the police station," Arnavji interposed before she could finish, and even though the corner of his mouth was turned almost indiscernibly upwards, his eyes had grown serious, "When you tried to let go of my hand."

That moment, and the excruciating, overwhelming guilt and despair it had comprised off, came raining down on her head.

Her spirits sagged again, and that persistent, niggling conviction of culpability was clearing the stage for its return when Arnavji cupped her chin and held it still, so she could not look away.

"That's what you went to apologise for to Di too, right?"

She did not answer, but his question was obviously rhetorical. He already knew.

"We've already talked about this Khushi," he told her, his manner stern and yet mild at the same time. He rested his forehead against hers, bringing his fiery-liquid eyes that much closer, "When are you going to stop thinking everything is your fault?"

She did not know how to answer that. It was much too soon. The memories of everything they had endured were still too fresh- and so was the guilt and the remorse that had come along with it. She could not forget, nor could she forgive herself, even though she did not know whether the things she had done were right or wrong, even if she did not know whether "right" and "wrong" was even relevant to a situation as intricate and delicate as theirs had been, and she could not help but wonder if she had done things differently, if the outcome would have been different.

If she could have spared the people she loved their ordeals.

If she could still have ended up in the arms of the man she loved.

These thoughts would need more time to find their closure though, and right now Arnavji was awaiting her answer- so she gave him one.

"When you stop trying to run the world by yourself, I guess," she murmured, her expressing innocuous, her eyes teasing.

Disbelief stamped over his face as both his eyebrows reached for his hairline this time, and he mouthed "What the-?" at her, before a glimmer of amusement crept its way back into his eyes.

"Well, we'll just have to learn then, won't we?" he chuckled again, as he pushed Khushi's head back on to his shoulder, and kept his hand against the side of her head, running through her hair.

Another moment passed without speech, and Khushi was beginning to realise how much she relished these gaps of silence. There was something comfortable and placating about them- something unhurried and relaxed, lacking the tension and urgency that had often forced them into solitude before.

She could get used to this.

She was almost dozing off when she heard Arnavji mumbling something.

"Wha-?" she yawned out, rubbing at her eyes.

"I was saying," Arnavji repeated himself, and he sounded so reflective that Khushi found herself fighting off her drowsiness to look up at him again, "That maybe...maybe Di was right. Maybe it's better things happened the way they did...that we found out the way we did. We might have..." he paused, frowning, as though suddenly unwilling to continue, and Khushi sensed he was about to say something at least a little uncharacteristic, "We might have learnt some things already...might have...come out of it stronger because of it..."

Khushi understood what he was talking about, despite his rather clumsy rendition of it. They'd all gone through their share of hardships to get to this point, and perhaps the sequence in which the events had occurred, and the way in which they had occurred, had an important part to play in it all. It had been tough- agonising at times, depressing at others, unbearable and unfair.

But look at what they had gained in return.

Trust. Faith. Loyalty. Honesty. Courage.

Love.

"So..." Khushi asked slowly, hauling herself up a bit more to peek at him closely, "Does that mean you finally believe there's a higher power controlling things, out there in the universe."

Her inquiry was met with a snort.

"I might have changed," he told her wryly, "But I haven't changed that much."

Khushi laughed lightly, snuggling into his side, pleasantly pliant and warm and drowsy, and chose to leave that argument for another day.

Because people did not change overnight.

But that was alright, because even though there were so many more changes they would be encountering in the future, she knew that this- this feeling of being loved and cherished, and the feeling of loving and cherishing in return- this feeling would never change.

And besides, changes or not- they had all the time in the world now to deal with them.

Please scroll down below for the Thank You note!

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nafisa, I again say that I love u dear

Very Well written,

awesome ff