Lost

Summary : maaf karna jaan, ab bohut dherr ho chuki...

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Her toes curl into the carpet of his room. It is only then Amrit is made aware of her bare feet.

There is a dull throb there, a half felt pain. She looks now and sees the cuts, the caked blood, just as Veer's eyes find them. His jaw tightens and his arms pull her closer again.

Amrit feels a sob building within her. She bites into her cheek and holds it down with pain. If she gave into that urge she would never manage to stop. These tears would drown her and Amrit is so heavy with resentment, guilt and pain that she knows she wouldn't stay afloat.

Veer has never clung to her like this before. He is the one who started the Chaar kadam rule. Even when he had wanted to cross that distance, he had done it smoothly, he had done it with a lot of finesse.

There is nothing fine about him now, nothing thoughtfully planned. His face is devoid of its usual composure, his entire being wound with raw despair. He holds her as if he cannot do without her, as if she is air that he would inhale next.

"Dardh ho raha hai?" He murmurs against her temple, nuzzling there.

"Nahi..."

Her hands bunch up on his collar, the chooriyaan make tinkling noises.

With a ragged breath Veer pulls away and lifts her again, carrying her into the washroom. Amrit allows him.

Tonight, she would allow him anything, just to keep him close, just to make certain she won't be left alone again, just to keep those ghosts at bay.

The world is still in bits and pieces, betrayals and disappointments. Amrit was still shivering. She watches Veer filling the tub rather detachedly, standing there on those throbbing feet. Amrit wraps her arms around herself and tries to stop that shivering by patting her own shoulders as Veer comes back to her.

He stands behind her, touches those hands on her shoulders cautiously, and presses his head on her hair sideways.

"I know you don't want to be touched by a man right now. Trust me I know. But I don't have a choice. I can't have any of the staff seeing you like this. People here have narrow minds and wide mouths. Forgive me. I can't call anyone to help."

His breath stirs against her hair and Amrit closes her eyes. He is unbuttoning her dress, with the gentlest possible hands.

"You can stop me at anytime and I swear I won't-" the dress slips over her shoulders and Amrit shudders. "I won't look."

She doesn't care anymore. For a fragment of a second her hand bunches up the slipping dress, but then she relaxes it and the dress pools at her feet.

Amrit has never been this exposed before, and yet she feels nothing. She keeps her eyes closed, as if not seeing it will make it go away, this new reality.

"Amrit." He doesn't touch her. But she knows he is standing in front of her. A single tear rolls down her cheek. "Humare taraf dekho."

She shakes her head, rather timidly and walks past him. Veer watches her and wonders if she knows that she had left red imprints of her feet on her discarded dress, prodding on it with her bloodied feet and robotically sinking into the warm water.

Amrit finds that there is a tempting call of void to drown herself, to slip away and tuck her head in. But Veer's hand on her shoulder stops her.

He doesn't say anything. Instead takes her hand and rubs on it until the blood and dirt is washed away. He pours more water on her arm and continues in silence.

The chooriyaan tinkle but neither of them talk about them, knowing in unspoken agreement that Amrit didn't want them removed.

All the stinging cuts, bruised flesh and throbbing limbs make themselves known at the simulation of that thoughtful touch.

Amrit swallows watching how his face is contorted, his eyes are averted. This man is hers, unconditionally- unexpectedly, unreservedly hers.

The sob wrenchs itself free and her frame wrecks with it. Veer looks up at her. He holds her eye.

"Cry," he says. "Because this is the last you will ever cry because of that man."

"Ma - af kar dijiye," she chokes on that. "Kuwar sahab, itni badi baat aap se chupani nahi thi. Bohut badi bawakoof thi main jo phass thi gayi, phass thi gayi -" she slammed her forehead with the heel of her hand.

"Aur pata hi nahi chala! Main sirf aap ki hi nahi, kydh ki nazron mein bhi ghir chuki hoon. Maaf kar dijiye, maaf kardijiye Kuwar sahab..."

Veer holds that hand and stops it, entwining his fingers with hers.

"Veer." He tells her. Amrit watches him for a moment.

Veer cups one side of her face and his thumb strokes her cheek in gentle archs.

"You are one of the two people who could call me that, without any restraint. And the only, I myself have given that right to."

He raises her hand entwined with his off the water, those chooriyaan dripping with glistening water drops, and kisses each knuckle, her wrist and then each of those bangles.

"Hum tumhare hai. Kab se patha nahi. Kab thaq? Jab thaq hum hai, thab thaq. Hum kudh ki nazron mein ghirjaayenge, par tum, tumhe kabhi ghirne nahi denge. Maafi Matt maango, bharosa tha, tumhe bhi aur humein bhi. Na tum bewafa thi, na hum. Yeh Hona tha. Hogaya. Tumhari galathi nahi hai..."

Tears come then, hot, fast and merciless. Amrit doesn't even try to stop them. Her body shudders with their impact, with their pain but she doesn't stop them.

Let it ruin her. She thinks savagely. This misplaced affection, this broken heart, this betrayed trust and this foolish woman - let them all be ruined.

But Veer is there, taking over when she gives up, urging her out of that water, drying her, helping her pull on what she vaguely realize is one of his own night shirts.

She doesn't ask him why, she isn't curious about anything anymore.

"Amrit, this won't do." He says in the end and she comes back to with a jerk. Amrit cannot remember how she ended up there, but she is sitting on his bed instead of her own and Veer is looking down at her with concern.

He reaches and brushes a hand on her head.  "Hum tumhe iss halat mein kaise chhod kar jaayenge?"

Amrit grips that hand, tightly.

"Kahaan jaayenge?" Her voice is high, troubled. "Kahi nahi jaayenge aap. Nahi - main jaane nahi dungi! Main - main -"

Veer sits beside her and pulls her into his arms, trying to sooth her nerves, trying to quiet her protests.

"Matt jaaiye," she mutters in a defeated plea. "Mujhe akeli nahi reheni. I - I see him everywhere. I'll go mad, Veer matt jaiye."

She pulls away and looks at him with tormented eyes, eyes that swim with ghosts of long gone nightmares.

"That man hasn't just branded my arm, he has branded my soul. Now each betrayal, each blow just digs him out from where he is buried. He is an empty eyed ghost, mocking me - reaching out to me, I'm afraid the moment he gets to me I will be lost to myself.

"You know it was Randheer who saved me from him. And now, now he himself has changed so much that ...Farook," she takes that name as if it is a curse. "Must be laughing at me."

She doesn't look at him. Veer wonders if those words are meant for him or meant for her own self.

She speaks with bitter resentment.

"Yeh woh insaan hai hi nahi jisse maine pyaar ki. Jiss ko bachane ka jonoon tha mujhe - yeh woh hai hi nahi. To think that I did so much for him, and he did this to me, he brought back everything he saved me from, it burns me. It hurts like he had set me aflame. Main jhal jaaungi iss Aag mein Veer..."

She sounds so broken, so unlike herself that he gathers her against him. Kisses the top of her head.

"Mujhe har uss yaad ko jalani hai. Har woh hisse ko katham karni hai joh kabhi uss aadmi se mohabbat ki. Kitni bewakoof thi main. Mujhe kud ko jhalani hai. Mujhe bachalijiye. Mujhe rokh lijiye. Mujhe apna bana lijiye."

She looks at him with pleading eyes.

"Iss Kisse ko aaj katham kar dijiye. Iss Amrit Sahani ko Katham kar dijiye."

She cups his jaw in her cold fingers and rises herself on her knees, bringing their mouths closer so that she whispers the last few words against his lips.

"Aap ko meri Haan chahiye tha na? Meri do kadam chalne ki intezaar tha? Aagayi main. Yahi hoon aap ke bahon mein. Aur kehe rahi hoon aap se.
"Haan."

She kisses him with that.

Without a preamble. Clumsily, but intentfully, with as much fire as she says is burning her from within, that for a beat Veer is frozen numb.

He takes over her clumsy desperation very soon, his large hands cupping her face and angling her head so that he could deepen the kiss. Amrit gasps at the shifting tide, the control of what she had started slipping from her fingers. Her fists clench, one at Veer's collar and the other in his hair.

His tongue swipes at her lower lip, tugging it into his own mouth, she gasps at the sensation allowing him further in. Veer groans, drinking her in, fingers waving into her hair and then drawing back, in lines of fire over her scalp, along her cheeks.

What she begins as a violent outburst of emotions, he turns into a sensual exploration, the velvety warmth of his tongue caressing her mouth in ways that makes her moan. Slowly, he brings them down into lazy caresses before pulling away, breathing deeply.

Her face remains held between those large palms, and his eyes, so dark, so enthralling stare right into hers.

"Jaan," he says, a whisper of a word between their lips. "This is not what you need."

The tenderness in his tone makes her eyes brim. He has never called her that before. No one has ever called her that before.

The endearment spills from his lips with such ease, such belonging that her heart aches and breaks. Her fists bunch up his collar, holds him from pulling further away.

"Why?" She mouths the words soundlessly.

He caresses her face.

"When you take a right decision for wrong reasons, it becomes a wrong decision Biwi sahab. Hum appki ek rat ka jaam nahi har raat ka subha banna chahathe hai."

Still she doesn't allow him to pull away, instead her fingers climb up his throat, along those codes of muscles that flex beneath her touch.

He swallows, and his Adam's apple move, Amrit's eyes flicker back into his,  filling with tears of rejection.

"Please tell me what I have done wrong?" Her voice is hushed, pained and broken. "Why do you not want me anymore?"

Unable to resist her, the thrall of her, Veer nuzzles against the side of her face. She burrowes into that touch, and shudders delicately when he exhaled against her ear.

"Hum aap ko kitna chahate hai, kaise chahate hai aap ko andaza bhi nahi hai. I want you so much, that if you regret a single moment of this night come morning, I won't be able to bear it. Humein iss tarah barbaad matt kijiye jaan, humein kissi aur ko bhulane ka wajah matt banaiye."

Amrit closes her eyes and tears drain away. Her grip on him loosens and he pulls away and stands up. The breath she drags in shudders in her body. She tumbles back into the pillows, aimlessly, dark hair strewn across the deep red that dominated his bed.

"Jaan bulaonge, aur chod ke jaaonge?"

Veer pauses, turns to look at her. Either she was completely illiterate when it came to reading people or his entire being is taut with desire, or fury, or both.

"Jaan ki intekaam hi toh lene jaa rahain hain."

The shock that registers on her face he regards with bitterness.

"I told you before, I am not a patient man. I have never been a forgiving one. He will rue the day we met."

"Veer..."

"And you will probably hate me for this."

She chases after him, and catches him at the door, before he manages to leave. Veer brushes her off but she holds on. When she fails to come between him and the door, she presses herself to his back instead, one of her palms going around him to clap over his heart.

"Don't go."

Gently, Veer detaches the hand over his heart, takes it in his own and turns to face her. The grip he holds her hand in is desperate.

"Agar hum usse chhod denge toh kudh se nazar nahi mila paayenge. Samajhne ki koshish kijiye. Aatmasammaan hai aap humari. Uss ne aap ke saath -" he gulps forcefully.

"I will kill him and he deserves to die. But you don't deserve to be touched with blood stained hands. Even if you stop me tonight, I will still do the same thing tomorrow.

"Then you will hate yourself for everything that will happen tonight, you will hate yourself for what kind of a man you gave yourself up to. Watching you do that will ruin me. Tum humse nafrat Karo yeh hum sehe lenge. Tum kudse nafrat karo yeh humse bardaash nahi honga."

"Don't do it then," she says softly.

Like a moth to a flame she draws closer yet. He was still the monster at the centre of the maze, but he was hers now, claws and teeth and poison, all hers.

"Matt jaiye, na aaj ki raat, na kal subha, na uss ke baad. "

There is but a breath between them, and her arms circle his neck, she draws herself further in.

"Mujhse nazar mila lijiye, meri nazron mein kudh se nazar mila lijiye. Matt jaiye Veer, aap ko meri kasam."

He says nothing. His exhale is the loudest thing in the room. For a moment he looks so lost, so broken that her heart breaks for him. This man had waited her to walk two steps for so long, that Amrit weeps for all the time she had lost in finding her way to him. There is anguish in his eyes and she knows his reply before he utters it.

"Maaf karna jaan, ab bohut dherr ho chuki."

He steps back and steps away and then he is gone. She cannot even find words to call him back. Amrit collapses on her knees, shivering, sobbing, coming apart at the seams of her wounded heart.

It was over.

The tears come then, hot, resentful and plenty.

Amrit Pratap Singh does not weep for her misplaced affections, or the betrayal she had suffered at the hands of her first love, instead she cries for all the missed chances, lost time and a man who might never return to her the way he left.

She weeps for Veer Pratap Singh, and those Chaar kadam she couldn't cross to save him in time.

**
Oh don't you worry Amrit, you still have time enough to reach out and hold him.
We will meet again, very soon!
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