Replacement

Summary : Nafrat hai humein uss ehesas se ke hum kafi nahi.

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Veer shuts the door gently, supporting Amrit back to her bed. She still holds him, her grip is so tight that her fingers have left their imprint on his arm.

"Can't we go home?" She asks, taking in the room once again with those frightened eyes. "Mujhe ghar jaana hai."

"The doctor should allow you to go," Veer tells her, fluffing up her pillows before she leans back on them. He lifts her feet up and keeps them on the bed as well. His fingers brush against those anklets and they chime.

Veer's jaw tightens.

He has been a downright beast to her. Perhaps the consequences of his actions have only now started to make their presence known.

"Aap kya kar rahe ho?" She almost pulls back her feet, but Veer holds her still by the ankle.

"I'm going to remove this," he says and looks up to meet her eye. "There is a pin that opens the lock, I had Papa Sahab bringing it for me."

Amrit leans back on her pillows and sighs. So they were elaborate cuffs after all, complete with a lock and a key. She is so exhausted that even the humiliation doesn't sting anymore.

The anklet slithers across her feet, cold and heavy and she hears one last Chun before Veer keeps it aside. She doesn't look at it, she can't bear to. One of her arms are in a sling. The other she clenches into a fist. 

Veer takes the hand she had fisted and unfurls it to place a tiny gold pin on her palm before closing her hand around it.

"The key," he says. "Keep it."

Her eyes flicker to him and holds, surprised, searching - though she wasn't certain what for. Veer reaches and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Aap ko apne nazron ke zaamne rakkhenge madam, iss ke Chun Chun ki koi zaroorat nahi hongi. Only you will have the key to your life now." 

Her fist tightens around the key. Veer's eyes flicker to it and back to her face.

"Throw it," he says with a click of his tongue.

"Huh?"

He picks up the anklet and gives it to her.

"Phek do, achcha lagenga. Tumhe bhi, humein bhi." 

Amrit clutches it in a resentful grip and throws it away, the pearls scatter all over the floor. Veer takes her hand, making her look at him. A dry sob breaks in the back of her throat. Her eyes prick with tears.

"Buss," he says, patting the back of her palm. "Buss."

The tears come then, hot, unchecked - Amrit feels them trickling down her face. Veer brushes a hand on her hair, his face tight. She had never seen him look like that, as if the centre of his world had suddenly shifted and left no ground beneath his feet.

"Sorry," he says thickly, that barely ever used word rough around its edges. "Tumhe kudh ke itne qureeb lana galat tha. Tum iss duniya ke liye nahi bani ho Amrit. Tum humare liye nahi bani ho."

He swallows, his hand on her hair tightens. Veer brings their heads closer and rests his forehead against hers, gently so as not to hurt the bandaged injury. His hand moves and caresses the back of her neck.

"Par ab tum sehn mein dhoop ki tarah uttari ho, toh hum kya karenge? Hum tumhe jaane nahi de sakthe, humein maaf kardo. Humein maaf kardo."

Amrit's hand reaches for him, fingers combing through his hair as if they had a mind of their own. Her eyes are closed, pressed with tears. In her mind she replays those events. Those men, that attack, they were not meant for her.

They were meant for him.

Had fate wanted any different, she thinks with a ragged inhale, Rani Ma would have ended up murdering her own son, knowingly or unknowingly. Amrit would have been widowed the same day she become a bride.

What would she have done then? What would she have done without him?

"I'm not going anywhere," she renews her promise, in a broken whisper. "But can you promise the same Kuwar Sahab? Woh aap ko marr dethi -" she chokes. "Main kya karthi?"

Veer pulls back and cups her face, that searching, lost look back in his eyes. "Boliye, main kya karthi?"

He says nothing for a moment and then slowly, his hands fall away.

"Tum aazad ho jaati," he says. "This twisted fate would have come to an end. Woh bhi kush ho jaati. Tum bhi aur shaayad- shaayad hum bhi."

Veer gets up, it is Amrit who holds him back by his sleeve.

"Why do you always say that?" She asks. "Why would you marry me if this is what you want - agar saath Nibhana hi nahi toh humsafar kyun banaya mujhe?"

Veer turns to look at her, his eyes lit with amusement. But the light is only a flicker worth, it leaves as quickly as it comes.

"I gave you my name, Amrit Veer Pratap Singh - my name will protect you even if I'm not there."
Amrit swallows, trying to suppress the warmth that tingles and pools within her. She looks away, breaking her gaze from those strangely dark eyes.

"You need to comb your hair you know?" Veer says abruptly. Amrit's eyes dart back to him. "It looks like a bird's nest."

Amrit makes a sound from the back of her throat. Only Veer could go from death to hair problems under a minute. She touches her head self consciously, and her finger tips brush against the bandage.

"Turn around," Veer tells her, placing a gentle hand on her injured shoulder. She had not seen him pick up a comb from the side table, but he waves it in her face now. "Go on."

"Main kar lungi-" Amrit protests half heartedly but turns around nevertheless. Veer bites back a smile.

"Haan haan. Kar Longi tum, ek haat se," he says sarcastically, undoing her braid with deft hands.

Gently his fingers comb through her hair, parting it into two portions before he puts the comb into it. Amrit allows him to work in silence, marvelling at how profecient he is at what he does.

Veer works out the tangles, starting from the end and moving upwards, with such methodical precision that she barely feels the tug of hair roots on her scalp and the bandage remains undisturbed.

"Where did you learn to do that -" she wonders aloud.

"Shh," Veer silences her. "Don't distract me from my counting. We are almost there."

"Counting?"

"Haan. Customary hundred brush strokes - hogayi." He pats her hair and gathers them to braid. "I've done this before. Bohut saal pehele. Jab Ma Sahab had long hair like you."

He braids her hair and when she turns her head and look, there is a distant look in his eyes.

"She had fallen ill, a fever that went on for days. We thought it was malaria, it wasn't. She didn't turn away from me then. Unko sukoon mila aise baal banane main. Humein bhi. Hum bohut darre hue the ke unhe kuch ho na jaaye. Hum unhe bhi kho na de." He sighed and his fingers clenched on her hair.

"She promised me I won't lose her. Ke woh humesha saat rahengi. Then she called me Prem."

He finished braiding and let her thick braid fall over her uninjured shoulder. Amrit's eyes flickered into his and she felt her breath hitching again at the look in his eyes.

She wonders why he looked at her like that, as if she had somehow committed the same hurt on him.

She hadn't- had she? Had she called him Randheer when she was unconscious?

"Hum mein kissi aur ko dundhne ki koshish matt karna kabhi. Nafrat hai humein uss ehesaas se, ke hum kafi nahi."

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