ArHi OneShot |Leave out all the Rest|

Arhi OneShot |Leave out all the Rest|

I dreamed I was missing

And you were so scared

But no one would listen

Cause no one else cared

Her face swims before his eyes, morphs into the shadows playing across his windscreen as he urges his car to move faster.

The terror, the pain, the teary relief...

They have been branded into his memory. They flicker in his mind as they did in that derelict warehouse where she had found him, who knew how, and under the light of fickle, half-hearted lightbulbs he had seen the war fought by her emotions, each profound and scuffling for its place- watched as she choked on her relief and her happiness and the aftermath of the terror and worry that had, inexplicably, led her to him, even though his tracks had been blurred.

And then she had come running into his arms, and her hold had been so possessive, and even though he had been the first to speak the words, driven by the fear that he would never again be given the chance, he could feel her love, alive and coursing, ripple out of her body and to electrify his.

His wife is tenacious- she finds him no matter how many times he loses his way, how many times he is forced away from her. She is fearless- she braves death, and defies it, and even shoulders it herself to rescue him from a danger the rest of the world lay blissfully ignorant too.

After my dreaming

I woke with this fear

What am I leaving

When I'm done here?

His hands clench tight about the steering wheel, its leather casing biting into the flesh of his palm, as his skin crawls with the memory of holding her lifeless body- the echoes of his pleas flood the interior of his car like the ghosts of that hell coming back to haunt him.

Tum kuch bolti kyu nahi...say something dammit!

His throat stings still from the ferocity of his commands, shouted to his wife, limp and prone, those lips, that would never cease their motions as they mumbled names at him or quipped in jest, still and eerily sealed.

Apni ankhen kholo, Khushi...just breathe, just breathe, I'm telling you to breathe, dammit!

But as always his stubborn wife had refused to listen to him, even though his orders had started to sound like pleas, like begging, but he didn't care, because with each minute that passed, he could feel the life physically being squeezed out of him- as though it were being sucked out into a black-hole even as he clutched desperately at straws and willed the reason he could still breathe and his heart could still beat to share those breaths and beats with him.

It had hurt worse than the bruises blackening against his body- worse than any of the deaths his captors had orchestrated for him.

So if you're asking me I want you to know...

He is at Shantivan.

He is running through the halls.

He barges through their bedroom door-

But she is gone.

She is gone.

She is gone.

She is gone.

The room is haunted by other ghosts though- ghosts different from disembodied voices, distorted echoes of his own, begging his Khushi to come back. Ghosts that did not belong to that panicked, shattered, frantic voice, shaking with the force of the emotion rolling like thunderclouds through him, shaking with the force of tears he refused to let fall, because tears were for the mourning and he refused to mourn.

The ghosts she has left behind for him are different.

"Tum mere zindagi mein aayi hi kyun...main tumse mila hi kyun..."

"You're the biggest mistake of my life, Khushi Kumari Gupta!"

"I wish I had never met you."

He falls to the ground; his knees jolt against it, the pain skitters up and up and up and breaks him from within, scissor-sharp.

There are no colours left in his closet, and the piece of paper on the bed says "I am sorry."

When my time comes

Forget the wrong that I've done

Help me leave behind some

Reasons to be missed

I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.

She has stolen the words that are supposed to be his, and left them on a piece of paper to give them back to him.

There is a tiny dot on the corner of the page- a swatch darker and softer than the rest, still damp, and Arnav sits for a long time, with the note signed by her tear-drop, clutched to his chest.

Nani comes, but he does not move.

NK comes, but he does not move.

Anjali comes.

She sits beside him on the floor, she holds him, she caresses him as she used to when she would sing him to sleep, but everything seems to belong to another world now- another world where he was there, but so was she. In this she-less, her-less, Khushi-less world, nothing feels right, and his eyes fix on the empty hole she'd carelessly left behind.

It is her birthday.

It is her birthday and he did not know.

He chased her all the way to her Buaji's house, but she had been in bed, Buaji said to him, asleep, and Is there anything wrong, Babua? Did our Sanka Devi do anything wrong? And he was shaking his head, no, no, no, she didn't do it- it was me, it was me.

And Buaji, confused and anxious and doubtful, She said she could not wait until tomorrow to see us...you see she has never been without us on her birthday.

Her birthday. The day she was born. The day she was granted her life. The day because of which she was in his life.

And he had celebrated by giving her ghosts.

He sits through night, until morning, beside the gap howling in sinister emptiness, his family filing one by one with questions, questions, questions- questions he will not answer, because it would be like validating what cannot be true.

What happened, Chote?

Nannav, where is Khushiji?

Did you say something to her?

Did you have a fight?

Where is she?

Say something! Don't just sit there!

Dadi...I called Buaji...Khushi went there...

What, it's Khushi bitiya's birthday tomorrow?

She didn't tell anyone...

She told me not to say...the way things are at home...

Poor thing...

And then Di is here, and she is beside him, but on his other side the gap remains. He cannot hear what she is saying, but he hears Mami clearly enough.

Good riddance! That girl is the source of all our problems!

He explodes.

Don't resent me

And when you're feeling empty

Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest

She saved me! She saved my life! Is that the source of all our problems?

That she saved me from being bound and gagged?

That she saved me from being broken till I could not bleed anymore?

That she saved me from being burned ALIVE?!

He is roaring but he does not care; he shouts, he screams, his mouth feels raw and bitter and singed but he does not care and the anguish pummels out of him and he keeps vomiting it out.

That she saved all of us from being swindled out of everything?

That she let me ruin her life just so I could save my sister's?

That she- that she- that she almost- died...she almost died, and I was holding her, and she wasn't breathing, and- all because she was trying to save ME! Is that why she is the source of all our problems? IS IT? IS IT?

There is moisture on his face. It is painting his cheeks in the tint of tears but he howls like a madman.

Is it because she is the only one- the only one- that realised I was in trouble, and the only one that came for me?

While he bays in broken agony and his family watches in stunned silence, a quiet voice beneath the furore, in the heart of the chaos unwinding in his head, whispers in derision.

Hypocrite.

He breaks down. He cries.

His sister is embracing him.

She is crying too.

Leave out all the rest...

***

Don't be afraid

I've taken my beating

I've shared what I made

She thinks she is prepared for this, but she cannot meet his eyes.

The anguish there, the hurt, the hurt that she has given him, will be her undoing- she will not be able to resist reaching out to him, and stroking away the tortured shadows tarnishing his features.

She has learnt this from him.

She has learnt that love is not when you strive to spend the rest of your life with someone you love- it is when you are strong enough to walk away even though every step feels like dying.

Pain for pain.

And so she knows that she has to hurt him to save him, just as he had once hurt her to save her- just as he had hit her behind the head and hidden her behind hay and walked towards death to keep her away from it.

Pain for pain.

No, she hears herself speak rehearsed words, words practised and repeated again and again in the loneliness of a bed she had once shared with him, in some faraway, distant, lost time, while outside she can hear Buaji speaking to him and has to fight with the yearning of her heart to throw away all her noble notions and run into his arms as she had the first time, No, no, I won't come back.

He is reasoning with her and it is destroying her...I didn't mean it, Khushi, you know I didn't...I got upset, I got carried away, but that does not justify- Khushi, please, please! - he sounds broken and haunted and desperate and Khushi cannot breathe but she has to hold her ground...she has to hold her ground for him.

Because she remembers how broken and haunted and desperate he had been the night before, and how broken and haunted and desperate when she had found him in that warehouse, and whether he meant anything or not, it does not matter, because she blames herself for it all anyway.

I'm strong on the surface

But not all the way through

I've never been perfect

But neither have you

Ours is a contract marriage, Arnav-ji...it is going to end someday anyway...

Don't you dare, don't you dare call it that, Khushi Kumari Gupta Si-

-Sirf Khushi Kumari Gupta, Arnav-ji. Sirf Khushi Kumari Gupta.

No, no, you can't say that, you don't mean it-

Whether I come back today or not, it won't change the fact that when the contract expires, there won't be anything to show that we're married...no witnesses, no marriage certificate, no pheres taken...there will be...nothing...

NO! NO, DAMMIT! It doesn't work like that! It can't just end like that! You can't just end it like this Khushi! I'll get witnesses, I'll get witnesses and take pheres-

-with the biggest mistake of your life, Arnav-ji?

So if you're asking me I want you to know

Her own words scrape like bitter salt over blisters across her tongue, and the taste reminds her of the night before and of the words that had vanquished the last of her flimsy, worn-down hopes that perhaps, things would somehow get better.

She knows better now. She knows that they have left such a trail of devastation in their wake that putting the smithereens back together would take infinity and more- it is impossible.

Khushi...Khushi, I never meant that...

This is for our own good, Arnavji. We would both be- we would be happier this way.

When the time comes

Forget the wrong that I've done

Help me leave behind some

Reasons to be missed

She hears his strangled breath and feels a suffocating hand steal up her own neck to crack its deadly fingers around it, but she does not look, cannot look up at him.

If she sees the hurt she is inflicting upon him so freely...

But no. She must hurt him to save him, because she loves him enough to leave him for his own sake.

Her presence is a blemish on Shantivan- a conspicuous stain. And without that stain, Khushi hopes, she prays, that normalcy would return to their lives, and things would go back to the way they had used to be in that house...prays for Anjali Di's recovery, for the safety and healthy birth and life of her baby, for everything on which hinges Arnavji's happiness...everything that is impossible if she is in his life.

She has already ensured her punishment- a lifetime pining away for the man she loves; the man whom, despite all odds, she had given her heart too, and now could not ask for it back.

Don't resent me

And when you're feeling empty

Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest

Leave out all the rest

***

She says these words, says them so coldly he can feel his flesh cool and his blood freeze in his veins, and his ghosts return with their ghoulish howling of macabre music.

Agar tum nahi hote toh Di aaj khush hoti...

If it weren't for you, Shyam would never have done what he did...

The taunts flung with such abandon booms and resounds through his skull until he is sure his bones will begin to crack, the stupidity and bitterness of his words poisoning him insidiously, but what can he do to take them back? How can he erase them from existence?

The answer is, he cannot.

Just as he cannot erase from existence the six months worth of pain she has suffered in his hands because he had blindly believed his brother-in-law's act of a doting, dedicated husband; just because he had been able to do nothing to save his sister from that man's ploys, despite discovering his true nature.

And even if he could erase those six months, there was the pain before that...the doses of it that he has been injecting into her since the very first night they had met one another...

And he understands the folly of his words.

She had never been his biggest mistake.

He was hers.

For crossing paths with him, for ever meeting him in the first place.

Had she never met him in Sheesh Mahal, the nightmare he had so meticulously penned for her would never have befallen her head. She would never have faced humiliation in Lucknow...she would never have had to leave to come to Delhi, only to fall into his claws again...she would never have met Shyam had it not been for those photographs he had aired with the unflinching intent to shame her, and none of this, this fiasco of a wedding and their first rendezvous with death since they lost their parents...none of this would ever have happened.

It is all his fault.

All his fault.

Without him, Khushi...Khushi would still be happy, in her own world...which was not his.

The idea kills something inside him, murders it brutally, and his eyes frantically fly in search of hers, as though paranoid to establish she was there, here, in front of him, and real...

...and he finds she in not looking at him.

Forgetting

All the hurt inside

You've learned to hide so well

It reminds him, with jarring currents of agony, of that moment stilled and preserved in time, a moment he would never be able to shake out of his nightmares...eyes closed, breaths stilled, physically held against his body but nowhere near him.

He is moving before he can realise it, talking before he knows what he is saying.

Pretending

Someone else can come

And save me from myself

Look at me, he pleads with all that heartbreaking desperation with which he had held his life in his hands as he held Khushi's immobile body, ready to relinquish both with every second he was deprived of her beautiful, softly glowing liquor-deep eyes...Look at me, please.

She refuses, and he sees cracks in her ice-mask...he sees it thaw and melt and deform a little, and though she fixes it swiftly, he has already seen it.

Khushi, he coaxes her again, his hands reaching for her, ignoring the stab to his heart as she flinches and attempts to shy away from him, and grabbing her nonetheless, Khushi, look me in the eye and tell me you don't care for me. Look me in the eye and tell me that you don't...and I will leave you forever.

I can't be who you are...

She trembles in his arms, and he feels the aftershocks of those trembles- aftershocks of hurt and regret and despair- travel down his body. He is close to her now...so close he can see through the translucent mask of ice upon his wife's face...and he can see her warring with herself. Can see her eyes try to dart towards his in weak attempts to hold his stare, can see her lips mouth words she cannot utter.

Look at me, he bids one final time, and his hand cups her chin gently, and he bends his head down, and it is almost as though he is going to kiss her, but has stopped short.

Because her eyes...her eyes...

They say everything she won't, and he believes them instantly because Khushi's eyes have never lied to him, would never have lied to him had he ever stopped to believe every word that had passed through her lips since the day they met.

Her note and the words that she had stolen, her I am sorry that was really his, makes sense now.

Her eyes are telling him that she did not leave for herself.

She left for him.

Because...of those things he had said...those words of blasphemy for which his tongue out to be burnt...those black lies that could not be farther from the truth...

She left for him.

Because she thinks...she really believes...he has made her believe...that he could be happy without her.

Don't you know, it is the other way around? he thinks, searching her eyes for even the tiniest bit of the resentment he deserves but cannot find. Her mouth is moving wordlessly, and he understands now she is trying to utter the lies he has demanded of her, not because she does not want him in her life but because she thinks he does not want her in his.

But it is too late now...her eyes have given her away.

And he will hold it against her. He is unscrupulous, he is manipulative, and he always gets what he wants. He is Arnav Singh Raizada, and he will use her unwise mistake of loving him to hold him to his side for the rest of forever- to buy himself the time to repent for his mistakes and restore the happiness he has so assiduously destroyed.

To fix everything- to erase those six months and the months before them, and replace them with so much love that she will have no choice but to stay with him- no choice but to be his, and leave out all the rest.

Because as much as she is selfless, he is selfish, and he has come too close to losing her already. No more now. No more.

I can't be who you are.

It would really mean a lot to me if you could leave your thoughts on this! Don't have much experience writing this kind of piece so...

And also, as you can tell, the events here did not follow the events of the actual show. Which, might I add, frustrated me so much I started shouting at the TV and convinced anybody that still needed convincing that I've got a screw loose :/

Related OneShot: Study in Senses

I reserve all rights over this work of fiction and request that readers do not reproduce/copy/modify it elsewhere and/or claim credit.