Anjali had just walked out of the telecast room when her extremely nervous-looking assistant all but jumped on her.

"Diya everything alright, " Anjali asked Diya stabilizing the clumsy girl, pondering what made the girl so nervous. Was she alright? Her family? But Anjali didn't have to question her as Diya herself provided an answer to Anjali's all queries.

"Mam, Lavanya called, " hearing those words spoken in an extremely timid voice. Anjali felt her heart rate increasing. Lavanya called. She never calls unless...

"What did she say?" Anjali didn't care her pitch was high or her death grip on Diya's arms. She didn't care about anything but the answer of her question. The panic coiling around her heart. The breath stuck in her throat. The terror in her soul.

"Your brother is taken to hospital, "

And the world stopped spinning for Anjali. She doesn't remember staggering or falling down but she was on the cold hard floor nonetheless. There were surprised yelps of her name all around, hands hauling her up yet she didn't care about them. She didn't care about the sting of fall or the shame of losing her balance in her workplace, all she cared about her brother.

"Take me to the hospital, " she demanded

"Take me to my brother, " she whimpered

Nodding Diya guided her out of the building that seemed to be falling on her. She was too numb to react, to lost to drive. Her Nav was in the hospital. What happened to her baby brother? What happened to her Nav?

Did? No, don't think like that. Don't you dare, think like that Anjali Raizada. She chastised herself. Don't let go hope. Don't. Just Don't.

Nav will be fine. Her little brother will be fine. He had too or she won't be. She'll shatter. She has nothing in her life besides her Nav.

He was her reason to live. Her reason to breathe. Her reason to be strong.

"If you, really want a Raizada's life take mine, spare him, " She had been praying to Mahadev, asking him just this since the last six years.

She would have given Nav her own heart in a second if it just matched with his. But it hadn't, even there blood groups are different and she hated it.

She hated that her little brother was dying and she could do nothing to stop it. All her life, she had lived just for her brother. All her life she had only one aim. An aim to protect him and in that too she failed. Failed spectacularly.

The car halted in front of the hospital. Sanjeevani written in large bright red letters on top of the large white building. It reminded her of the red-cross logo and death in general.

How strange is it that people die and born in the same place?

How to some this place gives joy of a new member? The beaming teary smile of newborn parents gazing softly at the life they created.

And the same place echoed with the wails of a loved one lost. The tears of losing a part of themselves.

How can a single place synonym with life and death?

Anjali didn't know but if she had anything to do with it all. She won't be one of those people sobbing for the dead in these corridors. 

Her Nav will live.

He had too.

Or

Her soul might just die with him.

She was six when Nav was presented to her for the first time. She was just six but she had spent six-years more than the crying newborn in this cruel world. She had spent six years more than him witnessing her parents fight ruthlessly. She has spent six years more than him crying over absent parents. She has spent six more years than him being perfect. The perfect elder child. The perfect sweet child making her parents proud in their little gatherings. The perfect parrot speaking what is taught to her. The perfect child but never enough.

She was never enough.

And the six-year-old her had promised to never let her little brother feel the emotions of being not good enough.

She had promised to protect him always.

She had shielded him from their parent's ruthless fights and words. She had shielded him from the world. She had shielded him from their crumbling marriage and pretentious nature. She had fed him with her own hands. She had even bathed him when he was a messy baby dripping of chocolates and other gooey substances. She had brought him presents. She knew his favorites. She read to him. She stayed with him on his first day of the nursery when he refused to stay in the new building alone. She played with him. She hid puppies and kitten with him. She held him when their parents finally separated. She thought about his innocent heart and how this was damaging it.

She didn't want anything damaging her little brother ever. She was the one whose feet he touched before going to give board exams. The one he let his heart out too. She is the one who did extra part-time jobs to collect enough funds for the watch he always wanted. The happiness in his eyes was worth everything.

She was more his mother than their mother.

Everything she did revolve around him oneway or another.

And she didn't know how to not to orbit around him? She didn't know how to stop thinking about him first? She didn't know how to not worry about him? She didn't know how to put him first? She didn't know how to, she just doesn't?

All her life had been about Nav. She had to be responsible. She had also lingered in front of the shops, desiring things. She wanted to buy things for herself. She wanted to be like her batchmates free. Partying, enjoying, roaming but she couldn't.

She had promised herself and she didn't want to break it for anything. Not even for herself.

She had counted pennies. Rejected offers. Rejected the world for her brother. She had done a promise to herself and she needed to keep it. She wasn't going to be like her parents. She won't be breaking promises like them. She won't.

Yet Mahadev seemed hell-bent on making sure she failed this promise. She failed the only thing she invested her whole life on but she won't give up so easily.

She won't.

She can't.

She just can't.

Panicked, Worried, Numb. She spotted Abhyankara Oberoi. Her half brother pacing the length of the clean, antiseptic smelling hospital floors. Worry clearly etched on his face.

"Abhay!" She called him softly, trying her best to not break right then and there. She had to be strong. Even if she isn't feeling so she can pretend too. She had done that all her life.

The bloodshot eyes of her half-brother just strengthened her resolve. He looked stricken. Broken. It seems the bad Karma of their parents had left none of them unscathed.

"Di, " Abhay all but whimpered and she enveloped him in her warm embrace. The guy seemed terrified and she couldn't let her own worries crash on him.

Thankfully for both of them. A disheveled looking Lavanya came upon them. She walked towards them before any of them could really start sobbing. Even though Lavanya was feeling really tired but the questions bombarded on her by the half-siblings ignited a small smile on her lips.

"He is stable, dii. We...We got the heart. It'll reach here in a few hours. He will be fine. He'll. I won't let him slip again, " Lavanya's words were like the first drops of rain on land going through years If drought.

Anjali trusted Lav if she said she won't let Nav slip then it equaled a vow.

There was hope.

Mahadev hadn't given up on them.

Her brother will survive.

Nothing can go wrong now.

Nothing.

A surgeon stood a few feet away from the weeping family. The sight of a disheveled resident embracing and consoling a pair of broken siblings with silent tears scaling down the resident's cheeks was a strangely moving sight.

And only one Dr.Lavanya Das Gupta has presented him with such strangely moving sights not once but one too many times.

Dr. Siddhant Mathur had known the Raizada family for the last six years. He had been treating Arnav Raizada for the last six years. And yet, he was totally unaware of Lavanya Das Gupta's connection with the affluent siblings.

The girl is an enigma to him. An enigma he couldn't quite solve. She is a puzzle piece not fitting any puzzle.

A dutiful dedicated intern never complaining about her tasks or workloads neither cringing at the most disgusting tasks. She did it all with a strangely emphatic yet distant mask.

In the last six that he had known her as the doctor whom she assisted sometimes during her three-year general surgery residence to the doctor under whom she was assigned during her cardiothoracic (CT) surgery specialization. He had seen many shades of this eccentric girl.

He had seen her do a U-turn every time her parents were mentioned in a conversation. He had seen her always running away from them during medical conferences yet the same girl spent hours in the nursing home, listening to the woes of the elderly left there.

She wasn't one of the people who abandoned people yet she seemed to run for life noticing her parents.

He had seen her drowning herself in drinks whenever peers and fellow doctors asked them to join them in some club for relaxation. There's a limit of communing with blood, gore, and the ever-present medicinal and antibacterial smell. And he was never quite good at rejecting emotional juniors asking him something.

During his first outing in the clubs of this new city. He had seen a totally new version of Dr. Das Gupta. The girl drowning herself in drinks when comrades emotionally blackmailed her to clubs. He had accompanied those young residents for the same reason. And till now, he can't seem to get the oddly fascinating image of her out of his mind.

She was there on the dance floor sparkling like the silver sequins sparkling on her black short dress. Her open hair whirling with the beats and her moves. Her body clinging mid-thigh length dress displaying her worth dying slender and long legs yet the most fascinating yet bewildering aspect of her, was her face.

The girl setting the stage on fire with her moves but on a closer look, anyone could notice the tears scaling her cheeks, complimenting the smile on her lips. It was an odd sight. She seemed free yet bound. Floating yet drowning. Happy yet miserable.

And he didn't know why?

He still recalls being the designated driver that day for he hadn't drunk even little that day and her repeated threats of not calling her parents or family.

"Call Nav, he'll know what to do?" She had informed him amidst fits of giggle.

"He always does. He is the best. He is my real family, you know, " Ahe had informed him very conspiracy that day. Making it sound like it was her most guarded secret. Her reality.

Nav had been her emergency number.

He was surprised to see his patient turn out to be her Nav.

He had been more surprised when a few weeks later she stormed in his cabin and demanded to assist him in the Raizada case. He was unable to reject her. He was unable to see anything but the storm of emotions in her eyes.

Lavanya Das Gupta is still an enigma to him.

An enigma who ditched the opening of her parent's new hospital to sit beside Arnav Raizada's hospital bed. An Enigma who ditched her parents all-time rich hospital for this semi govt. Hospital.

She seemed mad. She seemed untouchable. She was the total opposite of his Ishaani.

No, not his Ishaani. He reminded himself. She is married and happy in her new life. She had moved on though she still Loathed his guts and held him the culprit. She isn't his Ishaani anymore. She is his companion but not his. She is that chapter of his life, the chapter he can't revisit nor can he forget.

And yet she is still his companion. She still is the girl he can't forget. He keeps on recalling her joy when she was drunk celebrating her B'day for the first time in ages. She was happy and free and he loved her smile.

He loved her curious eyes and childlike behavior. She was unaware of the world and how to behave. And yet, he loved her. Gave her chances and took her under his wings when the others got frustrated with her. He couldn't blame them no one likes being challenged yet he loved her.

Don't, don't think about her. Don't go down that lane. He chastised his mind. She is not his. She didn't trust him. She hates him. She will never his and yet, watching Lavanya he remembers her.

And Lavanya isn't even like Ishaani. She is strangely emphatic. She treats people as people, not machines. She is responsible yet understanding. They are so different.

Lavanya is nothing like her.

Yet, his mind continues conjuring comparisons between the two girls. He doesn't even know why his mind compares them? He is just unable to stop thinking about her. These days a certain Dr. Dasgupta plagues his mind. He doesn't know why? But he knows he can't go down that lane ever. Love isn't made for people like him. Never for him. So, getting himself together he walked towards her.

"Dr. Das Gupta, " He called her. He won't call her by her name ever. He is her mentor that's all he can be to her.

"Yes, Dr. Sid, " she answered walking away from them. Her eyes held red tinge no doubt from the silent tears. She seemed tired but the fighting spirit in her eyes was flaming.

He wanted to know the depth of her miseries yet it wasn't his department. He can't be that personal to her. And he wanted to plead her to not call him Dr. Sid for it reminded him of another.

But he didn't.

He wouldn't.

He won't let her know the effect she had on him. So, he just softly informed her;

"It's time, "

~to be continued ~

So, yeah It's going to be kind of mixture of Sanjeevani and Arshi. And please, forget the show history of both the characters. They have different pasts. Different reasons. Different arcs.