Armaan was sitting in his cabin reading a case file when the door opened. He looked up from his file to see who had entered his cabin without knocking. To his utter shock, he saw the face of the same person, whom he always wished to not see first thing in the morning! Not to mention, he was shocked out of his wits with this being's presence in the hospital.
"Hello, Dr. Armaan Mallik. How are you doing?", the guy asked, sitting on a chair in front of Armaan.
"Abhimanyu Modi. What the hell are you doing here?", Armaan asked gritting his teeth. He was literally boiling.
"Oh now don't act like you don't know Mallik! I'm sure you know that better than I, myself do. Don't you?", Abhimanyu asked, raising an eyebrow. Armaan was about to answer to that, but the ringing phone stopped him. Receiving the call he hurried out of his cabin without saying anything to a confused Abhimanyu.
Abhimanyu looked at Armaan who went out of the cabin, almost running. He looked at the door for a few seconds and then shrugging his shoulder he walked out of the cabin. He wasn't told of what his next task is. So he thought of wandering around the hospital. He walked past the canteen when he saw Muskaan walking in his direction, probably heading towards the canteen. He gave an evil smile looking at her and started walking towards her when he saw her stopping midway to explain something to the nurse. Reaching her, he waited until she was done instructing the nurse.
"Hello, Muskaan. Oops.. Dr. Muskaan.", he said as soon as she turned to walk to her destination. She instantly stopped on her tracks. She could recognize that face and voice even in her sleep!
"Modi..", Muskaan whispered. She knew she had to go away from there right that moment. Thus, without sparing him a second glance she hurried in the opposite direction. She thought of entering her cabin but then she would be alone in there. "You can always lock the door!" she thought. But, somehow she felt she wouldn't be safe in there. She suddenly remembered Armaan and rushed to his cabin, all the while being followed by Abhimanyu. She peeped into Armaan's cabin to see him nowhere in sight. Looking at a fast approaching Abhimanyu, she walked into the nearest ward. She knew he wouldn't dare do anything to her with someone else's presence.
"Hello Muskaan", she heard Riddhima's voice and turned around to look at her smiling. She didn't understand why Riddhima was in that ward. Moving towards her, Muskaan pulled a stool and sat by her bed.
"Ward kab change kiya? Mujhe bataya kyun nahi?" Muskaan asked.
"Haan woh aaj subah hi change kiya. Dr. Khanna ko woh ward chahiye tha. Unke cabin ke paas hai na, toh unhe unke patient ko visit karne ke liye easy hoga na. Isliye." Riddhima said, trying to get up and sit. It had been a week and one day that she had been admitted. She was recovering fast. She was sure she could walk too but, for some reason, unknown to her, Armaan kept her activities restricted to just sitting and he had strictly ordered the nurse too, so that Riddhima wouldn't try to walk even in his absence. She had tried arguing, but that didn't work as Armaan was adamant. Riddhima didn't understand why Armaan was fussing on her so much, but she put all her thoughts aside when she realized she would be getting to see him every day, first thing in the morning and he made sure to visit her every night before she fell asleep. Her feelings for him was growing day by day and Riddhima had stopped fighting them long back!
In the last one week, she and Muskaan had become good friends and Riddhima thoroughly enjoyed her presence. Riddhima had also come to know about Rahul and Muskaan. She recalled Rahul mentioning Muskaan's name and Riddhima had also noticed a different expression covering Muskaan's face whenever she would mention about her best friend. Cross connecting the two pieces of information, she had tricked Rahul to admit it! At first, she had a doubt on how Muskaan had come to know about Rahul's working place. But then she threw that thought away thinking that may be Rahul had told her and maybe he was the one to make her join the hospital. Whereas, Rahul had completely forgotten about this!
"Toh batao kya chal raha hai? Rahul ka phone tha kya?", Riddhima asked with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Muskaan's head jolted up hearing that and she couldn't help but blush, thinking about what was coming her way!
"Haan. Woh kal training se wapis aa raha hai..", Muskaan replied with a contented smile.
"Aye haye! Abhi se hi Rahul ke khayalon me khogayi kya?", Riddhima loved teasing her and she was sure to enjoy teasing Rahul much more. She just grinned wide, thinking of ways to tease and embarrass Rahul as much as she could! Right then her phone buzzed, indicating a call. Taking her phone, she was puzzled on seeing the caller. Muskaan asked her about the caller with hand gestures. Receiving the call, Riddhima mouthed 'Rahul' to her. Muskaan was puzzled too. Rahul usually called them in the evening and never at this time of the day as he would be busy with the sessions.
"Yeah, tell me, Rahul." Riddhima spoke into the phone.
"Yeah.. She's with me.. you wanna talk to her?" Riddhima asked Rahul.
"Ah okay.. You're coming tomorrow?" she asked.
"Rahul.. Rahul.. Hello.." Riddhima tried talking, but the call was already cut. Riddhima was puzzled all the more.
"Kya hua Riddhima? Kya kaha Rahul ne?" Muskaan asked immediately. Riddhima looked up at Muskaan with the same expression.
"Pata nahi Muskaan. Call cut hua. Pata nahi usney jaan bhooj ke cut kiya ya network problem se cut hua!" Now Muskaan was confused too.
"What did he tell you, by the way?" Muskaan asked.
"Woh tumhare baare me pooch raha tha." Riddhima said.
"Hello, ladies!" Right then Armaan entered the ward, greeting them and immediately both of them stopped talking about Rahul. Nobody in the hospital knew about Rahul being Riddhima's best friend nor him being Muskaan's boyfriend, was what Riddhima thought. But, Armaan definitely knew the things in a better way, without her knowledge!
"Hi." both of them replied him, a bit late. Armaan eyed them suspiciously for the late reply and they just smiled at him.
"Kuch serious baat ho raha tha kya?" he asked.
"Nope. Aisi koi baat nahi." Riddhima replied, instantly. Armaan was still not satisfied with her reply, but let it go for the time being.
Armaan approached Riddhima for the daily check-up and Muskaan walked away, letting him do his work. Riddhima with Armaan's help lied down and let him do his work and as usual, a question rose up in her mind. "Why has HE taken up her case when he is a cardiologist?"
"It's healing fast. Do you feel any pain when you move your hands?" he asked.
"No." Riddhima replied. Though her mind had questions about Armaan, her heart was clear about everything. Whenever he would come up for her check-up, her heart and mind would get on a fight with each other and as usual, her heart won over her mind! "Woh cardiologist hai ya aur kuch, tujhe kya? Tujhe bas ussey ghoorna hai! Oh, he's handsome!" her heart would say!
Today too, her heart had lashed out her logical thoughts and had forced her to appreciate him! She was busy staring at him when she felt someone shaking her.
"Riddhima? Kaha kho gayi?" she heard Muskaan's voice and looked at her, averting the gaze from Armaan, who was instructing the nurse.
"Huh? Woh.. kahin nahi.. Aise hi kuch soch rahi thi." Riddhima said, not meeting Muskaan's gaze and acting as if the thoughts were all casual!
At that time, Armaan was done instructing the nurse and thus came and sat in front of them. In the last one week, Riddhima had become good friends with not just Muskaan but also with Armaan. Armaan too got along with them quite easily and he started spending few minutes in this ward. Sometimes, Muskaan and Armaan both would come to the ward at the same time and sometimes due to the difference in their schedules, they would visit Riddhima when it was convenient to them.
"Toh kaisa chal raha hai sab? Enjoying this resting period?" Armaan asked Riddhima, knowing too well how she felt about all this resting thing! He loved irritating her. Sometimes Muskaan would join him and irritate Riddhima to an extent where she would start ignoring them and act like she doesn't know them!
Riddhima made a face at Armaan for what he had just asked and Muskaan laughed out seeing that weird expression.
"Armaan, tang mat karo. Please." Riddhima requested Armaan with a pleading look and Armaan obliged.
"Armaan, can you do me a favor?" asked Muskaan. On getting a nod from Armaan, she said, "Can you please bring something to eat? I haven't eaten anything from the morning."
Armaan nodded again and set off to the canteen. Muskaan was not willing to go out and face that bas***d, Modi. So she thought of asking some help. She had come to liking Armaan now. He is good at heart, she realized. Earlier, when Armaan had called her to join the hospital to distract Rahul, she hated him immensely. She hated how he blackmailed her into things. But now she knew that he was also forced to do this.
"Muskaan, kaafi busy rehti ho aaj kal. Mere saare cases tumhe hi handle karna pad raha hai na?" Riddhima asked. She was feeling guilty for being unavailable for her patients and also for giving her load of work to Muskaan.
"Aisa kuch nahi hai, Riddhima. I can handle them. Waise bhi jab tum theek ho jaogi na, mein ek lamba leave lene wali hun. Mera saara kaam tab tumhe hi sambhalna padega. Haan." Muskaan replied and they continued talking.
***Rahul was tensed. No, that was an understatement! He was feeling helpless and he couldn't wait to reach the hospital! He never knew these many things could happen in his absence. He was feeling guilty for not being with Riddhima when she suffered an attack and now, that Abhimanyu Modi has turned up from out of the blue and he didn't like the situations even a bit. He also guessed that Modi must be the reason for Riddhima's pain. He could never trust his best friend and girlfriend with that guy! He had always hated Modi, personally and professionally too!
"That bas***d is capable of doing anything for money! Damn it. Thank god, I was sent to this training, else I wouldn't have known anything about Muskaan's problem and nor would I have known who's Armaan! How did I not recognize him? Yaha aa kar thanda dhimaag se sochte hi sab kuch clear hua. Aur yaha aake bohoth kuch pata chal gaya."
He was pacing in his room. He had just come back from the store room. He couldn't believe the on goings of the last week. He remembered how he had caught a servant who was sneaking into the store room at midnight.
Rahul was trying to find what was happening in the store room. He used to be awake all night, guarding the storeroom. He had extracted a small wooden box from under the tampered tile of that room and found some keys in it. He didn't know what to make of it. He tried thinking of some reason for anyone to hide the keys in there. But then he thought of better ways than thinking of reasons. If the keys are of any importance, the owner of these keys would turn up to fetch them. From that day on, he was guarding the store room at night time, keeping himself hidden inside the room, behind a rack. After three days of waiting, he had seen someone sneaking inside. He waited patiently until the servant went out of the room, holding one of the keys from the wooden box. Rahul followed the servant from behind, keeping a safe distance in between. The servant was walking towards the forest, Rahul noticed. Nobody in that village dared to enter the forest, fearing the wild animals. Every person in the village would instruct every visitor of the village to not to explore the forest and now, the servant was entering the same premises of the village. Rahul entered the forest too, keeping his ears open for any threat from the wild animals. He was finding it difficult to follow without making any noise. The path was filled with tree twigs which would snap and make noise. Nonetheless, Rahul managed to follow the servant to a nice mud road, successfully. They were still in the middle of the forest and he found this mud road a bit suspicious. If nobody entered the forest, why would there be a road. It was evident that the road was in use and from the moon light, he also noticed the tyre marks there. After walking for about a kilometer, the servant stopped. Rahul was bewildered to find a small cottage like structure in that place. The servant quickly opened the door of the cottage and stepped inside. Even after five minutes when the servant didn't come out, Rahul neared the cottage and sneaked in. The cottage was well maintained. Furniture was properly set and there was an LCD TV in the main hall. Moving towards the one and only door in there, he looked to his both sides to find passage ways. He didn't know which passage the servant had taken and thus he chose to take the one that was on his right.
"Haan sir. Maal tayaar hai. Nahi nahi.. koi gadbad nahi hogi. Aaj tak toh mere hote huve koi gadbad huva hai kya?" Rahul heard someone talking. He guessed it to be the same person whom he had followed. While moving towards the direction of the voice, he noticed several rooms, locked securely. Making a mental note to check those rooms later on, he continued. On reaching the end of the passage, he was confused on where to go next. The voice had died down and he now had two rooms in both of his sides. He looked at both of them confusedly for a minute and then noticing one room unlocked, he slightly pushed the door open. The room was well lit and was large enough to hold around 150 people. He saw the servant with two other people, loading some grayish colored substance into the cardboard boxes. It took just a glance at the substance for Rahul to realize that it was heroin! They were engrossed in their work of loading their 'maal'. Taking advantage of this situation, Rahul stealthily moved into the room. Standing behind them, who were still busy in loading, he kicked one of them hard. The others were glued to their position whereas the one who got kicked was lying on the floor, struggling to get up.It was too late when they realized what was happening. They tried to fight Rahul, but they were no match for his skills. Within minutes, they found themselves tied up to the chairs. Rahul was expecting some more people to attack him, but he was surprised to find no such things. He then interrogated them for hours, extracting each bit of information they had about this. Rahul then called up the village police station to take care of those three. He had already formulated a plan to tame the smugglers!
Today, after three days of that incident, he got a news from his informant about Modi's arrival at the hospital. He did not like this at all. He called Riddhima right away as Muskaan wasn't answering the calls. Though Muskaan was safe in the hospital premises, he was scared due to the incident that hurt his best friend. His hands were itching to beat that being to a pulp for what he had done to Riddhima. He couldn't stay there anymore. So he requested his guide to let him go early and now, he just wished this day to end as soon as possible.
"Oh.. abhi toh bas dopeher hai!" he muttered.
***Abhimanyu was aimlessly roaming here and there in the hospital, also searching for Muskaan. He so wanted to terrify that girl who had challenged him that she would never let him get into this work. He and Muskaan had never got along and nor did Rahul. The trio always had a cold behavior towards each other. He also wanted to crush Armaan's self -respect and also terrorize him a bit by hurting his loved ones! He so hated the importance Armaan held in his boss's view.
"Iss baar mein ussey harake hi rahunga..haan.." he said.
"Excuse me, kya aap bata sakti hai ki Dr. Muskaan Chadda kaha milengi?" he asked at the nurse station. He had seen her entering a ward. But, when she didn't appear even after half an hour, he walked off thinking that she had gone out of the ward from some other door, provided the ward had one or maybe she had come out when he was looking at some other direction, though he doubted that he did divert his attention from the door of the ward.
"She's taken an off for the rest of the day, sir." he got an instant reply.
Thanking her politely, he walked towards Armaan's cabin to see if he was back but, his ringing phone stopped him. Looking at the name flashing on the screen, he received the call and made his way out of the hospital to talk privately.
"Yes, sir. Abhimanyu bol raha hun." he said into the phone.
"Ji. Sab ho gaya hai. Haan sir.. I'll take care of it.. Don't worry.. Mein sambhalunga.." he said.
"Sir, bol raha hun na? I'll handle everything. Don't worry.." he said again, trying to convince the caller.
Cutting the call after some more convincing, he walked back to the hospital.
***"Chalo, ab aapki bhook mitadein.." Armaan said, entering the ward. Sitting in front of the bed, he forwarded one plate to Muskaan. When Riddhima held out her hand to take the other plate, he just pulled it away from her hand's reach and indicated to the nurse, who just entered holding the special food for Riddhima.
"Oh.. no no.. I'm so not eating that Armaan.. I'm tired of eating such a plain food.. Please mujhe woh plate do na.. " Riddhima said in a child-like tone.
Armaan's heart melted looking at those pleading eyes, but he knew she was supposed to follow the diet for at least three weeks.
"Come on Riddhima.. Itna bhi tasteless nahi hoga woh.." Muskaan said, eyeing the plate that nurse just handed over to Riddhima.
"You'll vomit it out if you eat once, I swear! It's the worst food one can ever have! Issey achha mein kuch nahi khaun.. " Riddhima pushed the plate onto a side table, making a face. Armaan was amused with her nakhras. He couldn't believe even a doctor could whine about the unfairness of the healthy diet.
"Riddhima.." Armaan said in a low tone, hinting at a scolding session coming her way! Riddhima instantly caught his serious tone and took hold of the plate before he would start scolding her. Muskaan burst out laughing at Riddhima's expression and condition.
"Muskaan, tumhe duty ke liye late nahi ho raha?" Riddhima asked.
"Nahi. Meine half day off liya hai." Muskaan said enjoying her food.
"Arrey.. mujh se kahe bina leave kaise liya tumne haan?" Armaan asked Muskaan.
Muskaan looked up at him with an apologetic smile and said "Woh meine kaha ki meri tabiyat theek nahi hai.. Sorry.."
"Hmm.. That's alright. Waisey bhi Riddhima ke absence me tumne bohot kaam kiya hai. Thoda aaram toh banta hi hai.." Armaan understood her difficulty and let her off the hook. They continued chatting for some more time until Armaan left for his duty. Muskaan also thought of going as it had been hours since she started talking to Riddhima.
"Riddhima, mein bhi chalti hun. Tu khayaal rakh apna aur theek se khaa lena.. nahi toh weak pad jaogi.." Muskaan said covering Riddhima with the sheets. Waving a bye to her, Muskaan was out of the ward.
Riddhima started feeling bored as soon as Armaan and Muskaan left. She was so not okay with being alone in a hospital ward, where she is not allowed even to walk. Right then her mobile rang and she received the call immediately as she saw Rahul's name.
"Haan bol Rahul. Tab call kyun kaata tumne?" Riddhima asked him.
"Riddhima, meri baat dhyaan se suno. Theek hai?" She heard Rahul's serious voice.
"Hmm. Bolo." She replied, equally serious.
"Kal mein wapis aa raha hoon. Mujhe bohoth important baat pata chala hai yaha pe. I want you to be careful until I come. That's it and ask Muskaan to stay with you whenever she is free and ask her to not go around roaming alone." Riddhima, though she didn't understand why Rahul was instructing her to be careful, obeyed his orders. She knew one thing for sure. What he had found out was of high importance.
"Theek hai Rahul. Aur kuch?" Riddhima knew he wouldn't discuss anything on the phone. Thus didn't bother asking him of what he had found.
"Nahi. Aur kuch nahi. Take care. Kal milte hai." he said and cut the call.
Riddhima messaged to Muskaan about what Rahul had said, right away. On getting her positive reply, she sighed and laid back on the bed.
She wanted the day to end as soon as possible. She wanted to know what was keeping Rahul tensed. She was sure of the danger approaching her and Muskaan. She spent the rest of the day thinking about things going on around her.
-----------Hope you all enjoyed reading. Do press like and comment.
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