"But Claire had long ago realized, even after those constant dreams of her mother leaving faded away, that when you are abandoned as a child, you are never able to forget that people are capable of leaving, even if they never do."

― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

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Dedicated to all those people who have tried, countless times, to analyze Nirmala not-really Ahuja's character and actions in an attempt to find the answers we were promised yet never got. And to those who wanted Nirmala-Shravan's proper interaction and proper communication between them during the reunion or even after it, yet that too never happened... >__<

I hope you all will like this chapter... : )

* * *

'Maybe she lives here now...'

'Maybe I would find her here...'

'Maybe she too is traveling in the same country right now...'

'Maybe if I looked around enough, went to enough places, maybe I would find her...'

'No, it's impossible, it's not like she would recognize me anyway..."

'I am just giving too much importance to myself, she has forgotten about me already, moved on, created a new life, with her new family...'

'Maybe she even has other children...'

'I wonder if she ever even thinks about me...'

'Did I really meant nothing to her?'

'No, I never did...'

No matter where and to which part of the world he had been to, no matter how much he had denied and had scolded himself for having such thoughts, they had always been present at the back of his mind whenever he had thought about his mother...

About his mother and her, Suman Tiwari...

His mother's abandonment and his heartbreak caused by Suman had been the reason why he had refused to come back to India, but that hadn't meant he hadn't thought about them, search for them, or hadn't wished to find them wherever he had been, both of them had haunted him no matter where he had been...

And then after a decade of torture and self-imposed exile, he had come back to India, reunited with one of them, and had been content with that. Having Suman Tiwari back in his life had been enough, more than he ever had dared to wish for, yet the past had still been haunting him as it always had...

'Your own mother hadn't been able to love you, had left you behind, what if she did the same?'

'Can you really trust her?'

'Can you actually be loved? By her?'

'Are you worthy of her love? Of her?'

'What if one day she realizes how truly unworthy you are?'

'What if she leaves too?'

'Are you sure?'

'Can she be trusted?'

'Can you be trusted to not ruin it?'

'What if something happens?'

'What if she changes her mind?'

'She is going to leave you too...'

His demons have found a new way to torment him, thriving on his insecurities and fears, making him realize that he can't run away, he must try to win them over, convince them to stop haunting him, make peace with them...

And he had been trying to do just that...

And then out of nowhere, it was revealed to him that maybe his mother had intended to abandon him to begin with - that she had come back for him and had wanted him, had cared for him yet somehow never tried to contact him?

He hadn't dared to ask his father the whole story, fearing he wouldn't be able to overlook or forgive him if he had. The reason why he had to meet Nirmala Ahuja, and try to find the truth, the whole truth...

He didn't know if he could find the whole truth, he didn't know if he would be able to tolerate it, he didn't know if he would be able to stay unbiased, he didn't know if he would be able to walk in and meet Nirmala Ahuja without breaking into pieces and losing his sanity, losing the defensive and self-preserving mechanism that he had worked on for more than a decade and the ones that had kept him alive and sane until now, he didn't know if he would be able to go back to his father without feeling resentment within him...

He still didn't know anything, but he had to try...

He had to...

It was early in the morning when they reached Mumbai, and as he looked around, he realized somehow ever since he came back to India, even though there should have been a few work-related trips to Mumbai, his father had never let him - always handling the cases himself, sending Pushkar or someone else - did he know even then? Did he fear him meeting his mother here? He had been trusting his father, without a shadow of a doubt, was his father meanwhile abusing that blind trust?

He didn't want to doubt his father, no, he didn't...

But now he would, he would look back at every and each memory with a shadow of doubt tainting it...

No, no. No. NO...

He absolutely couldn't afford to think about his father in those lines...

His father was the only one who couldn't be, shouldn't be doubted...

Not his father too...

He only had his father...

Not him too...

Oh, why his father hadn't confessed anything before? Why had he been hiding the truth from the past decade, only telling him now? He should have done it years ago and spare him the self-hatred, deeprooted insecurities and torture, he had been bearly living thanks to his trust and abandonment issues. If he would have had known it before, maybe now he would have been a different person, not as wounded and as haunted by the past as he was, as he had been ever since that day...

Many nights had kept him awake, wondering what had he done wrong, what should have he done differently to make his mother stay back, to not leave him, to care for him enough to want him, love him enough to want to take him with her or at least let him know why she was leaving or if she ever would come back...

On those nights, he had tried to think of all the things he wished he had done differently...

His mother started to work because of him, and that had started the fights between his parents, fights that had become more frequent and more intense in the few last years before her mother had left. So, maybe if only he hadn't required a new uniform, a new bag or new shoes every year when the money had been tight? Or was it his love for books? Or was it the money his parents had been saving for his college fees? Or maybe it was just him, the sole cause of their miseries...

In the early years when he had been in London, he had felt the devastation of her loss choking him while he thought of all the possible reasons for everything that had gone wrong and found all the answers in his existence. He had been the cause of everything...

He had been sent away by his father, deprived of everything and everyone that had been familiar to him until then, deprived of any comfort, and he had tried hard to not see it as a punishment. He had always known his father's unconditional and undeniable love for him, of course, his father hadn't sent him away as a punishment, it had been to protect him from the lash back of society, to give him an opportunity to gain a better education.

But for him, it had been a punishment, one not by his father, but one given by him himself, something he had decided he deserved...

But now he couldn't help but wonder if his father's intention had been only that, and not to hide the truth from him...

But then again, it wouldn't have mattered where he would have been, things would have been still the same. He still would have seen the other teens and students around him, loved and taken cared for by both their parents and even the divorced parents, the supposedly broken homes' children would have been so different from him like they had been in London; more secure, less conflicted, more open and less bitter...

But then soon the devastation had given its place to a burning rage, pain, and resentment, and he had long since given up trying to figure out his own head and feelings...

So he had done with it what he had done with everything else: let it burn and consume him...

And he had let him consume him so much that it left him with just conscious anger, letting all those other ashes simmer and ruffle underneath his chest. It never had decomposed, never had flown away, it only had gotten darker and darker, accumulating more dust around his heart until he wasn't anything but an embodiment of cynicism and misery...

And now after a decade of feeling nothing but resentment, rage, and hatred, after being scarred and tortured by the past for years, after being infested by millions of insecurities, trust, and abandonment issues that had eaten him from within until very little of him had been left, he now was told that maybe it had been totally unnecessary...

And it made him angry yet tired at the same time...

And it made him feel resentment, bitterness yet hope at the same time...

And he was hopeless in his hope...

And now he just had to find out how much of it had been unnecessary and how much, with a little effort on the part by either of his parents, he could have been spared all that he had been through, all of what he had put himself through and all of what he had put innocent people around him through...

"We have arrived," the driver informed them before stopping near a villa with the nameplate of 'Ahuja's sweet home'; a confirmation that the woman he was about to meet was now a part of some other family, someone else's wife, someone else's mother, and that he was just invading their happy lives and he wouldn't be welcomed even by his mother.

"Let's go," Suman whispered with a soft smile.

And he let her take the lead, tagging behind her when they were let in, his heart beating fast, with headache and nausea making it impossible for him to breathe properly.

"Sumo," he whispered her name faintly, stopping her from walking in.

"Please, tell Nirmala auntie that we will be in the garden," she requested the helper who previously had been guiding them to his mother before leading him towards the huge garden, fresh air and beautiful flowers.

They sat there, side by side, on a bench, surrounded by the scent of roses, with their hands intertwined tightly.

"You know when she visited a few months ago and after my nagging told me the reason why she had left and how much she still missed you, I had decided then and there that I will make sure you both meet," she confessed.

"But then that day, when I had prepared to make sure that happened, you were there, telling me that you wanted to trust me and pleaded to not do anything that could hurt you, and I had realized that my doing that then, I would have done exactly that; hurt you. Because meeting her then wouldn't have been your choice and with Ramnaath uncle suddenly coming there, that made me realize what a disaster that would have been if I had done what I had decided to do,"

"Maybe I would have lost you that day, I still fear that I will lose you, Shravan," she whispered and looked up at him only when he tightened his grip on her hand.

"That's why I had decided to approach Ramnaath uncle first. I had realized that he was the only one who would be able to make you want to know the truth, that it was the only way you would be free to do what you want without feeling like you are betraying him. But in the end, it's your choice, only yours. If, when, how, or whenever you are ready. So, it's up to you, and if you don't want to know, if you don't want to meet her, if you want to go back, we can and we will only talk about this again until you want to," she promised softly.

And at that moment that seemed a very tempting idea; to go back to the life he knew, without distorting the loving father image of the man he worshiped and with an understanding Sumo by his side, that's all he had ever wanted...

But he knew, he knew his own mind and his own wounds, his cynical views and self resentment, his untamed desire to know the past and the truth, and his inability to move on. He wouldn't be able to live without knowing what he needed to know, his bitter and self-destructive brain would start coming up with millions of unpleasant scenarios, far more worse than what could have possibly happened...

"Thank you for not deciding otherwise that day, Sumo, and thank you for making sure it was my choice. But you are right, it's needed to be done, and I am ready now," he told her with a nod.

And after taking a deep breath he stood up, with her hand still in his tight grip, he advanced towards the door that would lead him to clarity...

* * *

"Is it you, Suman Tiwari?" a voice yelled out in excitement.

"What a pleasant surprise," a male around their age stepped into their view and advanced towards her with his arms wide open for a friendly yet imposing embrace, only to be stopped by Shravan's hand on his chest and her hurried steps retreating back to put some distance between them as she dragged him along with her by their hand still intertwined together.

"Excuse me? Who are you?" Shravan asked with a glare as he forced himself to only lightly push the man back.

"Aditya Ahuja? From college? Pushkar's friend, remember?" He said looking only at her, with a wide smile, and only frowned when she shook her head in confusion.

"You won the debate that I had written and didn't even give me the trophy. Are you here to give me back what belongs to me?" Aditya asked with a wink.

"If she won the debate, why would she give the trophy to you?" Shravan asked with a glare when he saw recognition in her eyes.

"Because it was written by me, bro. The reward belonged to me, it's mine," Aditya claimed in a manner that seemed to contain a double meaning as he looked at her with a strange look in his eyes.

"Aditya, son, let them in first," a familiar voice called out, breaking the building tension between them.

And when they looked away from each other, they found her, Nirmala Ahuja, standing there in all her grace and beauty. With one glance at her, his shoulder dropped, with a shallow intake of breath, Shravan froze in the realization that she looked the same, with the exception of a few white hairs and a few wrinkles, wrapped in an elegant sari with a soft smile on her lips, she looked the same...

His mother...

"Maa,"

Yet it was Aditya who had claimed her, calling her out happily and confidently, and without any hesitation, he had gone to stand near her before wrapping her in his arms while smiling widely.

"Suman, this is my beautiful mother, Nirmala Ahuja, and Maa, this is Suman, that college girl, remember?" Aditya introduced her proudly while looking at them only to realize how he had left him out.

"I am sorry, I didn't even ask your name, bro," he then said with an embarrassed laugh.

So this was Aditya Ahuja, Mr Ahuja's son - as he was too old to be their son - and his replacement? The reason why he was never missed by his mother? The reason why she had never looked back at him? The reason why she moved on so easily?

Oh, who he was fooling? He wasn't even important enough to find a replacement, was he? He thought with bitterness...

No, he wasn't, not for her...

He shouldn't have come here...

Yet he couldn't run away, he didn't want to...

Not anymore...

"I am Shravan Malhotra, and I am here for you, Mrs Nirmala Ahuja," he declared with firmness.

"Aditya, my son, will you be kind enough to show Suman our veg garden in the backyard? I have a feeling she would like that," Nirmala told her son with a fond smile.

"With pleasure," he answered while looking at her with a beaming grin.

And the more Aditya stepped closer to where they were standing, the more his grip on her hand tightened. That look in his eyes, that beaming smile, the way he had presented her to his mother, Shravan knew what it meant. And even though in the last few months he had been given enough reassurance, had gained enough security and surety, his heart still trembled at the advances of the other man...

No, not his Sumo...

Not her too, he won't let her be taken away from him...

No, he won't end up losing her to him too...

No, not even for a short trip to a bloody veg garden...

No, he won't...

"I will be right here, Shravan, I am not going anywhere," her whisper had snapped him out of his thoughts and made him realize how he had unconsciously moved in between them, blocking Aditya's view, hiding her away behind him like a child afraid of losing something precious to him...

And she was. So, so precious to him...

"I want to talk to him alone, Suman, if you don't mind," Nirmala requested her directly, forcing her to take back her words and look up at him with conflict shining in her eyes, yet she didn't let go of his hand until he himself didn't loosen his tight grip on hers.

"I will stay nearby, I will come back to you the second you call me," she promised him before walking away with a beaming Aditya.

And that was how he was left alone with the woman he had wondered about for more than a decade, in the darkest nights and the moments of rare joys; his mother...

"Come, Shravan, sit here," she called him by his name, after a decade, yet so casually...

Smiling at him so fondly...

As if nothing had happened, as if they weren't meeting each other after a decade and more, as if that day he hadn't come back from school just to find out that she had left him, and hadn't come back, not even for a proper goodbye, as if she hadn't abandoned him a decade ago without even letting him know the reasons or what had been his fault in between the mess his parents' marriage had become ever since he could remember? As if nothing was wrong...

As if nothing had happened...

How dare she act as if nothing had happened...

With a sigh and a mask of indifference, his head held high, he stepped forward in her direction, coming to sit on the sofa in front of her. And with a tilt of his head, he dared her to start the conversation.

"You guys will be staying for lunch, right? I have cooked your favorite daal," she said after a few minutes of awkward silence.

"I hate daal," he responded coldly.

"Oh. Do you still like Nimbu Pani with mint? I made some for you, let me tell Raju to bring us some," she said with a soft smile but before she could act on that, he interrupted her.

"Mrs Ahuja, I am not here for chit chat or for food, nor am I here to meet you. I am finding this casual behavior of yours very disturbing, so can you please drop this act," Shravan told her with his eyebrows raised high.

"Did your father tell you that we still are legally married?" She asked him, knowing how her words would break his defensive stand.

"What?" He shuttered in shock.

"I guess not. After all, you keep calling Mrs Ahuja," she said with a bitter smile.

"I am not interested in your marital status or who you are married to, I am not here for that," he replied with firm indifference.

"Of course, Shravan. So what are you here for?" She asked with a heavy sigh.

This wasn't how she wanted her first meeting with her son to be. No, it wasn't. Ever since Suman had promised her she would bring her son to her, months ago, she had been waiting, dreaming, and wishing for it to happen, she had listed everything she wanted to tell him, everything she would ask him, and there were so many things, so many...

But the way he stiffly and brutally had told her off, it had broken something within her and had killed her hope...

"For the truth. The whole truth. Your side of the story, everything," he answered firmly.

"I anyway had always wanted to tell you everything one day, ever since you were born, after all, you were my only love, my child, the one who kept me sane and going," she whispered with a broken smile.

"Alright then, let me tell you my truth," Nirmala said with a heavy sigh before narrating things from the start; her start...

"Before becoming Ramnaath's wife and your mother, I was someone's daughter and someone's sister. Like any other woman, for the world, I too was just someone's someone, bounded by relationships and responsibilities,"

"That's why, ever since I was young, I knew only with a proper education I could gain freedom, become what I wanted, be independent and make a name for myself. Be me. Not someone's someone, but just me. But as soon as I completed my education that I had to beg my parents for, and was ready to gain my freedom I had worked years for, I was married off to your father," she said with a sigh.

She had been born in a middle-class family, the eldest daughter of three, thought of only as a burden and a liability, something to get rid of to the first decent man, and Ramnaath had been just that...

"Your father, Ramnaath Malhotra, had been a newly graduated lawyer with a promising future, my parents thought he was perfect, didn't even think twice before getting rid of me as I was only a burden to them. I had tried to protest but all in vain, my parents and society had rendered me helpless and weak, unable to choose my own fate,"

"And after marriage, in the start, Ramnaath had been a good husband, as good as his misogyny had let him be, it had disturbed me, his misogyny, but in our society, in our times, which man hadn't been one? That was the justification I had given me for years, that every man I had met was one, some were too much and some took pity, mercifully granted permissions and were benevolent towards the 'weaker' gender," she said with a bitter laugh while shaking her head.

"And despite decades, it's still the same, isn't it? Nothing has changed, so how could I have had the kind of husband I had wanted back then?" She asked, more to herself than him.

"I tried, I tried so hard and for so long to ignore his degrading behavior towards me and women, shallowing every protest and just focus on my duties towards him. And then you came, and I saw a new side of him, the man was capable of unconditional love, such devotion and I was awestruck. Things got better, as parents, we tried our best to give you whatever you needed but with Ramnaath's poor income, we barely could afford essential things, it was never easy, and with years expenses only grew,"

"As you grew, each year it was more clear that the income wasn't enough, and then when you started to go to school, and we realized we wouldn't be able to give you a proper education, the reason why I started to convince Ram to let me work," she told him as she looked at him with a sad frown.

"So, I was the reason?" He asked.

Of course, he was...

He knew that...

He knew he had been the reason for their fallout and the reason for their miseries...

He knew he had been the reason for their loud fights at nights and broken plates in the morning...

"I never wanted things you both got me, what I had wanted was for you both to be happy," he whispered with a heavy heart.

"Oh, Shravan, you have always had been such a sweet child, never demanding anything, never complaining about anything, but that's only had made us want to give you everything," she told him with a smile.

"That was the reason why one day Ram finally gave in, for your sake, and let me work, and when I started to work, oh, there wasn't nothing more liberating. Finally, I was able to go back to the dream of my life, to become independent, to make a name for myself. To be me. And I had worked hard, worked hard to make sure you got the things you wanted, to give you a proper education, and nothing gave me more joy than your smiles," she confessed with a far away look in her eyes and a fond smile on her lips.

"But things changed, didn't they?" He asked even though he knew the answer.

"Yes, they did. After meeting Tiwari Ji, with each case, your father started to get the recognition everyone knew he deserved. He had always been sharp and ambitious, and his hard work only made his success come faster to him than anticipated. And with that, so did his arrogance, his superiority complex, and like every other man, privileged since birth, he too thought he could take back the freedom he had granted me and ordered me to stop working because there wasn't any need. Because it was unimaginable for him to let me work otherwise if not out of necessity. I had tried so hard to make him understand that I was working because I wanted to, not because I was forced to, but all in vain,"

And she had tried so hard to make that ignorant and insecure man understand how much she had worked hard to be where she had been, how she couldn't let all of it go in vain, so close to a new promotion, a new adventure...

"With each passing day, our conversations only started to get more and more out of hand, and he became more forceful in his demand, until that day, during our fight, he slapped me,"

And sometimes she still could feel the heat and hurt his strong hand had left on the side of her face...

The humiliation she had felt still burned her heart and clouded her mind with fury...

"It had been so sudden, so infuriating, so shocking for me. He had never done anything like that before. And it was as if someone suddenly had thrown cold water on me, that slap made me question myself; why was I tolerating his abuse? Why was I even living with him? And it had made me realize that I had reached my limits, I could no longer stay with him, his presence disgusted me, no longer I could even look at his way, forget staying married to him, I no longer wanted to be his wife, so I walked out, left him and never looked back,"

And it had been the best decision of her life, one that she had never regretted, one she wished she had taken before...

"And then?" He asked her with barely contained frustration.

"Then I went to Mr Ahuja. I don't know what your father has told you and what you think. But Mr Ahuja had been my boss, my mentor, a very dear friend. And he helped me out. He had already been training me to take over his position because he had been diagnosed with cancer. And unfortunately, he died soon, leaving behind Aditya and Niddhi to me," she narrated with a fond smile.

She had met both children before, had grown fond of them in years but when during his last days, Mr Ahuja had trusted her with them, made her their guardian, and she had cried in happiness, had hugged both children to her chest as her heart had ached for Shravan.

"It's strange, isn't it? I never liked being someone's someone, but I love being a mother, at first, it had only been you. I only had you, and when you were away from me, I was devastated, broken and lost. But then, suddenly, life gave me two more children. Two loving children who made me their mother, who choose me and became my life, my Aditya and my Niddhi," she said with such fondness and love that it made him bark out a sharp laugh and shake his head, suppress his jealousy and bitterness that was anyway lost to her as she continued with her sweet words.

"You are right, I am Nirmala Ahuja now, but not because I was ever married to Mr Ahuja, but because Aditya and Niddhi became my children," she stated with a proud look in her eyes.

"They told me if parents can give children their surnames, why can't children do the same? And ever since then, I am Nirmala Ahuja," she told him with a blinding smile filled with love only a mother can manage to feel for her children.

And she was, wasn't she? She was their mother, a proud and loving mother...

She just wasn't his mother...

Not anymore...

Hadn't been ever since she gave him up...

"And what about me?" He asked in a whisper, looking down at his empty hands.

"Am I nowhere in your story? Had you forgotten that you were supposed to be my mother too?"

"No, no, Shravan. I went back for you. As soon as I calmed down, as soon I had a place to stay, I went back for you. I had everything ready, divorce papers and your custody papers, I went there ready to fight back, just to find out that he had sent you away to London," she told him with a frown.

"And what did you do then?" He asked her in a challenging manner.

"I was so devastated, so angry, so infuriated that I refused to divorce him, something he had demanded. He wanted to get his freedom to marry someone else, to be happy after everything he made me suffer through, after he took away you from me," she said with an angry expression on her face.

"No, that wasn't happening, that's why I refused to let him be liberated by my shadow, kept him trapped in an unwanted marriage as he had kept me. Refused to give him a way to move on because he took you away from me,"

She had avenged his cruelty towards her by giving him a punishment he deserved, yes she did, she thought to herself proudly.

"Are you sure you did that because of me and not for your own ego?" He asked her with a bitter smirk.

"What do you mean?" Nirmala asked him, confused.

"So, let me sum that up. Mr Malhotra didn't let you meet your son, sent him away to take his revenge from you and you struck back at him by not divorcing him, by not letting him move on, but what about your son?" He asked her in the most objective voice he could manage.

"I told you everything that happened, Shravan," she said in a confused manner.

"Nothing you had said until now justifies anything. None of that answered why you never contacted me? Why did you cease to be my mother along with his wife?" Shravan demanded.

"I never did cease to be your mother, Shravan," she assured.

"Yes, you did. You never contacted me, you just disappeared one day and abandoned me, left me at the mercy of your misogynist husband, and never looked back because he denied you, something you knew he had no right to deny. You were my mother and I would have been eighteen within few months, your "legal preparation" that took so long wasn't even needed," he told her, forcing himself to not let his anger cloud his senses.

"But okay, let's pretend that even after being married to a lawyer for almost two decades, you didn't know that, so what did you do after that?" He asked her as his whole body vibrated in rage.

"Nothing. You did nothing," he spat out when she looked back at him only with confusion.

Looking at him as he was crazy, out of his mind, as if his anger and rage weren't justified, as if he was just being melodramatic, as if it was him who was wrong...

"What else could I have done? Your father was too powerful, too strong for me," she muttered, half-heartedly, upset yet fearful to anger him even more.

"I thought you wanted to be a strong independent woman, Miss Nirmala proud to be a Ahuja, was your independence limited just to your being able to work? Is that your definition of a strong independent woman?" He asked with an unamused laugh.

"You could have contacted me in London, right? You could have reached out, if you couldn't have come to meet me, you could have at least called, or even sent me a letter, couldn't you? You knew he was planning to send me to London before everything happened, it had been his dream for years. You knew which university, you knew everything, yet you didn't. Why?" He demanded.

"Because I thought you were better off with your father by your side. I didn't want you to be torn between us during our legal fight, I didn't want you to suffer more than you already had. I trusted your father with you, he always had been such an amazing father, I knew he would never do anything wrong when it came to you," she told him all the reasons she had given herself to not feel guilty, to not regret leaving him behind.

"Are you even listening to yourself? You are giving nothing but excuses, which aren't even good enough" he whispered, panting, unable to control his anger.

"You are telling me that because I had my father, I didn't need you, my mother? You didn't want me to be torn between you during your fight? I had witnessed nothing but your fights ever since I remember. You didn't want me to suffer? Yes, you did an amazing job. Because thinking that my mother had been cheating on my father for years, had an affair with her boss, left us to run away with him, never looked back and abandoned me did wonders to me. Oh, yes, that didn't make me suffer at all," he yelled, trembling with rage.

"Why are you blaming me for your father's disgusting narrative that he recounted you to make you hate me? If you have suffered all of that it's because of him, not me," she yelled back.

"Yes, of course, continue with the blame game without realizing your own mistakes. Why do you think I knew nothing better than believe him? Because you didn't care enough to explain. In these past almost eleven years, you didn't care enough to even contact me once. You just didn't care. Because why would you have cared if it was I who had been disturbed and devastated that my own mother left me? Why do you think I have carried the burden of the past, everything that had happened if my being abandoned by my own mother was best for me? Did you really think that I could have lived a completely normal life while knowing my own mother didn't love me nor cared enough to stay back, not even long enough to say goodbye,"

"Do you even realize what you have done? Do either of you realize what you had done?" He yelled with his hands gripping his hair strong enough to rip them out.

"No, you didn't. Nor do you care now. You never did. You always had been selfish, both of you had been, in your fight of egos, you have always overlooked me, always ignored me and I don't even know why I kept expecting anything different," he yelled as he lost his control over his tears.

"No, Shravan, that's not true," she denied, shaking her head as tears slipped from her eyes.

"I am very sorry that you see nothing but darkness in your time with us, that my father had been a misogynist husband, I am so sorry. I never knew, I had never realized how bad things were, I truly sympathize and recognize that your marriage had been a bad one, that my father hadn't been the kind of husband you wanted, and I am truly sorry for that,"

"But how did that stop you from being my mother? How did that make leaving me justified? How does that make you not feel guilty or regret abandoning me? Why did you let me go because he told you so? Why did you leave me, never contacted me because he denied you once? How did whatever Mr Ramnaath Malhotra had ever done to you justifies what you have done to me?"

And as soon as the words left his mouth, he was struck with the realization;

"Because you only see me as his son," he whispered in disbelief.

Yes, yes, that had to be the answer...

"You only see me as his son, not yours, only his. You didn't see us individually, you didn't see me, but just him and his son, right? The reason why you never fought back, the reason why you gave up so easily when he refused you, the reason why you don't feel guilt or regret, the reason why you never felt responsible for whatever happened to me after you left, the reason why you have lived so contently, without even rethinking your decision of abandoning me is because you never saw me as your son, only his,"

"Because that's what the society that you hate so much says, right? That children are men's, not women's, fathers' and not mothers', right? That had been your reason too, right? And even though other women, other mothers fight back for their children, and even after years and years of court and lawyers expenses and torture they don't give up, so why did you? Because you wanted to, on your own - even though you wouldn't have had to do any of that because I was almost an adult, yet you still never even tried after Ramnaath Malhotra once told you not to. So much for a strong independent woman, huh?" He scoffed bitterly.

"That's not true, Shravan, I had tried my best, did everything I could," she refused his accusation.

She had tried, she had tried to get him back, to meet him but Ram had sounded just so powerful, so strong when he had refused that she hadn't been able to fight back...

"No, you did not. Let's face the truth, shall we?" He said in a tired voice.

"The truth is that you left me because it was convenient. Because you couldn't drag me behind you, I would have only slowed you down. Because you didn't want me to keep you pinned down to the ground, to stop you from flying as high you wanted because I would have only been a burden. Because I would have been just a living and breathing reminder of your tragic past, of your failed marriage with Ramnaath Malhotra. And because leaving me behind was the easiest choice, wasn't it?"

"I did what I thought was best for you," she whispered firmly, refusing to have done anything wrong because she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she believed otherwise.

"How did you abandoning me was best for me?" He asked once again, desperate to understand, tired.

A question that went unanswered, even though she kept refusing, claiming otherwise yet remained helplessly silent in her response...

And that was it - when even after a few minutes she could say nothing in her defense, he knew that was all he was going to get from her...

"I was a fool. I am a fool to let the past still drag me down, to let it haunt me while both of you have clearly moved on, have your own happy families that I am not part of. So what if you both never remarried, so what if you never divorced, you did me no favor," he muttered to himself more than her, remembering his father's claim how he was the reason why his father never remarried and now his mother's, who claimed to have never divorced his father because of him.

Lies and poor excuses, that's all he had ever gotten...

They never cared about him if their ego was at the stack, never looked beyond their personal agendas and vendettas...

Yet he had destroyed and kept destroying himself for them...

And yet he still let the past consume him enough to live in fear in his present, long and cry over the impossibility of having the future he wanted to have...

Yet he still was burdened by insecurities, consumed by anger and hatred, letting the ashes of the past simmer and burn him, kept them close to his heart and never let them decompose. Always letting them evolve into embers and smoke him up, make him choke and cough and hold his breath and fear, fear out of his mind, tremble with the thought of loss, each second, with every breath...

Yet he was loyal to even his pain and wounds, never letting it leave him, never letting them heal...

Yet he couldn't unlearn the way he had been torturing himself for a decade and more...

Yet he still let his brain randomly focus itself on the flames inside his chest and burn him to the ashes when his thoughts got too out of hand. Random images and memories that come up, rare moments of happiness and every moment of misery and let them smoke him up and clog his airways until he couldn't do anything but let his hopes die a young brutal death...

Yet he still lived and re-lived that day when he had been so out of his mind, so devasted with the thought of losing her that he had wandered randomly on the streets in her search until his feet had taken him to the one who always had quieted his loud thoughts and melted his fears...

Sumo...

And without his realization, his feet once again were on their way to her...

To find her as he had always done...

'Do you remember what had happened last time?'

'Remember what she had done last time,'

A voice whispered in his ears and he was once again reminded what had happened after he had found her back then.

"No, no...That wouldn't happen again," he whispered to himself, denying what the voice claimed as he desperately searched for her.

"Things have changed, she has changed," he kept chanting to himself.

And there she was, pacing back and forth, with a worried look in her face...

'Yes, that worry is for me,' he thought to himself.

"Shravan," she yelled and came running to him.

'Yes, she cares for me,' he assured himself.

"What happened?" Suman asked in worry when she saw his red wet eyes, his always perfectly gelled hair out of place as he kept looking at her with a wild look on his face.

"Let's go," he whispered, reaching out for her hand.

"Shravan, you aren't getting my point, please, listen to me," Nirmala pleaded, coming running after him.

She was conflicted and confused over the extremely odd behavior of the stranger that once had been the child she thought she knew everything about. She didn't know what to say to him to console him, what to tell him to make him understand her reasons, how to assure him about her love for him, how to show him that she cared for him, how to tell him how much and for how long she had longed for a glimpse of his...

But he was no longer her Shravan, no longer was the child she knew and loved, he was just a stranger now, she admitted to herself...

"What's happening, Ma?" Aditya asked her as he took her in his embrace to comfort her.

"Oh, I got you perfectly," Shravan muttered while looking at them before harshly wiping his tears away and turning away from her.

"Suman, please," Nirmala pleaded to the girl who had brought him to her to once again do the same.

"I am sorry," had been her only response before she had let him take her away with him as he stormed out of her life without looking back.

And that had been it, the end of the feared and anticipated reunion that had been left pending for a decade and more...

Yet the result had been the same as the last time...

But this time around, it was him who was leaving her behind, leaving her as she had done back then. Not out of revenge or out of convenience, or because it was the easiest choice nor was it difficult. But because there was nothing left between them anymore, no reason to hold back, no reason to stay back...

She was no longer his mother, she hadn't been since the day she walked out, ever since she gave him up in an act of revenge...

And because now they were nothing but strangers...

Strangers that once had been mother and son, yet now they no longer were...

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A/N:- Okay, it was a long chapter, as long as two chapters, so I hope it was enough to make up for the tardiness? ; /

I really wanted to be done with Nirmala-Shravan reunion in one go, the reason for the late update. I am not sure what you guys had in mind, but I hope you all liked my take... :)

Nirmala not-really Ahuja had been such a contradiction since the start, at first, she was mentioned as the mother who had willingly abandoned her only child yet when she came back, she claimed she never had. She was represented as the "strong independent woman" yet she never had done anything or said anything that showed her claimed strength or independence...

Her whole track was so confusing, contradicting each previous claim and the timeline was messy, and so many loopholes in the plot, so I tried to fill the holes after thinking, watching and analyzing the flash-backs...

Nirmala's action and the consequences of those actions had left a huge impact but there was so little of her in the show, no serious attempt to build her character and nothing much was shown or said about her, so I tried to construct a thought process and gave her a background, tried to present her side of the story, something that would make her action and her side of story understandable because the writers had always tried to give an impression that she had been on right...

So much so that even though there was nothing that could have justified her abandoning Shravan and never looking back, she still was presented as "the victim", even though she did NOTHING, forget about an explanation, not even a word was said by her yet they made Shravan apologize to her in the end...

He apologized to her, her who had abandoned him more than a decade ago and had never looked back... :O

The abandoned child apologized to the parent who had abandoned him... :O

What? WTH? I still can't believe it...

I would never forgive whoever was behind that, would never forgive whoever made Shravan apologize to Nirmala. Unbelievable. Unforgivable! >__<

Please, let me know your interpretation too, how different, far or close it is to mine... :)

Honestly, EDKV writers & Cvs failed to represent the "strong independent" woman that they had promised us in the promos and then again and again until the last episode, not only in Suman's case, but also in Nirmala's case. Actually, a close examination of the female characters of the show only made me realize how that had happened on such a large scale - - not that male characters were any better... ;D

But the fact that they have so many shades, bad and good, and so many flawed characters, so humane and so real; the reason why we enjoyed and love EDKV so much and are still pining over it like ex-lovers... ;D

So, anyway, I hope you all liked this chapter, please let me know your thoughts, feelings, criticism and reactions in the comment section... :)

Thank you for the support, for the kind words, for the motivation and encouragement, for waiting and for always looking out for me... :)

Thank you! <3

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