Dedicating this part to my dear sister @NILA2763 (Belated Happy Birthday dear)

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UNEDITED so kindly excuse the mistakes!

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"Hey, Trish... I am so happy you came" Madhu ran to her friend and hugged her.

"Even our boss Bittu and Sikky have come along with me" Trishna said and pointed her thumb behind her shoulder.

"Welcome, Sir. Thanks for coming"

"It's a pleasure dear." Bittu smiled.

"Madhuuuu" Sikky, her best friend cum colleague yelled running to her almost pushing his boss and Trishna aside in the process and pulled Madhu in his tight embrace. "I missed you so much"

"Sikky! You are crushing me!" Madhu whacked the back of his head with her hand and pulled herself away from him.

"You know what? I have good news to share" Sikky said excitedly.

"What?" Madhu asked smiling.

"Oh wait. Before that... Congrats for having twins and sorry I couldn't come and see you and yours kids before...when you were in the hospital... I was busy... dating" Sikky said unashamedly.

"Dating? Who?" Madhu frowned.

"Our Trishna" Sikky beamed and Trishna blushed.

"Omg!" Madhu darted her gaze from Sikky to Trishna and back.

"We are getting engaged soon" Trishna said.

"Wow! That's great. I am so happy for you guys." She hugged them both.

Then she turned to have a brief chat with her boss.

"So how is office going Sir?" She asked.

"Good but there is no one as daring as you to get spicy news for our press and channel" Bittu said with a sad smile. Madhu smiled.

"You are sure about your decision, Madhubala?" He asked hesitantly after Madhu served them with snacks and drinks as they three sat in the living room sofa.

"Yes, Sir"

"Don't you think you are spoiling your career?" Bittu asked. "Is there any pressure from your husband or your in-laws' side? Asking you to quit job to take care of your kids? If so I can talk to them and..."

"No, Sir, not at all. In fact my husband is not very pleased about my decision and my in-laws are always supportive. It's purely my decision. I want to be with my babies..."

"So you are gonna be a typical Indian house wife? Depending on your husband for everything?" Bittu mocked shaking his head displeased. He didn't like Madhu quitting. She was his company's priceless asset.

Madhu gritted her teeth getting so pissed hearing her boss' mean words.

"I will start working in another two or three years" she managed to say that politely.

"Oh nice, you are always welcome to rejoin in our office" Bittu offered her with a huge smile.

You wish!

Madhu forced a smile and said "Thank you, Sir" but she knew she would never rejoin 'Sakal' news channel.

"Well, Madhu, here is a small gift for your babies" Bittu took a small gift box from his coat pocket and handed it to Madhu. "I have a meeting to attend so I will get going. Text me your babies' names on Whatsapp" Bittu said and rushed out.

"First thing I am going to block this potbelly's number" Madhu growled looking at the way he walked out and disappeared.

"Who asked you to invite him to this function?" Trishna asked.

"When I went to hand over my resignation letter I invited him for courtesy sake. I didn't expect him to come." Madhu explained to her friend.

"Oh"

"I thought he was a nice man... and I had high respect on him... But he is so selfish. He cares only about his business and he wants to make big bucks by selling shitty news." Madhu grunted in anger. "He didn't even see my babies, Trish. How rude is that?" She threw the small gift box her boss gave her on the sofa, disinterested to even look at it.

"Leave it!"

"I am never going to join 'Sakal' again."

"Good for you. Because of him only you were forced to go and take underworld don Dutta's interview and almost lost your life."

"I know." Madhu sighed and slumped beside Trishna on the sofa.

"So where is your hot husband?" Trishna asked nudging Madhu to lighten the mood.

"I thought you came here to see my babies" Madhu faked a glare.

"Oops. Sorry. Where are your two cutie pies?" Trishna asked.

"They are upstairs, in their room, probably sleeping." Madhu said with a smile. Just thinking about her babies brought a bright smile on her face.

"Sikky, you can eat the Samosa and Jalebi's later. Now come let's go see Madhu's babies" Trishna said excitedly as she snatched Sikky's plate and placed it on the coffee table. Sikky yearningly looked at the hot Samosa and sweet Jalebi's before standing up to follow the ladies.

--0—

"Ah! Now you stopped crying..." Rishab let out a soft chuckle looking down at his daughter. "...So that was all crocodile tears hun?" he asked gently pulling her soft pinkish pouty lower lip. She looked at her daddy with tear stung eyes and whimpered softly to prove her point that she indeed cried and not faked it.

"Alright... alright... I believe you truly cried and that's why daddy brought you to the terrace for some fresh air and far away from the noises. Now, stop crying, sweetheart" he cooed, rocking her in his arms. Her crying fit ceases miraculously and she intently looked at her daddy with her beautiful doe eyes.

"That's better baby girl. Now smile." Rishab gently poked his daughter's cheek with his forefinger and she smiled. Her beautiful smile was reserved only for her daddy. She hadn't graced her smile to anyone else but him and Rishab took great pride in that.

"Hey!" Rishab tore his eyes from his daughter and looked up to see his friend Sameer sitting on the swing and waving his hand at him.

"What are you doing here, man?" Rishab asked as he walked towards the canopy swing and sat beside his friend.

"Just came here to attend a call" Sameer waved his phone in the air. "It was noisy down there..." he shrugged as a way of explanation and looked down at the baby in Rishab's arms "Hello little lady, how are you?" Sameer asked holding her soft little hand. "She is so beautiful, Rishab"

"Agreed and so is my son" Rishab added proudly.

"Aren't you the luckiest one in our friends' gang?" Sameer asked with fake jealousy.

"Why because I'm blessed with twins?" Rishab asked making a guess.

"Yeah and you are the only one having a baby girl."

"Oh right! But you still got chance unlike Mukkund who is already having three boys. I don't think Shreya will give into his obsession of having a girl baby and get pregnant again. If she does then I pity her. Handling four kids is... unimaginable" Rishab let out a dreaded sigh.

"Ha Ha! Right! Our little boy Sabeer is just ten months old but already he is giving us sleepless nights so Sameera and I have decided to settle with only one child." Sameer said laughing.

"Ah! I can understand. Even I wanted only one baby... but this little one is a surprise package. She came to make her daddy happy and fulfill his wish. Right baby?" he asked and gently touched her nose with his.

"So how is Madhu?" Sameer asked after a minute or two.

Realizing it was a professional question, Rishab didn't give Sameer a lame answer "She is fine". He knew he was asking about her phobias. "She is still having night terrors." Rishab muttered. "She woke up screaming and crying for nearly two months since Balraj and Bujang died. They haunted her even after their deaths." Rishab raged.

"If it was that serious then why you didn't bring her to me after the initial two sittings?"

"I insisted her to meet you but my stubborn wife didn't listen to me. We had a falling-out over that issue." Rishab shook his head thinking about the fight they had then. "She said she couldn't undergo the therapy sessions while being pregnant as she would go into hysteria and it would harm the baby but I clearly stated she would only endanger the baby's life if she failed to get proper help..."

"You were right. She should have listened to you"

"I know" Rishab rubbed the back of his neck still annoyed how his wife gave him a hard time then and how he finally gave in not wanting her to take more stress.

"Then what happened?"

"She promised me she won't take too much of stress or even think about their deaths. She assured me that she would protect our baby... and I blindly trusted her though I knew that was utter stupidity."

"It worked?" Sameer asked.

"I still find it strange but she made some serious efforts to forget the incident and eventually she succeeded too. She kept thinking only about the baby and many times I have noticed her talking to her tummy, narrating stories or singing to the baby... She kept herself busy doing baby shopping or visiting my mom's place most of the days... she really loved her company. She would wait for me every night to come home... and we would have a regular relaxing routine before bedtime..." it was his way of putting that they had sex before sleep. "... She made sure she was happy and she never let her mind drift to her past."

"Your wife is amazing, man." Sameer said in awe. Rishab gave him a smile as he played with his baby's soft and tiny feet.

"We, doctors, generally advise our patients to put stress in its place; improve their sleeping habits, look for a pattern, not to over think things and stuff like that but what most of the people will do is lock themselves in a room, stare the wall blankly and play the dreadful incident over and over in their mind and worsen their condition. They solely depend on drugs to get some sleep... but here Madhu is not resorting to drugs... she is finding better ways on her own to cope up with her phobias. As a Doctor I'm very much impressed..."

"Hmm..."

"What's it, Rishab?" Sameer asked seeing his friend's unconvinced look. "She is already making good progress then why do you worry so much?"

"She did that out of fear..." he blurted out "It's all about her fucking fear..." He stopped and bit his tongue for using cuss words in front of his daughter. He looked down at her daughter and softly mumbled his apology to her. She sleepily gazed at him before nestling her face against his chest.

"She feared that her irrational fears would kill her baby or babies now so she forced herself to act normal. She kept a check on her stress level so that there won't have any complication in her pregnancy. But now her fear is back..."

"I see." Sameer processed what his friend just told him and popped up a question. "She got sleeping terrors after giving birth to the twins?" it was a question but sounded more like a statement.

"Yeah, once..." Rishab nodded his head. "When she was in the hospital... When I asked her about it she said something incoherent and fell back to sleep. Next day she didn't remember anything but I am assuming it was nothing to do with her past... she just had a disturbed sleep and woke up crying because at that time our daughter was in critical condition and she didn't get to see her baby" It happened just two days after the birth of their babies and it was the only logical conclusion he could come up with.

"It's nothing to worry, Rishab..." Sameer tried to appease him.

"I don't think so, Sameer. Her fear has gotten intensified after having our babies. I can feel it. She is behaving... so over protective..."

"Man, that's mother's love for her children and you father won't understand it"

"No, Sameer, you are not getting me." Rishab sighed.

"I do know what mother's love is... I have seen and felt it in my mom's love and also in Madhu's... Mothers can be over protective... I agree...but Madhu's protectiveness and possessiveness for our babies is something different... something intense... It can be scary at times... There is this constant fear in her... she daily worries that something horrible is gonna happen to our babies or to me and she told me so." Rishab added when Sameer gave him a "How do you know about her worries?" look. "She truly has some kind of paranoia that she's going to lose us." He shook his head at her irrational fear.

"You know what? in a day she calls me more than ten times to make sure I am doing fine. And don't even ask me what she does with our babies... she always cling to them. Never let anyone take them out of her sight. If they do she nag behind them making sure the babies are safe. She even quit her job to dedicate her life to our kids. I feel it's all too much."

"Oh"

"Last week she forgot to burp our son after his feed and he cried inconsolably in discomfort till my mother finds the reason and helped him to burp but before that Madhu went hysterical and her mind started creating awful scenarios and she almost had me worried that something went wrong with our son... she often gets so worked up and I have to go and try to calm her down. I'm telling her it's not healthy to live in this constant fear but she can't seem to shake it off."

"Hmm... this seems to be something even more serious than her earlier issues."

"Exactly, Sameer! Before her worries were all about her life but now we three are involved in it. I get it she can't live without me and our babies but she should accept the fact that nothing is in our hand and worrying will get her nothing but only put her life at risk. Her worries are nerve-racking me." He said raking his left hand fingers through his hair. "I really need you to help my Madhu, Sameer. I want her to live a normal fearless life."

"We will have a session with her by this weekend, Rishab and we will proceed from there"

"Okay" he agreed looking down at his daughter. "Her irrational fears should not affect our babies' freedom. Now they are babies so they don't know but in future they will feel suffocated and tired of their mother's overbearing and overprotectiveness. I don't want that to happen." he said and standing up on his heels he walked towards the railing and overlooked the house's large back garden.

"Rishab!!!" Madhu's shrill voice made him turn and look at her direction.

He found Madhu at the door way with tear stricken face and behind her stood was his mother Radha with an angry face.

Did these two by some miracle behave like real and normal mother-in-law and daughter in-law and put a fight? He wondered.

Madhu came running to him and drew him two steps away from the railing by holding his arms. "How many times I have told you not to take our babies near the balcony or terrace areas? But you won't listen to me ever right? What if you drop my baby from this height?" She shouted as tears flooded her cheeks.

"Madhu, you are overreacting. She is safe with me..." he stated to reason her but she cuts him off.

"You didn't bother to tell me that you were taking our baby with you." She hurled her accusation at him. "I panicked when I couldn't find her in her crib and thought someone had kidnapped her"

Rishab turned to Sameer with a "you-see-this-is-what-I-have-been-talking-about-for-this-long, her-overreaction" look

Sameer nodded his head getting a clear picture of what Rishab was telling him. Madhu's behavior was indeed extreme and forcible than justified but definitely not strange to him. Her acrophobia (fear of heights) was forcing her to keep her babies away from high places.

When she was pregnant she feared of having a miscarriage just like her mother had twice. When her babies were born she feared someone would kidnap them or something horrible would happen to them just like it happened to her. Her irrational fears were all associated to her past traumatic incident. Hence proved she hadn't recovered from trauma yet.

"Who will dare to enter in our house and kidnap our baby, Madhu?" He asked her gently placing his free hand on her shoulder while he held his daughter securely to his chest with the other. She didn't reply but just tried to calm her racing heart.

"She was crying and our son was sleeping. I didn't want her to disturb him so I brought her here..."

"If she was crying you should have brought her to me, not to the terrace." She said looking down at her baby girl who was looking at her mommy with curious eyes. "Now give my baby to me" Madhu literally snatched the baby from his arms and that didn't go well with him.

When she turned around, Rishab stopped her by curling his fingers tightly around her forearm and made her turn back.

"They are my babies as much as yours so dare you snatch them away from me ever then you will see the worse of me." He said through gritted teeth in a low yet menacing tone making Madhu squirm in her place. She felt so scared and intimidated by him. She had never seen him so mad and ferocious ever before.

"Rishu..." Radha took a step forward to save her daughter in law from her son's wrath and put an end to their heated talk before it was blown up to an ugly fight.

"Stay where you are, mom" Rishab roared. Radha took a step back in shock.

Sameer placed a hand on his friend's shoulder and calmly whispered to let Madhu go as she was carrying the baby.

He shrugged his hand and jerked his wife forward.

"You are hurting me, Rishab" Madhu squeaked in pain clutching her baby closer to her chest, protectively. He eased his hold on her a bit but still didn't let her go.

"I am warning you now itself, Madhu, don't feed your fear to our babies. Let them, at least, have a normal carefree life if not you." He said, his tone a bit harsh yet stern.

Madhu subtly nodded her head as her eyes welled up with tears.

Then their baby girl started crying and her little fist banged against her daddy's hard chest shoving him away from her mommy.

Rishab looked down at his daughter and immediately his fiercely dark eyes softened.

Madhu bounced her baby in her arms to stop her cry.

"Sorry" Rishab let her hand go and Madhu scurried away from him carrying her crying baby back to her room.

... To be continued!!!

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Don't worry guys! I am not going to drag this story too long. I just have few things to show before I end this story. So thought I will give continuous number to the parts than post it as bonus updates... Lol! Hope you guys won't mind me extending the story just for few more parts.

Oh and one more important thing... There won't be sequel/ book2/ season 2 for HILY!!! Sorry to disappoint the readers who expected me to continue this story. I really don't want to spoil this book and I want to keep this couple special...by giving a decent ending!

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