Hi everyone. This oneshot is a continuation of Realisation ( https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/ishq-mein-marjawan-2/5184255/riansh-twoshot-realisation-part-2-on-pg-3-updated-on-16-10-20 )
Read that first for better understanding of this one.
RESOLUTION
Riddhima shuddered as another seizure overtook her form.
Vansh stood unmoving in the corner of the hospital room; an ominous, stony presence lurking behind the scurrying doctors and nurses who were frantically trying to stabilise their patient.
-
The monitor beeped. A bleak sound in an otherwise quiet room.
Vansh fell to his knees beside the hospital bed, eyed red and heart bleeding.
The doctor looked on in pity but had no alternative except delivering the truth. “She may never wake up.”
-
“Come eat, beta,” requested Daadi, keeping a comforting hand on his arm.
It was Karwachauth. The one who believed in dutifully worshipping the divine was still unresponsive. The one who held nothing but rage for the gods had consumed nothing but stale hospital air since the last two days.
“I’m fasting,” he softly declared.
-
Riddhima’s husband sat on the side of the bed carefully holding her comatose body to his chest, as the nurse wiped her back with a wet cloth. His fingers tenderly lifted escaping strands of her hair away from wet skin.
“She likes to wash her hair every other day,” he informed the nurse.
Her preferred grooming products have been delivered to the hospital on his orders.
-
Besides the bare minimum, he hasn’t spoken much to anyone since the day she fell unconscious in his arms. Angre has been keeping him updated on work matters. Sia has been bringing him meals from home though he has guessed that she is being sent to check up on him by his worried grandmother.
“She wouldn’t abandon you,” Sia assured him again.
How could his sister be so sure ? Hadn’t his own wife believed he could actually want her dead and gone?
‘And whose fault is that?’ hissed the serpent in his head.
-
He was a man who had only ever received betrayal and disappointment from the women he loved. That there could be a woman in his life willing to embrace death to keep the sanctity of his spoken word alone was something completely unexpected and foreign in his dark world. That someone he loved could also be loyal to him was a dichotomy he had never faced before.
At the least, he’d expected her to run. Then he could have followed her to the person plotting against him from the shadows. At the most, he’d expected her to break and ask for mercy as she spilled her truth.
How could he have known that a heart like hers could even exist? How could he have known that she of all people had been made just for him?
“Come back, sweetheart,” he whispered with a soft press of his lips on her arm.
-
His right hand sensed movement.
Vansh opened sleep deprived eyes to witness his wife crinkle her left eyebrow as her little finger flexed within his firm grasp.
His chair toppled back. He leaned over her, eyes keenly following the movement of trembling lips.
“Vansh,” she mumbled sleepily.
Warm brown eyes opened to meet dark anxious ones.
His face crumpled into her neck. The left shoulder of her gown and her pillow turned wet.
-
Riddhima smiled weakly at Sia and Angre as Daadi sobbed into her hand. Her gaze travelled over the rest of her pretentious in laws searching for the one who should have been present but was not. Nothing seemed to have changed.
Ten minutes later, she felt tired and strung out.
Her husband entered, took one look at her face and ordered his family out. Then he placed a container of home cooked food on the side table and sat down in his familiar chair.
She was unable to face the emotions on his face and so looked away.
Vansh waited for a minute then sighed and dropped the cloak of patience that had anchored him for so many days.
A firm grip on her chin forced her to turn.
“It seems you’re angry. I wonder why? I’m angry too, sweetheart. For several reasons. We can wage war once we go home, ” his deep baritone promised her. “But until you can’t walk out this door on your own feet, keep your temper aside. I will also lay down my weapons till then and behave myself. Deal?”
She huffed and nodded. The insufferable man was right. To confront what made her angry would take more strength on her part. “How long has it been?”
“Fourteen days.”
Vansh said nothing more and proceeded to set up her lunch.
She took in the state of his beard, the dark patches under his eyes and the deep crinkles on his expensive shirt. A side glance at the sofa confimed the presence of a second pillow and blanket.
“Go home right now Vansh,” she finally said.
“Excuse me,” he said, affronted.
“Excused,” she sassed back primly. “I’ll take a long nap after lunch. When I wake up I wish to speak to my husband Mr Vansh Raisinghania not a grizzly bear version of him. So.....go home.”
He wavered between amusement and irritation. Then took her words to heart. Once at the door, though, he turned back.
She was quick to respond to his unvoiced question. “I’ll be right here. Pakka!”
-
“You need to bend a little more.”
The physiotherapist backed away as Riddhima shot her exasperating husband a mutinous glare. He’d been hovering over her, poking his nose into her report sheets and monitoring ever session with the doctor. But every time she’d been tempted to utter a biting remark, the tension and worry clouding his face had stayed her voice.
“Doctor,” she eventually muttered, “I’m thirsty.”
Vansh was on his feet in seconds. “I’ll get you some juice.”
She watched him leave and then turned to the other man. “Hurry, doctor! We need to finish the exercise before he gets back!”
-
She was leaning on the bathroom door. Her husband was already inside, towel in hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Making sure you don’t fall and return back to coma,” he replied.
“I have a nurse,” she pointed to the uniformed woman to the side.
He raised an impertinent brow. “She isn’t the one who could become a widower.”
“Sir js right,” stated the nurse with the romantic heart. And then she smiled and left the couple alone.
“Vansh!”
“Riddhima!”
“Close your eyes,” she finally demanded.
He chuckled. “Already done, sweetheart.”
-
“Come here.”
Vansh abandoned his laptop to attend his nearly recovered wife. She was fidgeting with the pillow at her back. Ultimately she abandoned the pillow in favour of pulling him to sit behind her.
“Don’t move,” she ordered.
He internally grinned and then proceeded to entwine their fingers as she used his chest to rest her head. she pulled his arms closer around her.
“Vansh?”
Her husband was discreetly soaking in the smell and feel of her. “Hmmm?”
“When we finally fight, will you hate me again?”
Vansh pressed a soft kiss to her head. “I’ve never hated you, sweetheart. Lied about it many times. But never done it for real.”
“But I thought you...”
“I was pretending,” he confessed. “So you would break and tell me the truth. I didn’t....what you did.....never.....why would I hate someone who loves me?”
“Did you think I would break our vows?” she softly asked.
He released a long breath. “I’m broken, Riddhima. Too proud to ask you to keep them, too hurt to hope that you would want the same.”
Tears filled her eyes. “And you didn’t think I could be just as broken?”
Her husband held her tighter. “Mrs Vansh Raisinghania, your husband thinks you are his entire world. He just didn’t believe you would want to be part of it.”
-End-
Let me know what you thought of it. 😳
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